2009 Convocation Awards – Governor-General’s Gold Medals
The Committee is pleased to announce that Ms Tarah Brookfield, Graduate Program in History, and Mr. Cory Valente, Graduate Program in Chemistry, have been selected as the 2009 recipients of the Governor-General’s Gold Medals. The Gold Medal is awarded to two students who have demonstrated the highest distinction in scholarship in graduate studies at the University.
The Director of the Graduate Program in History describes Ms Brookfield’s dissertation as outstanding; it analyses the role of women in peace movements as a means of defining feminism and motherhood during the Cold War era. She is a highly productive scholar who already has several publications, including an essay based on her MA research in the prestigious Canadian Historical Review. Ms Brookfield is noted not only as a clever and curious researcher, an elegant writer and an original thinker, but also as an outstanding teacher. She has recently accepted a tenure-track appointment at Wilfrid Laurier Brantford in Children’s Studies/History in the Contemporary Studies Department.
Mr. Valente is described as an exceptional scholar, whose lab efforts have led to eight publications. Two of these were the most downloaded papers published in Chemistry – A European Journal, in 2006. He took on four different projects during his degree, single-handedly completing a complex natural product synthesis, an uncommon feat for a student. Mr. Valente’s thesis committee unanimously agreed that the quality of his written dissertation and oral presentation were outstanding. He is currently a Postdoctoral Scholar in Mechanostereochemistry at Northwestern University.