2002-2003 Winner

Dr. Margaret Armour
University of Alberta
Winner of the Gordin Kaplan Award Lecture

The Canadian Federation of Biological Societies (CFBS) is very pleased to announce that Dr. Margaret-Ann Armour, University of Alberta,is the 2003 recipient of the Gordin Kaplan Award. The Award is in recognition of her contributions in public awareness of science with school children and the general public. Dr. M. Armour presented the Gordin Kaplan Award Lecture at the CFBS 46th Annual Meeting, on Friday, June 13, 2003. The title of the lecture was"This is science; I can do it!".

Dr. Peter Anderson, CFBS Past President presented Dr. Armour with the Gordin Kaplan award after the lecture. Dr. Armour gave a very interesting lecture supported with experiments.

Margaret-Ann Armour was born in Scotland and educated at Edinburgh University where she obtained B.Sc and M.Sc degrees. She worked as a research chemist in the paper-making industry for five years before coming to Canada to complete a Ph.D. in physical organic chemistry at the University of Alberta where she has been assistant chair of the Department of Chemistry since 1989.

The results of her research on the handling and disposal of small quantities of hazardous chemical wastes are described in "Hazardous Laboratory Chemicals Disposal Guide" published by CRC Press (third edition, 2003). The third edition includes the results of work on antineoplastic agents and pesticides. Dr. Armour has presented talks on the work to many groups of small quantity generators of hazardous waste both, in North America and in Asia.

Dr. Armour is the Vice-chair and Convenor of WISEST, a committee founded by J. Gordin Kaplan when he was Vice-President of Research at the University of Alberta, with a mandate to increase the proportion of women in decision-making roles in the sciences and engineering. She is also well known for sharing her love of science with school children and with the general public. She has received a number of awards for these last two activities including the 1992 Distinguished Service Citation from the Science Council of the Alberta Teachers' Association, the 1994 McNeil medal of the Royal Society of Canada for outstanding contributions to the public awareness of science, the 1999 University of Alberta Board of Governors' Award of Distinction, the 2001 Sarah Shorten award of the Canadian Association of University Teachers and the 2002 Governor General's Award in Commemoration of the Persons' Case. She has accepted two awards on behalf of WISEST; the 1994 Michael Smith Award from Industry Canada for the promotion of science and the 1996 Excellence in Science and Technology Public Awareness Prize from the Alberta Science and Technology Leadership Foundation.