Awards & Accolades: May 2022

Congratulations to Pilar Lecumberri-Sanchez, assistant professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, on receiving the Mineralogical Association of Canada (MAC) Young Scientist Award! This award recognizes an early-career scientist who has made a significant international research contribution in a promising start to a scientific career.

Lecumberri-Sanchez received her BSc in geology at Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain, and her PhD at Virginia Tech. She completed a three year Marie Curie postdoctoral fellowship at ETH, Zurich and worked as a researcher for one year at University of Arizona. Pilar’s expertise is in mineral deposits and fluid geochemistry. Her current research focuses on the tungsten-gold occurrences in the Tungsten belt of the Yukon and Northwest Territories,, orogenic gold mineralization in the Yellowknife Gold Belt and epithermal mineralization in the Toodoggone district in British Columbia.

Congratulations to Martha White, associate professor in the Department of Computing Science, on receiving the 2022 Faculty of Science Research Award!

White’s research is focused on developing AI-based techniques for adaptive autonomous agents learning on streams of data, focused on reinforcement learning and representation learning. Her research is opening new doors to the development of algorithms capable of processing and learning from large amounts of data.

Last month, White was also featured as a keynote speaker at the inaugural AI Week, presented by the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute. This week-long event celebrated the exciting innovation happening in the field of artificial intelligence in Edmonton and at the U of A, where White shared how reinforcement learning is poised to enable new developments in this space — and what it means for Alberta to be a leader in this field.

Congratulations to student athlete and Faculty of Science undergraduate Mackenzie Cook (Pandas Basketball) on being awarded the Block A Ring for her superior demonstration of exceptional contribution to university sport in the areas of athletics, academics, community support, and leadership! The recognition celebrates Mackenzie’s leadership roles on her team, as well as outstanding contributions to the University Athletics Board and multiple-time recognition as an Academic All-Canadian.

Congratulations to Bozheng Sun (‘22 PhD), graduate of the Department of Chemistry, on receiving a Faculty of Science 2022 Doctoral Dissertation Award. Sun received the award for his research the synthesis and kinetic stabilization of cumulenes.

Congratulations to Xiaowen Liu (‘22 PhD), graduate of the Department of Physics, on receiving a Faculty of Science 2022 Doctoral Dissertation Award. Liu received the award for research on the controlling factors of subduction dynamics and continental deformation between flat slabs and overriding plates.