August 2006


ORION Awards - Recognition for Ontario's R&E success stories

The world-leading Sudbury Neutrino Observatory, Ontario's SHARCNET distributed computing network, and the innovative Advanced Broadband Enabled Learning (ABEL) program came up top winners at the 2006 ORION Awards.

Presented at a gala reception during the Ontario Research and Education Summit in Toronto June 5, the awards recognized outstanding achievements in science, learning and discovery.



Recipients and presenters of the 2006 ORION Award, counterclockwise, from bottom left, Janet Murphy of the ABEL Project; University of Toronto Physicist Prof. Pierre Savard (accepting on behalf of Prof. Robert Orr and the ATLAS Canada Group); Scientific Director of SHARCNET Dr. Hugh Couchman; Dr. Clarence Virtue of Laurentian University and the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory); Kevin Harrigan of the CLOE project; presenting the awards (front) Dr.Stan Shapson, VP Research and Innovation at York University and Tony Wong, Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Research and Innovation.

ORANO Board Chair Dr. Stan Shapson joined Tony Wong, Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Research and Innovation, to present the crystal and ebony awards, along with certificates from Premier Dalton McGuinty.

"These awards recognize the stellar achievements of the ORION research-user community, and the impact these projects make on a global level," said Dr. Shapson, York University VP of Research and Innovation.

The internationally-celebrated Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) team won the 2006 ORION Discovery Award. The $100 million international particle astrophysics project is located two kilometres underground in INCO's Creighton Mine near Sudbury. Project Director Dr. Art McDonald of Queen's University accepted the award, along with SNO Executive Director Dr. Clarence Virtue of Laurentian University.

The Advanced Broadband Enabled Learning (ABEL) Program won the ORION Learning Award for 2006. ABEL uses interactive videoconference technologies through ORION to bring high-impact, real-world learning experiences to students. The award was accepted by Janet Murphy, Project Manager

Dr. Hugh Couchman and colleagues accepted the 2006 ORION Leadership Award on behalf of the Shared Hierarchical Academic Research Computing Network (SHARCNET), a consortium of academic and research organizations in Ontario, that is providing the province with one of world's most powerful supercomputing resources.

Judges also bestowed Awards of Merit in each of the three categories, to recognize outstanding achievements in each of the three categories. Professor Robert S. Orr and the ATLAS Canada Group won the Discovery Award of Merit. The ABEL project took home a second award when its Learning Leads team went home with the Leadership Award of Merit. The Co-operative Learning Object Exchange (CLOE), was recognized with the Learning Award of Merit.

Judges reviewed 22 submissions from throughout Ontario, from projects making innovative use of Access Grid, to new initiatives podcasting lectures over wireless networks.

Read detailed profiles of the winners and an extensive photo gallery of the presentation at the ORION Award web site.

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