At the front of the College bus, in formation waiting to enter the ceremony.

I’m in Toronto after a redeye from Vancouver after the Celebration of Excellence and Engagement (COEE) event hosted by SFU. The COEE is where the Royal Society of Canada (RSC)  inducts new Fellows and members of the College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists, among other things. It has been a lovely few days at the Parq complex near False Creek.

On the first day I was honored to be asked to participate in a climate change panel for grade 10-12 students run by Let’s Talk Science in partnership with the RSC, along with a Kwakwaka’wakw documentarian and master carver Carey Newman, NRC aerosol chemist Joel Corbin and UTM climate physicist Kent Moore. I loved meeting students like Amaya and her social science teacher who are thinking big thoughts about the role of people in climate change problems and solutions.

This is what the induction looked like at home: Elizabeth Dubois introduces me, to my clear delight.

Me and Melanie Lemire before the College induction ceremony.

The next day was Induction Day, where it became pretty clear that we in the College have a lot more fun than the Fellows. We all took turns introducing one of the other new College members based on a bit of independent research, and we were all challenged to find a connection between our own work and that of the person we are introducing. I introduced the UT translational genomics researcher Trevor Pugh, and the UOttawa social media and politics researcher Elizabeth Dubois introduced me. It is humbling company, indeed! Was lovely to be in the same college class as TranSECT co-lead Melanie Lemire, meet incoming RSC President and Dal Emerita Francoise Baylis, and to get to know Penny Tham, member of the Dalhousie Advisory Council, representing Dalhousie at this year’s COEE.

The next day we had the opportunity to have breakout room discussions across the attending Fellows, College members and university administrators about some key issues for Canada and what role the RSC can take in ameliorating them. The power (and pleasure) was clear of bringing people to a common focus across so many different fields and expertise.

As a final note, I loved the opportunities between events to get out and enjoy the Vancouver seawall, including witnessing the rare asperitas cloud formation (first observed only in 2006!) over False Creek on Friday, and seeing some of the naturalization underway of that shoreline, perhaps as a result of the inspiring reimagination process the City of Vancouver did a few years ago for False Creek that we talk about in our recent paper in the Journal of Flood Risk Management. There is some interesting public art along that shore, too, that seemed particularly interesting given the context of the climate change focus of the COEE. Connecting with my old friend Lynn Ayers from my Prince George days was the cherry on top of my trip.

The rare asperitas cloud formation from Leg in Boot Square, Vancouver