I've shaken the hand of the next Governor General of Canada

David Johnston is the president of the University of Waterloo (where I work). Today, the news broke that he will be the next Governor General of Canada.

Yes, I've shaken his hand, and chatted with him. In addition, I've received letters from him... like this one, and this one (ah, but that's a different story, and I doubt he had much personal involvement in the process).

He is very diplomatic and will make a great Governor General.

It's my tenure-versary

One year ago today, I walked to work with dress-pants, a dress-shirt, and a tie, ready to face the tribunal at my tenure hearing. In case you haven't read ALL my blog posts, you can find out more about the big day in my first post. As I walk to work today, I'm remembering the motivational messages that Trish and Fiona wrote on the sidewalk with chalk.


What an amazing feeling to have such support (not unlike the feeling of being thrown a surprise 40th birthday party).

Over the past year, I've allowed myself to grow in a number of directions (happily, none of those refer to my waistline... quite the opposite, in fact). I started my blog the day after I got tenure, and also embarked on a new major research project in computational neuroscience. A week from now, my grad student and I will be submitting a paper to NIPS (Neural Information Processing Systems conference). The research has produced some interesting results that might help to unveil the algorithm that the brain uses to learn.

It's official -- Associate Professor with tenure

Today, I found this letter in my mailbox from David Johnston, the president of the University of Waterloo. It reads,

This letter is to confirm that your appointment as an Associate Professor with tenure will take effect on July 1, 2009.

I congratulate you on what you have accomplished. I also express warm thanks for the important contribution you are making to the life and reputation of our University and to higher education and research more generally. I wish you continued success and satisfaction here.

It's quite a different sentiment from this tenure denial letter dated Feb. 26, 2009.

This blog post is from

intelligent-falling.blogspot.com