Celebrating Our Own
April 5th, 2022
Frank Simpson
Frank Simpson, P.Eng., P.Geo., has been awarded the Decoration of Honour for Merit to Polish Geology.
He is a professor emeritus at the University of Windsor’s School of the Environment
The award is from Poland’s Minister of Climate and the Environment.
Dr. Simpson has been an editor of the Polish Geological Society’s journal Annales Societatis Geologorum Poloniae since 2012. He, along with 10 other editors of this journal, received the honour in 2021 on the occasion of the society’s 100th anniversary.
Simpson has written research papers about the geology of part of the Polish Western Carpathian Mountains. He has translated from Polish to English numerous papers by geologists from universities and government organizations in different parts of Poland.
Simpson appreciates that he received this award alongside other individuals whose work he knows and admires.
The award came in response to a recommendation from the president of the Polish Geological Society. The minister signed the document of proof that goes with the decoration just two days before Simpson began his retirement. A presentation ceremony will be held in May.
Dr. Kathryn McWilliams
University of Saskatchewan
University of Saskatchewan (USask) researcher Dr. Kathryn McWilliams, P.Eng., has been awarded an honorary fellowship from the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) of the United Kingdom.
McWilliams is the first Canadian to receive the honour. The RAS acknowledged in its announcement that McWilliams as “an unquestioned international expert in the dynamics of field-aligned currents that link the solar wind, magnetosphere and ionosphere.”
She was also the first tenured female faculty member in the Department of Physics and Engineering Physics.
McWilliams has dedicated most of her career to the SuperDARN project. SuperDARN Canada is the Canadian arm of an international project that uses radar to study Earth’s upper atmosphere. In 2019, she was elected chair of the SuperDARN Executive Council, the group responsible for leading the scientific collaboration among 10 countries. She first became involved with SuperDARN Canada as a summer student in 1992, when she helped build the first radar site east of Saskatoon.
The RAS awards honorary fellowships to scientists living outside the U.K. who are eminent in the fields of astronomy or geophysics. McWilliams said she feels “humbled and honoured” to receive the award.