Physicist promoted to Officer of the Order of Canada (Forwarded)

Communications and Public Affairs
Queen's University
Kingston, Ontario, Canada

Thursday April 10, 2008

Physicist promoted to Officer of the Order of Canada

Physicist Art McDonald, director of the Queen's-led Sudbury Neutrino
Observatory (SNO) is one of 30 Canadians to be promoted to Officer of the
Order of Canada at tomorrow's investiture ceremony in Ottawa.

Two Queen's alumni will also receive the honour. Jane Stewart (BA'56,
DSC'92) will be promoted to Officer, while Jeffery Turnbull (MD'78) will be
honoured as a Member of the Order of Canada.

Her Excellency the Right Honourable Michale Jean, Governor General of Canada
will preside over the 102nd Order of Canada ceremony where she will announce
this year's new appointments including two companions, 11 officers and 30
members.

Dr. McDonald first received the designation of Member of the Order of Canada
in February 2007.

An eminent scientist and administrator, Dr. McDonald joined Queen's in 1989
where he was instrumental in spearheading an international research project
studying tiny particles emitted from the sun.

At the SNO Lab -- the world's deepest underground laboratory -- he and an
international team of researchers found that neutrinos changed into
different varieties on their way to earth. Hailed as one of the world's top
scientific breakthroughs in recent years, the finding has changed the laws
of physics and provided remarkable insight into the structure of the
universe.

Last year, Dr. McDonald and the SNO team were awarded the Benjamin Franklin
Medal in Physics. The Medal honours scientists who have made groundbreaking
discoveries about the nature of matter and the structure of the universe.
Past winners include Albert Einstein, Alexander Graham Bell and Marie and
Pierre Currie.

In 2006, they were the first recipients of the $250,000 John C. Polanyi
Award. The new award, to be presented annually by the Natural Sciences and
Engineering Research Council (NSERC), is named for the Canadian winner of
the 1986 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. In 2005, Dr. McDonald and his team won
the prestigious Bruno Pontecorvo Prize, the world's top award in particle
physics.

For more information about the Order of Canada and a full listing of this
year's recipients visit the Governor General of Canada's website,
http://www.gg.ca/honours/nat-ord/oc/index_e.asp