Six McGill scholars to be inducted as RSC Fellows

McGill University is proud to announce that six of its researchers have been elected as Fellows to the RSC: The Academies of Arts, Humanties and Sciences of Canada in recognition of their outstanding scholarly, scientific and artistic achievements. They are among the 72 new Fellows and two Specially Elected Fellows to be elected to Canada’s oldest and most prestigious scholarly society.

The six newly elected McGill fellows are:

Pengfei Guan, Dept. of Mathematics and Statistics
Prof. Pengfei Guan is recognized as the leading researcher of his generation in the study of fully non-linear elliptic partial differential equations, a deep and central area of mathematics, which has important applications in geometry and mathematical physics. His achievements include the solution of several long-standing open problems in geometric analysis and the regularity problem for degenerate Monge-Ampère equations.

Wagdi G. Habashi, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering
Prof. Wagdi Habashi is widely known in his field for the formulation, modeling and application of finite element methods to Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). He has developed efficient applied mathematics solutions to a wide range of complex aerospace problems for aircraft, rotorcraft and jet engines. In the in-flight icing area, his unique formulation has resulted in a code used worldwide throughout the aerospace industry.

Nicholas Kasirer, Faculty of Law
Nicholas Kasirer, Dean of McGill’s Faculty of Law, is an exceptional academic who has left his mark on comparative law, jurilinguistics, and the fundamental theory of private law. Dean Kasirer is a leader among researchers in his discipline. His writings touch on the two great western legal traditions. His recent works on the epistemology of bijuridicalism and juridical bilingualism are recognized for offering a new conception of legal knowledge.

Victoria Kaspi, Dept. of Physics
Prof. Vicky Kaspi is a world-renowned expert in observations of neutron stars. Her pioneering work made major impact in using pulsars for studying General Relativity in the strong-field regime as well as in understanding the underlying physical principals. Prof. Kaspi's work in radio pulsar searching has led to the discovery of relativistic binary pulsars, extremely young pulsars and the fastest pulsar yet known.

Alfonso Mucci, Dept. of Earth and Planetary Sciences
Prof. Alfonso Mucci is an internationally recognized geochemist who has made numerous contributions in the fields of geochemistry and biochemistry. He has revolutionized the application of spectroscopy in understanding crystal growth mechanisms, developed models for predicting metal behaviour in ocean waters and sediments, and identified the causes of the bottom water hypoxia which likely helped deplete the Eastern Canada fish stocks.

Peter Sabor, Dept. of English
Prof. Peter Sabor's groundbreaking work on major authors such as Samuel Richardson, Frances Burney and Jane Austen has earned him the Canada Research Chair in Eighteenth-Century Studies at McGill University. As a scholar of impressive breadth, and outstanding editor of work previously inaccessible, he has opened up his field to new generations.

This year’s new Fellows will be inducted at a ceremony to be held on Nov. 15 in Ottawa.

On the Web: www.rsc.ca