MARIE-JOSÉE HÉBERT

JULIE CARRIER

ANDRÉ GAUDREAULT

SANTIAGO HIDALGO

Killam Prize Laureates, Prestigious Guests

The Canada Council for the Arts awards five prestigious Killam Prizes annually. Worth $100,00 each, the prizes are given to eminent Canadian researchers and scientists who actively contribute to research in industry, government organizations and universities. They recognize the contributions of exceptional women and men in the disciplines of humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, health sciences and engineering.

The prizes, which are among the most distinguished in Canada, celebrate the achievements of researchers who boldly and tenaciously push the boundaries of our understanding of the world today.

The Killam Prizes are part of the greater Killam Trusts, which are used to fund scholarships and research at four Canadian universities, one neurological institute and the Canada Council for the Arts. The Killam Trusts are valued at $500 million, $70 million of which is allocated to the Canada Council for the Arts.

Vladimir Hachinski, CM, MD (University of Toronto), DSc, FRCPC, FRSC, is Professor of Neurology and Epidemiology and Distinguished University Professor at Western University, Canada. He has transformed the understanding, diagnosis, treatment and prevention of the two greatest threats to the brain: stroke and dementia. He introduced a clinical diagnostic tool, the Hachinski Ischemic Score for identifying the treatable components of dementia. He founded, with John W. Norris, the world’s first successful acute stroke unit, now the standard of care. He was Editor-in- Chief of Stroke, the leading publication in the field. He has published 18 books and over 800 frequently-cited scientific articles. He was the President of the World Federation of Neurology. In 2017 he received the Prince Mahidol Award in Public Health and in 2018 was inducted in the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame.

Vladimir Hachinski

Vladimir Hachinski, CM MD FRCPC DSc FRSC, Distinguished University Professor, Dept of Clinical Neurological Sciences, London Health Sciences Centre

Distinguished lecture
Thursday, December 5^th, 11 a.m.

“Brains, arts and sciences: We got rhythm!”

Is rhythm a common underlying principle? Brain rhythms and dysrhythms.

André Gaudreault is a professor in the Department of Art history and cinematographic studies at the Université de Montréal and Canada Research Chair in Film and Media Studies. He is the founder of the Laboratoire CinéMédias, where he heads the Partenariat international de recherche sur les techniques et technologies du cinéma (TECHNÈS), the Programme de recherche sur l’archéologie et la généalogie du montage/ editing (PRAGM/e) and the Groupe de recherche sur l’avènement et la formation des identités médiatiques (GRAFIM). A seasoned film studies specialist and pioneer of film narratology, his current research focusses on the advent of montage, the phenomenon of broadcasting operas in movie theatres, technological innovations viewed from an “archaeological” standpoint and the impact of digital on the media world.

Thanks to his work, which has been the subject of numerous books, articles and communications, he has been appointed to the Royal Society of Canada (2014) and named a Chevalier of the Ordres des Arts et des Lettres de la République française (2016). He has also received many prizes and awards, including the Prix international Jean-Mitry (2010), a Guggenheim Fellowship (2013), the Prix Léon-Gérin (2017), the Killam Prize in Humanities (2018) and an honorary doctorate from the Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3 (2019).

André Gaudreault

André Gaudreault, Professor, Department
of Art history and cinematographic studies, Université de Montréal and Canada Research Chair in Film and Media Studies

Distinguished lecture
Thursday, december 5^th, 11:45 a.m.

“Film and paradoxical sleep: an intersectoral paradox?”

If we consider that rhythm is a sine qua non of “cinematic language”, it comes as no surprise that this notion gave rise to film theory in the 1920s when many films showed “rapid-fire images” that triggered “rapid eye movement” in the spectator. Can we conclude that there is more than just a simple analogy between the moviegoer and the dreamer in paradoxical (or REM) sleep?

Dr. Herzog did his undergraduate training in Physical Education at the Federal Technical Institute in Zurich, Switzerland (1979), completed his doctoral research in Biomechanics at the University of Iowa (USA) in 1985, and completed postdoctoral fellowships in Neuroscience and Biomechanics in Calgary, Canada in 1987. Currently, Dr. Herzog is a Professor of Biomechanics with appointments in Kinesiology, Medicine, Engineering, and Veterinary Medicine, holds the Canada Research Chair for Cellular and Molecular Biomechanics, and is appointed the Killam Memorial Chair for Inter-Disciplinary Research at the University of Calgary. His research interests are in musculoskeletal biomechanics with emphasis on mechanisms of muscle contraction focusing on the role of the structural protein titin, and the biomechanics
of joints focusing on mechanisms of onset and progression of osteoarthritis. Dr. Herzog is the recipient of the Borelli Award from the American Society of Biomechanics, the Career Award from the Canadian Society for Biomechanics, the Dyson Award from the International Society of Biomechanics in Sports, the Muybridge Award from the International Society of Biomechanics, and recently received the Killam Prize in Engineering from the Canada Council for the Arts for his contributions to Biomedical research. He is the past president of the International, American and Canadian Societies for Biomechanics. He was inducted into the Royal Society of Canada in 2013.

Walter Herzog

Dr. Walter Herzog, Professor, Faculty of Kinesiology and Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, University of Calgary and Canada Research Chair for Cellular and Molecular Biomechanics.

Distinguished lecture
Thursday, December 5^th, 2 p.m.

“Molecular and Whole Body Rhythms in Human Movement”

The human body and its movement present several types of rhythms, including arrhythmia, the heartbeat, and motor neuron innervation. In this talk I will be exploring the integration of molecular and whole body rhythms in human movement, especially in relation to sports.

On a lifelong quest to discover fundamental truths about our universe

Field of Study: Natural Sciences

“The most important insight I have gleaned about the process of researching into the fundamental nature of matter is best described by Einstein’s famous quote: “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”

James Pinfold, is an internationally renowned particle physicist who, in 1997, became the youngest ever leader of an international collider experiment. As a graduate student at University College London in 1972, Pinfold was a leader in CERN’s discovery of the neutral current, the first hard evidence for Electroweak Unification. In 1992, he became a founding member of the ATLAS Experiment at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) that in 2012 announced the discovery of the Higgs boson. He is currently a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Alberta and leads the LHC’s newest experiment, MoEDAL, focusing his efforts on searching for new physics at the high-energy frontier and, on the cosmic frontier, searching for remnants from the birth of the universe.

James Pinfold

James Pinfold, PhD, Distinguished University Professor at the University of Alberta

Distinguished lecture (pre-recorded)
Friday 6^th, 10 a.m.

“Unheard Melodies”

I will maintain that the idea of rhythm and melody in their broadest sense has played a central key role in our basic understanding of the Universe, throughout history . The melodies of the Universe are usually unheard by human ears, but can be recognized, interpreted and expressed within, for example, the realm of the physical sciences. This music of the universe, although often unrecognized, is a fundamental principle that will only be silenced when the Universe ends.

But, all forefront and fundamental creative endeavours are sensitive to these unheard melodies, to a greater or lesser extent and sometimes unknowingly. That is why, for example, artists, musicians, writers and scientists working at the forefront of the fundamental have, like sleepwalkers sharing the same dream, broadly followed a common history of ideas.

Janet F. Werker, FRSC, received her PhD in Developmental Psychology from UBC in 1982, assumed her first academic appointment immediately thereafter at Dalhousie University, and returned to UBC in 1986, where she is a University Killam Professor and Canada Research Chair in the Department of Psychology. In a rich and innovative program of inquiry stretching over 35 years, her research has shown that the foundations of language acquisition begin in early infancy – long before the first word is spoken or even understood – and that the acquisition of two or more languages simultaneously from birth is as natural as the acquisition of a single language. The impact of this work has been recognized with numerous awards over the years. Recent highlights include being elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2014, being awarded the SSHRC Gold Medal Impact Award in 2015, being appointed a University Killam Professor at UBC in 2016, and being honored as an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2017. In 2018, she was awarded the Canada Council Killam Prize for Research in the Social Sciences, in recognition of her lifetime of research and scholarship, and this year, 2019, she was awarded the William James Award for lifetime research contributions from the American Psychological Society.

Janet Werker

Dr. Janet F Werker, O.C., FRSC, University Killam Professor, University of British Columbia and Canada Research Chair in Developmental Psychology

Distinguished lecture
Friday, December 6^th, 10:45 a.m.

“Thoughts on how rhythm might help babies break into language”

In this talk, I will consider some of what we know about the role of rhythm in language, and how infants might use that to take their first steps in language learning. I will then situate this work within broader notions of rhythm in other aspects of our daily lives.