CANADIAN ASSOCIATION OF PHYSICISTS

ASSOCIATION CANADIENNE DES PHYSICIENS ET PHYSICIENNES

The Canadian Association of Physicists (CAP) is pleased to announce that the 2004 CAP Medal for Excellence in Teaching is awarded to Dr. Helmy S. Sherif, University of Alberta, for his enthusiasm in teaching Physics along with the genuine interest and respect he has for his students which has truly influenced all those around him.

Dr. Helmy Sherif has been a professor with the Physics department at the University of Alberta for almost 35 years. Since then, he has taught many of the courses offered by this department to the entire spectrum of students: honours and specialization students, engineering physics students, and students not intending to specialize in physics.

The genuine interest and respect that he has for his students have been made manifest by the many positive comments made by his students on the student evaluation forms over the years. He is always pleased to see and help his students and the students can feel that. In class, he has the gift of being able to see when even just one of his students ``doesn't get it'' and will not continue on unless the entire class understands the concepts.

He is the embodiment of clarity of speech, patience, and generosity of spirit and time toward his students. He gives willingly of his time to his students and has scheduled many extra classes/tutorials to help the students that lacked the background to understand his courses.

His lectures always focus on gaining an intuition for physics rather than just learning how to work out a problem and always challenge his students to extend the limits of their abilities. His teaching has had a significant impact on his students. Many students acknowledge having been influenced in making decisions related to future graduate studies or higher level courses based on what he taught them in their classes.

For his accomplishments in teaching physics, he was awarded this year the University of Alberta Faculty of Science Award for Excellent Teaching. The overwhelming support shown by his students and colleagues during the nomination process for this award was truly an outstanding testimonial of his performance as a teacher.

The CAP's Medal for Excellence in Teaching Physics was introduced in 1996 and has been awarded annually since. Dr. Sherif will receive the 2004 Prize during the CAP's awards banquet to be held at the Delta Hotel in Winnipeg on June 15th, 2004.

The Canadian Association of Physicists, founded in 1945, is a professional association representing over 1600 individual physicists and physics students in Canada, the U.S. and overseas, as well as a number of Corporate and Departmental Members. In addition to its learned activities, the CAP also undertakes a number of activities intended to encourage students to pursue a career in physics.

For more information, please contact:

Canadian Association of Physicists
Tel: (613) 562-5614
Fax: (613) 562-5615
E-mail: cap@physics.uottawa.ca