November News in Review
November seems to have been a bit of a quiet month, news wise, so we’ll start this look back in October!
Missed in October’s news roundup was mention of Anoma Chandrasekara and Zhuliang Tan both of whom were conferred with their PhDs, and Mahzad Sharifahmadian, who was conferred with her M.Sc. at the Fall session of convocation. Congratulations to all three!
Our graduate students celebrated Hallowe’en with a first ever Hallowe’en Photo Scavenger Hunt. Participation was low but enthusiastic and the event was capped off with a cookies and coffee slide-show to review the results.
The dominant news for ‘old-time’ members of the department this month was the passing of Dr. Sailen Mookejea on the 18th of November. There’s a separate news item about that.
Our undergraduate and graduate students participated in fundraising activities during November. The Biochemistry Society held a Christmas bake sale in aid of two families sponsored by Iris Kirby House. Three of our graduate students got into the Mo-vember spirit by growing moustaches to raise awareness for prostate cancer. They raised over $300 for their team and for the cause. Canadian university, college, and high school students and teachers raised ~$750,000 this year. Well done, guys!
Lastly, while there remains little of our record-breaking (most snow – 30 cm - to fall on one day in November in recorded history!), the holidays are fast approaching and you may wish to note that the department will close early on the 23rd December and will re-open on Wednesday January 03, 2012.