Acknowledgements

This website represents an extension of a book that was created to record the accomplishments of the medallists.

The first edition of this book, covering biographical sketches of the Descartes Medallists for the first 35 years, from 1968 to 2002, would not have been possible without a great deal of work on the part of many dedicated people.

Don Attridge, with the assistance of Ed Anderson, Lloyd Auckland, John Del Grande, Ron Dunkley, Jack LeSage, and Norm Sharp, took the lead in collecting data for the book from the medallists, their relatives and associates. Don spent countless hours pleading, reminding and cajoling people to send him information.

With a large stack of facts, figures, dates, and anecdotes, Ed Anderson took over the task of condensing and editing the material to produce a short biographical sketch of each medallist.

Ruth Anderson, Ed’s daughter, a journalist with experience at CBC Radio and in other media, wrote the final copy. She attempted to put a human face to the medallists rather than just provide a list of schools where they taught, their committee service, and the organizations they led. Her success is evident in the pages that follow.

The final form of the first book is largely due to the efforts of Bonnie Findlay at the University of Waterloo. She did the typesetting, photograph layout and cover design with her usual flair and skill.

From 2010 to 2016 Anna Cunningham, Serge D'Alessio's stepdaughter, took on the task of writing the citations for the medallists.  In 2017, Amy Aldous, who was the Director of Communications and Research Alliances for the Faculty of Mathematics at the University of Waterloo, completed the citations.  In 2018 Jodi Szimanski, Director, Strategic Communications for the Faculty of Mathematics wrote the citations.