Dr. Edgar Goodaire

Dr. Edgar Goodaire of Memorial’s Department of Mathematics and Statistics, will receive the Distinguished Service Award for 2004 from the Canadian Mathematical Society. The award will be presented at the CMS 2004 Winter Meeting Banquet on Dec. 12 at Hilton Bonaventure Hotel, Montréal.

The CMS Distinguished Service Award was created in 1995 to recognize individuals who have made sustained and significant contributions to the Canadian mathematical community and, in particular, to the Canadian Mathematical Society. The award recognizes lifelong work to the development of mathematics in the country and commitment and service to the Canadian mathematical community, to the Canadian Mathematical Society and to the Atlantic mathematical community.

Dr. Goodaire has a long history of service to the CMS and has occupied many strategic positions, including chair of the publications committee, treasurer, and vice-president for the Atlantic region.

Apart from his service to the CMS, Dr. Goodaire has worked all his life for mathematics in Atlantic Canada. Currently, he is involved in the Atlantic Association for Research in the Mathematical Sciences (AARMS) and, in particular, the organization of the AARMS summer schools. He has done a lot of work with APICS (Atlantic Provinces Council on the Sciences) and has been chair of the APICS Mathematics and Statistics Committee since 2001.

Dr. Goodaire came to Memorial University in 1973 after completing a PhD at the University of British Columbia and an undergraduate degree at the University of Toronto. He was promoted to full professor in 1989. He has served on every major committee in the Department of Mathematics and the Faculty of Science and was head of the department from 1991-1994.

Dr. Goodaire is a leading world expert on certain non-associative algebraic structures known as loops, in particular Bol and Moufang loops. He founded the field of alternative loop rings. He has published over 60 research articles and four books, including a recent undergraduate textbook in Linear Algebra. His popular text Discrete Mathematics with Graph Theory with Michael M. Parmenter is scheduled for a third edition. His research has been funded continuously by NRC/NSERC throughout his career.