Faculty

Chemistry professor Neil Burford teaches an undergraduate class.

The calibre of Dalhousie's faculty is key to our reputation as an academic leader. Our faculty members are nationally and internationally recognized for their achievement, research and teaching. 92 per cent of our faculty have a PhD or doctorate.

Dalhousie hosts 50 Canada Research Chairs — more than at any other university in the Atlantic Region. The Chairs advance the frontiers of knowledge in their fields, not only through their own work, but also by teaching and supervising students and coordinating the work of other researchers. The three newest additions to the Dalhousie contingent are Brenda Beagan (Occupational Therapy), Kimberly Hall (Physics and Atmospheric Science) and Norbert Zeh (Computer Science).

Many of our professors are national and international award winners. Françoise Baylis (Philosophy), Canada Research Chair in Bioethics and Philosophy, was appointed as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2007. Neil MacKinnon was selected as a 2007 Harkness Associate, a program limited to only 13 individuals worldwide each year. He is the first Canadian pharmacist to receive the honour.

Mary Anne White, director of Dalhousie's Institute of Research in Materials, was awarded the McNeil Medal for the Public Awardness of Science by the Royal Society of Canada. She joins prestigious company, including past winners David Suzuki and the Discovery Channel’s Jay Ingram. And Dalhousie Computer Science Professor Srinivas Sampalli is a past recipient of the prestigious 3M Teaching Fellowship.

In 2007, Susan Sherwin (Philosophy) was honoured with the Killam Prize in Humanities for her work studying the relationship between gender and ethics in medicine and health care. The previous year, Brian Hall (Biology) won the Killam Prize in Natural Sciences.

The ratio of faculty to students at Dalhousie is 1: 14. Here, Prof. Marty Leonard of the Biology Department works with a student.

With a steller academic reputation, Dalhousie is a highly competitive employer, attracting over 90 per cent of first-choice candidates for academic positions.

President Tom Traves has made a commitment to increasing the proportion of first-year teaching provided by tenured or tenure-track faculty. Exposure to strong teachers attracts students as departmental majors and creates a solid foundation within a discipline for future academic success.