UBC Plant Evolutionary Biologist, Inorganic Chemist Elected to Canada's Royal Society

UBC Science's Loren Rieseberg and Chris Orvig are among six UBC researchers elected to the Royal Society of Canada (RSC) this year.

Rieseberg, Canada Research Chair in Plant Evolutionary Genomics, has made fundamental advances to our understanding of how species arise. He established hybridization as a creative force, leading to the origin of novel traits and new species. He has also spearheading efforts to sequence the genomes of several crops and weeds.

Rieseberg is also a fellow of the Royal Society of London.

Orvig, appointed jointly with Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, is among the world's foremost medicinal inorganic chemists and one of Canada’s best known inorganic chemists. His research focuses on metal ions in the etiology, diagnosis and therapy of disease, making seminal contributions, both fundamental and applied, to the understanding of metal ions in biological processes.

Orvig was elected to the Canadian Society for Chemistry in 2009.

Established in 1882, the RSC is regarded as the country's most prominent academy of scholars and scientists, and boosts 2,000 fellows. More than 170 UBC researchers--24 of them within the Faculty of Science--have been elected to the Society.

Royal Society of Canada www.rsc.ca