The Award for Excellence in Research was presented to co-recipients Dr. Polo Diaz of the Department of Sociology and Social Studies, Faculty of Arts, and Dr. Stephen Kirkland, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Faculty of Science, on June 4, 2008.
Dr. Diaz’s research in the fields of sustainable development, resource security, agriculture, the environment, and climate change and its impacts consistently demonstrates a deep concern for the welfare of people and their communities, especially those most vulnerable to the changing environmental and social conditions of today’s globalized world. He plays a leading role in over 20 research projects, including a collaborative project between the U of R and the Universidad de La Serena in Chile concerning water conservation and management, which has yielded positive outcomes for people in that region.
Remarkably, he has done all of this while contributing actively to the life of the university through demanding administrative roles such as the executive directorship of the Canadian Plains Research Centre and Head of the Department of Sociology and Social Studies. Polo is unquestionably one of U of R’s truly distinguished researchers of national and international reputation, as well as a generous institutional citizen.
Dr. Kirkland’s primary area of research is in matrix theory and linear algebra, with special emphasis on the theory and applications of nonnegative matrices, spectral graph theory, and combinatorial matrix theory. He serves as editor in chief for the journal Linear and Multilinear Algebra, sits on the editorial boards for two other mathematical journals, and is currently the president of the International Linear Algebra Society. In addition to his mathematical pursuits, Stephen has also dabbled in visual and performance art, most notably as part of the art/science collective Petri's Quadrille.
Stephen completed his PHD in mathematics at the University of Toronto in 1989. After holding postdoctoral fellowships at Queen's University, and the University of Minnesota, he joined the University of Regina's Department of Mathematics and Statistics in 1992. He became a full professor in 2000, and served as Department Head from 2005 to 2007.
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