October 2016 Ringers

In late September, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada announced their top three finalists in each of four major categories for the 2016 Impact Awards. UVic was the only school with two finalists—law PhD candidate Aaron Mills and historian Dr. John Lutz. Mills is shortlisted in SSHRC’s talent category, which recognizes champions who bring forward ideas that help us understand and improve the world around us. Mills’ teaching and research work in the area of Indigenous law has made him a highly sought-after academic. He is currently a Trudeau Foundation scholar and turned down a prestigious scholarship at Harvard Law to complete his masters at Yale on a Fulbright Scholarship. Lutz is shortlisted in SSHRC’s connection category for the UVic-led Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History (canadianmysteries.ca), a national teaching project used in over 50 countries and by nearly 2,500 students every day. The web-based project of 13 historical mysteries is a team effort involving researchers, students and community partners from across Canada; in its most recent phase, partners included Parks Canada, Library and Archives of Canada and the Government of Nunavut. The top SSHRC Impact Award winners in each category—along with the SSHRC Gold Medal—will be announced in Ottawa on Nov. 22.

Vice-President Research Dr. David Castle has joined the board of CANARIE, which funds and delivers digital infrastructure to Canada’s research sector, connecting provincial and territorial network partners to each other and to more than 100 global counterparts. Castle, who has published extensively on the social dimensions of science, technology and innovation, is also chair of the steering committee of Research Data Canada, a stakeholder-driven organization dedicated to improving the management of research data in Canada. One of the outgoing members of the CANARIE board is Dr. Howard Brunt, a faculty member in nursing and UVic’s former vice-president research.