WATERLOO, Ont. -- In celebrating its 35th anniversary, the University of Waterloo's Faculty of Mathematics has launched a new alumni achievement medal to honour top graduates.

The four inaugural winners of the Faculty of Mathematics Alumni Achievement Medal received their awards at a special banquet on Sept. 26 on campus.

To recognize outstanding accomplishments of alumni, the medal will be awarded annually to one or more UW graduates. Besides academic excellence, winners will demonstrate distinguished community and public service, as well as outstanding professional or business accomplishments.

"The Faculty of Mathematics is extremely proud of our graduates, who are making important contributions in many vocations around the world," said Prof. Alan George, dean of mathematics. "We are delighted to recognize the first recipients of the Faculty of Mathematics Alumni Achievement Medal, who so amply demonstrate the high calibre of our alumni."

The winners for 2002 are: James Brierley, Lynn Curtin Lange, Ross Prentice and Neil Robertson.

Jim Brierley has made many contributions both to the business community in which he works as well as his chosen profession since graduating from the UW with a Bachelor of Mathematics degree in actuarial science in 1976.

Brierley is president of Canadian Life and Health Operations of Munich Reinsurance Company. Munich Re is the world's largest reinsurance company, offering a full range of reinsurance services in all lines of business insurance.

He currently serves on a number of boards of directors, including Munich Life Management Corporation, Munich Reinsurance Company of Canada, Temple Insurance and LifePlans Canada. He also served on the board of the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association from 1999 to 2001.

In addition to his numerous business responsibilities, Brierley has also found time to support the actuarial profession. He served as a member of the board of the Canadian Institute of Actuaries (CIA) for seven years and, in 1993, became the youngest president ever of the CIA.

And somehow, he still manages to find time for the university, serving as a member of the UW Foundation Board and becoming involved in the current Campaign Waterloo fundraising campaign.

Since graduation from UW in 1986, Lynn Curtin Lange has used her mathematics and accounting knowledge gained at UW wisely. She is currently employed as the Branch Manager of CIBC Wood Gundy's Burlington office.

In her spare time, she is often seen working in the community. She currently is president of the board of directors for the Burlington Art Centre.

She has also been involved in many other community initiatives, including Member of the Burlington Chamber of Commerce, the Hamilton and District Business Club, BAC Golf Classic, United Way and Junior Achievement of Halton. Despite all of these community efforts, she still manages to be a "hockey mom" to her two sons.

Ross Prentice, a 1967 mathematics graduate of UW, is one of the foremost biostatisticians in the world. At present, Ross is vice-president and director of the Public Health Sciences Division at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre in Seattle, Wash.

He has been the statistical collaborator in the development of the bone marrow transplant treatment at the cancer research centre and has played a major role in the development of statistical methods for health and medical research.

In research, he has contributed to many areas of statistics and health with more than 100 major publications. He is considered a world authority on issues associated with prevention trials, survival data and on related issues associated with life history and disease processes.

Prentice has received much recognition for his work. Included are: elected member of the Institute of Medicine of the American National Academy of Sciences, recipient of the prestigious COPSS Presidents' Award, fellow of the American Statistical Association and winner of the Mortimer Spiegelman award.

While visiting Waterloo for the alumni medal presentation, Prentice will present a seminar on his research.

On Thursday at 3:30 p.m. in the Mathematics and Computer Centre, Room 5158, Prentice will speak about "Risks and Benefits of Estrogen Plus Progestin in Healthy Postmenopausal Women: Principal Results from the Women's Health Initiative Randomized Controlled Trial."

Neil Robertson completed his PhD in the mathematics faculty in 1969, under the supervision of Prof. William Tutte. He then embarked on an academic career at Ohio State University that has been marked by brilliant research achievement in his subject, graph theory.

Perhaps best known is his series of remarkable research papers with Paul Seymour that proved the Graph Minors Theorem, for which the Fulkerson Prize of the Mathematical Programming Society was awarded in 1994. Like other ground-breaking work, this is known throughout the world by their names alone -- as the "Robertson-Seymour" methodology.

Robertson's outstanding contributions continue. Earlier this year, he and a group of co-authors completed a proof of the most widely known open problem in graph theory, the Strong Perfect Graph Conjecture.

UW is pleased to honour Neil Robertson for his academic accomplishments, particularly in his pioneering work in graph theory and his profound influence in the area of combinatorics.

While visiting Waterloo for the alumni medal presentation, Robertson will present a seminar on his research.

On Friday at 3:30 p.m. in the Mathematics and Computer Centre, Room 5158, Robertson will present the Tutte Colloquium and his topic will be "The Strong Perfect Graph Theorem."

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Release no. 188 -- September 24, 2002