Backgrounder: Ecologist and philosopher are UVic's new Canada research chairs
The federal government’s Canada Research Chairs program will create
2,000 positions by 2005 in an effort to attract and retain top university
researchers at Canadian universities. The primary objective is to enable
Canadian universities, together with their affiliated research institutes
and hospitals, to become world-class research centres in the global, knowledge-based
economy. This investment in innovation will help create an enriched university
environment, a stronger economy, and a better quality of life for Canadians.
As Canada Research Chair in Experimental and Applied Community Ecology, Dr. Brad Anholt will continue with lab and field studies to understand how biodiversity is maintained in ecological communities.
Biodiversity refers to the variety of all life on Earth and the complex relationships among living things, and between living things and their environment.
Anholt’s research uses model systems to test current theory of the maintenance of biodiversity. He studies predator-prey interactions in a protozoan; temperature-dependent sex determination in marine animals known as copepods; and the ecology of biological invasions, including the mechanisms of the local bullfrog invasion and its consequences for native amphibians.
Anholt joined UVic in 1996 from a position at the University of Zurich after completing Killam and NSERC postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Michigan and Queen’s University. His research has led to 42 papers, international recognition, and a UVic Faculty of Science Excellence in Research Award.
Earlier this year, Anholt was offered the first University Professorship in Population Ecology at the University of Vienna, but declined the post in favour of continuing his research program in Canada as holder of a Canada Research Chair.
Dr. Taneli Kukkonen, Canada Research Chair in the Aristotelian Tradition, is an internationally recognized specialist in medieval Arabic philosophy and its interpretation and transmission of Aristotelian thought.
Over the past 23 centuries, the ideas of Aristotle and their continual reinterpretation have helped frame and inform thought in Greek, Jewish, Islamic, and Christian civilizations. The Aristotelian tradition pervades Western thought and still plays a vibrant role in the modern world in, for example, recent discussions of the foundation of morality.
Kukkonen will trace the development of Aristotelian physics, metaphysics, and logic from the third through the 16th centuries, clarifying the essential unity of the Aristotelian tradition, demonstrating its influence on the three major monotheistic religions, and exploring the integral role Arabic philosophy has played in the Western reception of Aristotle.
He is editor of a series of scholarly volumes on Islamic philosophical cosmology, psychology, and logic, and is a participant in a major research program on logic East and West, 500-1500, at Cambridge University. He has held appointments as a visiting scholar at the University of Toronto and New York University.
For further information on the Canada Research Chair program visit their Web site www.chairs.gc.ca.
As Canada Research Chair in Experimental and Applied Community Ecology, Dr. Brad Anholt will continue with lab and field studies to understand how biodiversity is maintained in ecological communities.
Biodiversity refers to the variety of all life on Earth and the complex relationships among living things, and between living things and their environment.
Anholt’s research uses model systems to test current theory of the maintenance of biodiversity. He studies predator-prey interactions in a protozoan; temperature-dependent sex determination in marine animals known as copepods; and the ecology of biological invasions, including the mechanisms of the local bullfrog invasion and its consequences for native amphibians.
Anholt joined UVic in 1996 from a position at the University of Zurich after completing Killam and NSERC postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Michigan and Queen’s University. His research has led to 42 papers, international recognition, and a UVic Faculty of Science Excellence in Research Award.
Earlier this year, Anholt was offered the first University Professorship in Population Ecology at the University of Vienna, but declined the post in favour of continuing his research program in Canada as holder of a Canada Research Chair.
Dr. Taneli Kukkonen, Canada Research Chair in the Aristotelian Tradition, is an internationally recognized specialist in medieval Arabic philosophy and its interpretation and transmission of Aristotelian thought.
Over the past 23 centuries, the ideas of Aristotle and their continual reinterpretation have helped frame and inform thought in Greek, Jewish, Islamic, and Christian civilizations. The Aristotelian tradition pervades Western thought and still plays a vibrant role in the modern world in, for example, recent discussions of the foundation of morality.
Kukkonen will trace the development of Aristotelian physics, metaphysics, and logic from the third through the 16th centuries, clarifying the essential unity of the Aristotelian tradition, demonstrating its influence on the three major monotheistic religions, and exploring the integral role Arabic philosophy has played in the Western reception of Aristotle.
He is editor of a series of scholarly volumes on Islamic philosophical cosmology, psychology, and logic, and is a participant in a major research program on logic East and West, 500-1500, at Cambridge University. He has held appointments as a visiting scholar at the University of Toronto and New York University.
For further information on the Canada Research Chair program visit their Web site www.chairs.gc.ca.
Media contacts
or Liscomb (UVic communications) at (250) 721-7640
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