Laflamme officially received his fellowship at a special reception held on the morning of February 18 during the AAAS Annual Meeting in Vancouver. Election as an AAAS Fellow is an honour bestowed upon members of the AAAS by their peers in the scientific community.
"I am grateful to be named a Fellow of the AAAS – to join the ranks of so many great scientists over more than a century," Laflamme said after receiving his certificate and rosette (which is gold and blue, signifying science and engineering). He also said he shared the honour with all of his collaborators, colleagues, and students at Perimeter, IQC, and around the world.
Guest speaker Suzanne Fortier, President of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada (NSERC), implored all new AAAS Fellows to "commit to being true champions of the advancement of science."
"We need great science," Fortier said, "and we must do all we can to protect the integrity of science."
Laflamme was recognized "for his important contributions to the field of quantum information processing, and for his leadership in founding the Institute for Quantum Computing."
He was also recently named a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS).
