Six U of M Researchers Win Rh Awards

Faculty and staff have a proven track record of excelling in their chosen disciplines and fields. Year after year University of Manitoba educators, researchers, and support staff are recognized and awarded for their outstanding achievements nationally and internationally.

Six University of Manitoba researchers were among the recipients of the 1999 Rh Awards for exceptional innovation, leadership and promise in health sciences (clinical), health sciences (basic), humanities, interdisciplinary studies, natural sciences and social sciences. This award was established by the Winnipeg Rh Foundation from funds set aside from the sale and production of medical formulae and offers each winner $3,500 to further their research.

The recipients were: Charles Bernstein, internal medicine, a researcher active in the area of gastroenterology, with a particular focus on inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and related disorders. In 1994, Bernstein established the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Clinical and Research Group, dedicated to understanding diseases such as Crohn’s. The group has attracted the attention of gastroenterologists in Canada and throughout the world.

Sabine Mai, physiology, and member of the Manitoba Institute of Cell Biology, studies genomic instability and neoplasia which is the abnormal growth of tissue. Mai’s work in part led to the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) award to establish a regional/national functional genomics centre to develop new diagnostic tools for early cancer detection and to identify genes that could be targets for highly specific anti-cancer treatments.

Bradley Bucknell, English, is a researcher with interests in the area of musical-literary relations. His inter-disciplinary methodology and knowledge reach not only across generic and cultural modes of twentieth-century literature, but also across musical forms and into aspects of the visual arts. His new book, Literary Modernism and Musical Aesthetics: Pater, Pound, Joyce, and Stein, brings new depth and scope to a number of fields.

Todd Mondor, psychology, specializes in perception and attention. He is studying the operation of auditory selective attention which humans use to pay attention to one sound while at the same time ignoring others. A secondary research project examines the neural mechanisms responsible for controlling the selection of auditory information.

Hélène Perreault, chemistry, is an expert in modern methods of mass spectrometry. Her main area of interest is in the characterization of biological molecules using chromatography, capillary electrophoresis and mass spectrometry to understand the role and function of molecular structure. Using samples of blood and tissue extracts, Perreault's research team tests the samples to determine the amounts and kinds of molecules present.

Jazlin Ebenezer, curriculum, teaching and learning, is a science educator whose research has changed the way people teach science. Over the past eight years, she has been developing better ways of teaching the intricacies of chemistry to young students. Her research into alternative assessment, concept mapping, and conceptual change teaching has led to learning tools and resource guides for science teachers.