One of Canada’s finest professors has a brilliant following

Even though UVic’s distinguished former chancellor Dr. Ian McTaggart-Cowan quipped modestly, “Don’t choose someone like me,” for the new $1-million professorship in his name, that’s just who the search committee fortunately found in Dr. Brian Starzomski.

Since the Dr. Ian McTaggart-Cowan Professorship was announced in 2005, UVic has been scouting for a leading environmental scholar to uphold the legacy of one of Canada’s foremost wildlife biologists.

At 99 years of age, McTaggart-Cowan has left an indelible impression on our country, devoting his life to studying, teaching and conserving the natural resources of British Columbia. A doctor many times over with degrees in science, law and environmental studies, he taught for 35 years at the University of British Columbia and was head of their Department of Zoology.

A charismatic educator, he was a pioneer in television broadcasting, producing more than 100 wildlife documentaries and hosting his own popular science programs called “Fur and Feathers,” “The Living Sea” and “Web of Life.” He paved the way for ecologists such as David Suzuki and his long-running program “The Nature of Things.”

This summer, relaxing in his own garden in Victoria, McTaggart-Cowan shared a confident smile with newly appointed professor Brian Starzomski. No one can duplicate what McTaggart-Cowan has achieved, but Starzomski has all the credentials of a champion in the educational and environmental fields.

A postdoctoral fellow at Dalhousie University with a PhD in zoology from the University of British Columbia, Starzomski has hit the UVic School of Environmental Studies running with his three-pronged lab research in community ecology, restoration ecology and conservation biology and his focus on the determinants of local diversity in light of climate change.

“Brian is an excellent and broad-reaching scientist and a great fit for the school and the professorship,” says Dr. Eric Higgs, director of the school. This fall and winter, Starzomski is teaching Ecological Restoration (ES 341) and Climate Change and Biodiversity (ES 490).

This professorship is funded by the Ministry of Environment, Habitat Conservation Trust and BC Hydro. The school has also received a new $25,000 endowed scholarship in the names of Dr. Ian and Joyce McTaggart-Cowan funded by the BC Conservation Foundation and the Nature Trust of BC.

As Starzomski settles into his new role at UVic, he acknowledges with admiration, “Ian McTaggart-Cowan is a wonderful researcher, teacher, mentor and conservationist and it’s my hope to follow in his footsteps.”