Accolades for the summer

Jarvad Dargahi, a professor in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, has published his third book, Tactile Sensing and Displays, co-authored with Saeed Sokhanvar, Siamak Najarian and Siamak Arbatani. The new book adds to Dargahi’s extensive body of work in the area of haptic feedback, a field that explores ways to provide sensory information through mechanical/electronic devices.

On September 8, Donald L. Boisvert, BA 75, MA 79, was ordained as a priest in the Anglican Church of Canada, along with six deacons. Rev. Boisvert has been assigned to a non-stipendiary position as curate at Christ Church Cathedral in Montreal, with a specific responsibility for French-language ministry, in addition to his regular teaching and research responsibilities at Concordia.

Clara Gutsche, MFA 86, part-time faculty member in the Department of Studio Arts’ photography program, has work on display as part of the Auteur Photography in Quebec exhibition at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, on display until November 10, 2013.

Professor M.N.S. Swamy from Concordia’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering has been the editor in chief of the journal Circuits, Systems and Signal Processing (CSSP) since 1999. This month, the publisher of the journal, Birkhäuser Science, announced it is naming an award after Swamy for the best paper published in the journal in the previous two years. The award is to “acknowledge the tremendous contributions of the present editor in chief,” writes Allen Mann, mathematics editor for Birkhäuser Science, in the announcement.
During Swamy’s tenure as editor, CSSP has tripled the amount of articles it publishes, and the journal’s impact factor has more than doubled since 2008. “Under Swamy’s dynamic leadership the journal has made tremendous strides in terms of both the quality and quantity of articles published,” Mann wrote.

The School of Canadian Irish Studies has announced its latest round of funding, which totals nearly one million dollars between professors and graduate students. The professors, who garnered $590,000, are:

• Susan Cahill for “The Literary Cultures of the Irish Girl, 1870-1922,” which received $38,362 from the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et culture.
• Gavin Foster for “The Afterlife of Ireland’s Civil War: Memories and Silences at Home and in Exile,” which received $35,483 from the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et culture.
• Michael Kenneally for “Re/Presenting Nineteenth-Century Irish Identities in the Canadas: 1800-1936,” which received $51,432 from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and for “Memory and Representations of the Past in Ireland and Quebec,” which received $20,000 from the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et culture.
• Jane McGaughey for “Off to Greener Pastures: On the Historical Precedents and Economic Consequences of Irish Migrations to Canada,” which received $13,500 from Concordia’s Office of the Vice-President of Research and Graduate Studies.
• Gearóid Ó hAllmhuráin for “Famine Requiem: Performing Memories of the Great Irish Famine in Quebec,” which received $117,800 from the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et culture, and for “Irish Musical Heritage in Douglastown and the Outer Gaspé,” which garnered $6,000 from the Centre local de développement & Conférence Régionale des Élus – Gaspésie Îles de-la-Madeleine/Côte-de-Gaspé, and $8,000 from the Ministre de la Culture et des Communications du Québec. Ó hAllmhuráin also received $134,000 for “Concert Staging and Performance Signatures: A New Perspective on Musical Heritage” from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and $1,778,780 (among 19 researchers) for “Observatoire interdisciplinaire de création et de recherche en musique” from the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et culture.
• Rhona Richman Kenneally received $109,000 from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for “Food, Home, and Identity in Mid-Twentieth-Century Ireland.”

Chancellor L. Jacques Ménard, BComm 67, LLD 06, has been inducted into the Investment Industry Association of Canada’s Hall of Fame. Lawrence S. Bloomberg, BComm 63, LLD 96, is also among the new inductees.

Joseph Michael Liu Roqueñi, BEng 13, a graduate of the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, was mentioned recently in an article in the Montreal Gazette about extreme fundraising. Roqueñi is currently running barefoot from Montreal to Usuaia, Argentina. During his run, he will raise funds for charities in each of the countries which he passes through.


Tricia Middleton, MFA 05, and Michel De Broin, attendee 95, were awarded Canada Council residencies at the International Studio and Curatorial Program (ISCP) in New York. The ISCP is a leading non-profit, residency-based contemporary art institution for emerging to mid-career artists and curators from around the world. The residencies run from September 2013 to February 2014.

Alumna Adriana Bara, MA (theological studies) 06, has been appointed executive director of the Canadian Centre for Ecumenism as of August 1, 2013. “The President and Board of Directors are confident that Dr. Bara will lead the Centre with intelligence and discernment in an environment increasingly multicultural and multireligious,” read the announcement.

Ceramic Tango, a film by alumna Patricia Chica, BFA (film production) 95, won the award for best editing during the 2013 Rhode Island International Film Festival.