The Royal Society of Canada (RSC), the Canadian Academy of the Sciences and Humanities, has elected two University of Toronto at Scarborough (UTSC) professors to its ranks in the Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences and the Academy of Science. In total, 17 University of Toronto professors were among the 60 newly elected Fellows for 2005.
John M. Kennedy, elected to the Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences, is a professor in UTSC's department of Life Sciences. He is a leader in perception and cognition research, whose work on pictures in vision and touch influences basic theory and new practices for the blind in education, museums, and art galleries internationally.
His groundbreaking work is on outline, perspective, and metaphoric pictures by the sighted and the blind. He has tested drawing development in sighted and blind children and has written extensively on the idea that drawing development occurs in a similar fashion in both groups. His work concerns cave art, perspective, and metaphors for motion. He has been singled out as the originator of ideas that change the way we think.
Alberto O. Mendelzon (1951-2005), elected to the Mathematical and Physical Sciences Division of the Academy of Science, was a professor in UTSC's department of Computer Science for 25 years until he passed away June 16, 2005, after a two-year battle with cancer. Mendelzon was an international leader in database theory and was considered the preeminent Canadian researcher in data management.
His pioneering work on database dependencies has been influential in both the theory and practice of data management. His work has inspired numerous applications in database design, query processing, and data integration. He made fundamental contributions in the areas of graphical and visual query languages, knowledge-base systems, and online analytic processing. His work provided the foundation for languages used to search web and XML data.
In keeping with the Royal Society's motto, "different paths, one vision", the newly elected Fellows are recognized for their dedication to achieving excellence in their endeavours, and enhancing Canada's competitiveness on a global scale. Election to the Royal Society of Canada is the highest honour that can be attained by scholars, artists and scientists in Canada.
"The Society is now proud to celebrate the intellectual achievements of the new Fellows," said Gilles Paquet, President of the Society.
"We wish to recognize the extraordinary accomplishments of persons of talent, expertise and creativity in all fields, from experimental and applied science to health and medical sciences, and from socials sciences and humanities to the various artistic domains.Canadians have directly benefited from the outstanding achievements of these individuals. The new Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada are among those who, today, build the world we will live in tomorrow."
This year's new Fellows will be inducted to the Society in a ceremony on Sunday, November 27, 2005.