2nd annual Celebration of Excellence honours Faculty members

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Posted February 3, 2010

By Kyle Glennie

Dr. V. Wee Yong at the 2010 Celebration of Excellence: photo by Bruce PerraultThe Faculty of Medicine paid tribute to dozens of its members today at the 2nd annual Celebration of Excellence in the HRIC atrium.  The lunchtime event, which honours all Faculty award recipients for 2009, also featured special awards given to four Faculty members for the impact their research has had on colleagues in their field of study.  48 members in all were honoured in 2009, a number which includes both internal and external awards. 

“We have a very impactful Faculty and to all of the winners I say ‘well done’,” gushed Dr. V. Wee Yong, chair of the Faculty of Medicine’s awards and recognition committee, who work to ensure Faculty members receive the recognition they deserve. 

Two special awards were also given to four researchers whose work has been exceptionally innovative.  The newly created 10,000 Citation Club–which honours those whose entire body of work over their career has accumulated more than 10,000 citations–added its first three members: Paul Kubes, PhD, Dr. Morley Hollenberg and David Proud, PhD.

“Less than 0.1% of researchers would accumulate 10,000 citations over the course of their career so this is an exceptional achievement,” says Wong.

The other award, the Citation Classic, is similarly extraordinary.  Created for Faculty members who have had a single manuscript cited over 1000 times, only one person has achieved such a milestone–Samuel Weiss, PhD.  His paper outlining his discovery of neural stem cells in the adult brain has actually been cited close to 2000 times since 1992.

Almost all of the award winners were on hand at the Celebration of Excellence, along with other Faculty, staff and students.  The event also raised money for a student-run medical clinic at the Calgary Drop-In Centre, which is currently being run as a pilot project.