At our November Alumni Reunion, we announced the winners to our two alumni awards. Congratulations to Dr. Alison Ewart, who is awarded the Alumni Award of Distinction, and Dr. Julian West, who has been awarded the Young Alumnus Award!
Alumni Award of Distinction | Dr. Alison Ewart, PhD '07
This award recognizes an alumnus whose accomplishments are of such excellence that they provide inspiration and leadership to students and other alumni. The recipient has shown significant leadership either in their professional career and/or community service.
Alison Ewart was appointed as the Dean for the Centre of Research and Innovation at Fanshawe College in London, Ontario in 2021. In this role she oversees the applied research activities for the college, focusing on building partnerships with companies and organizations to support their research agendas and contribute to the economic development of the region, while simultaneously building research capacity within the college. Prior to coming to Fanshawe, Alison spent 13 years working at Mitacs, where she held numerous roles before becoming Vice-President, Programs. As Vice-President, she led a large team in the design, development, and implementation of Mitacs’ suite of programs including two innovative postdoctoral fellowship programs, the Mitacs Elevate Program (2010) and the Mitacs Canadian Science Policy Fellowship (2016). Alison was a member of the Mitacs senior leadership team that grew the organization from 30 people to over 300 people during her tenure, resulting in access for thousands of graduate students and postdocs to research internships and fellowships with companies and non-profit organizations across Canada.
Alison is passionate about the power of community and serves on the boards of a number of community organizations in southwestern Ontario, including the board of directors for the YMCA of Southwestern Ontario, and the Western Sarnia Lambton Research Park. She is a long-term board member for Habitat for Humanity, Sarnia/Lambton and was recently elected as the vice-chair of the board. Alison holds a BSc (Honours) degree from Queen’s University and a PhD degree from the University of British Columbia, both in the field of Chemistry.
Young Alumnus Award | Dr. Julian West, BSc '13
This award recognizes a young alumnus (aged 35 or under) whose accomplishments are of such excellence that they provide inspiration and leadership to students and other young alumni. The recipient has shown significant leadership either in their professional career and/or community service.
Julian G. West is a Canadian-American chemist who firmly believes the greatest advances in science are made through supporting and empowering a diverse team of scholars. Julian received his B.Sc. (Honours) in chemistry from UBC Vancouver with Dr. Glenn Sammis, his Ph.D. as an NSF Graduate Research Fellow at Princeton with Dr. Erik Sorensen, and was an NIH and Resnick Postdoctoral Fellow at Caltech with Drs. Harry Gray and Brian Stoltz. Julian joined Rice University in July 2019 as an assistant professor of chemistry, where his group has been captivated by the possibilities of free radicals in catalysis with projects coming from exciting student ideas. Julian recognizes the importance of work-life balance and his group pursues a wide range of interests outside of lab. Personally, he likes to play music, run, and sometimes write magazine articles. Julian and his group have been recognized by awards including the NIH Maximizing Investigator’s Research Award, the ACS PRF Doctoral New Investigator Award, a CPRIT Scholar in Cancer Research Award and being named on the 2021 Forbes 30 Under 30 – Science list. He is particularly proud of receiving the 2021 Rice Graduate Student Association Faculty Teaching and Mentoring Award.