Five Queen's University professors have been elected as fellows to the Royal Society of Canada (RSC), one of the highest honours for Canadian academics in the arts, humanities, and social and natural sciences. The five newest fellows from Queen's have a wide variety of research interests, including health, chemistry, computing and music composition.

"The five newly elected fellows have all made important contributions to their respective fields and are a testament to Queen's commitment to excellence in research," says Principal Daniel Woolf. "I wish to congratulate, on behalf of the Queen's community, these researchers on this tremendous and well-deserved honour."

The five new RSC members include:

Elizabeth Eisenhauer (Oncology), a leader in the investigation of cancer drug delivery and cancer clinical trials. Dr. Eisenhauer’s work has led to new standards of cancer treatment and new understandings of how the molecular mechanisms of cancer can be altered by therapeutic invention. From 2006-2009, Dr. Eisenhauer served as president of the National Cancer Institute of Canada, and in 2013, she was elected a fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.

"It is an honour, of course, to be elected to the Royal Society of Canada," says Dr. Eisenhauer, "especially for work that I love."

Marjan Mozetich (Music), an award-winning composer who has uniquely blended elements of modern and classical music to develop a fusion style both innovative and accessible to all types of audiences. He has written more than 65 works of vocal and instrumental combinations for theatre, film, dance, as well as symphonic works, chamber music and solo pieces that have been performed around the world. He has received numerous Canadian and international awards and honours for his compositions.

"I feel very privileged to be recognized by my colleagues," says Dr. Mozetich. "To have what I do, as a creative, be given credence and importance by my colleagues in the arts and sciences is a tremendous honour."

Ugo Piomelli (Mechanical and Materials Engineering), a world expert in the area of fluid dynamics.  He has made fundamental contributions to the profession by developing numerical models capable of predicting turbulent flows, and by successfully applying these methods to increase the understanding of the turbulence physics. The models he developed are commonly used by the industrial and research communities, including aerospace, mechanical and environmental engineering, in geophysics and meteorology.

"I am honoured, truly honoured, to be recognized by my peers for my work," says Dr. Piomelli.

Keith Poole (Microbiology), a highly respected scholar who has made fundamental contributions to understanding the interplay between basic bacterial physiology and infectious disease. Importantly, he discovered a family of antibiotic pumps that export multiple antimicrobials out of the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa. These so-called multidrug pumps are common in disease-causing bacteria, and their discovery has revolutionized the field of antimicrobial chemotherapy and resistance and influenced antibiotic development in the pharmaceutical industry.

"I've never done this for accolades. I'm a scientist and, like my peers, am motivated by curiosity," says Dr. Poole. "However, to have an audience of those same peers acknowledge my work is a tremendous honour."

Suning Wang (Chemistry), a researcher whose innovative approaches to luminescent materials and inorganic chemistry has contributed to opening up a significant new research field: photo-responsive organoboron materials and chemistry. Her studies on the phenomena of photochromism, photoelimination and switchable luminescence of organoboron systems, together with her pioneering scholarship on blue fluorescent and blue phosphorescent emitters for organic light emitting diodes have reinvigorated research on organoboron photochemistry and organoboron-based materials chemistry worldwide.

"I'm very honoured to be elected into the Royal Society of Canada," says Dr. Wang. "Recognition by one's peers is the highest honour a scientist can receive."

The Royal Society of Canada is the senior and most prestigious academic society in Canada. Members represent a wide range of academic fields, including the arts, social and natural sciences and humanities. Candidates can be nominated by existing members, seconded by at least two others, or by one of the society's member institutions. Existing members of the society then vote to elect the next cohort of fellows. Election to the society is considered one of the highest honours in Canadian academia.

The RSC serves to promote Canadian research and scholarly accomplishment, to recognize academic and artistic excellence, and to advise governments, non-governmental organizations and Canadians on matters of public interest. For more information, visit the RSC website.