News Releases

The UWI honours high achievement on October 23rd

For Release Upon Receipt - October 15, 2013

St. Augustine


ST. AUGUSTINE, Trinidad & Tobago – On Wednesday, October 23, The UWI Vice-Chancellor, Professor E. Nigel Harris will present the Award for Excellence to the six individuals or units that have received the nod from the rigorous selection process. The ceremony will be held at the newly built Centre for Teaching and Learning in St Augustine. 

Professor Shivananda Nayak of the Faculty of Medical Sciences, St. Augustine is being honoured for excellence in teaching. Winner of the 2010 UWI/Guardian Life Premium Teaching Award and the 2010/2011 Pre-Clinical Medical Sciences Student’s Award for the Most Effective Lecturer, Professor Nayak has made significant contributions to Teaching and Research in the medical field during his tenure of office at The UWI and while in India − testimony to more than two decades of excellent teaching.  

In the sphere of research accomplishments, awards will be presented to Professor Horace Fletcher of the Faculty of Medical Sciences, Mona, and to Professor Pathmanathan Umaharan, Director of the Cocoa Research Centre, St Augustine. By looking at women at risk of hormone dependent diseases (postmenopausal women, women who use phytoestrogens and women who used depo-provera in the past) as well as women at risk of human papilloma virus-associated cancer (cervical cancer and vulval cancer), Professor Fletcher tries to establish the aetiology of common conditions and introduce new protocols to improve the management of these patients. His aim, as the newly appointed Dean, is also to improve the research capabilities in the Faculty of Medicine at the Mona Campus.   

Three years ago, Professor Umaharan became Head of the Cocoa Research Unit and in 2012, under his leadership the Unit was upgraded to the internationally recognised Cocoa Research Centre.  His research continues to impact agricultural policy, agribusiness and the lives of people involved in these activities and he has been the recipient of several prestigious teaching and research awards.  

Honoree from the Cave Hill Campus is the Dean, Faculty of Law, St. Augustine, Professor Rose-Marie Belle Antoine, who will receive the award for public service. Professor Antoine is an award-winning author, Cambridge and Oxford scholar and a chaired Professor. She has been described by the Government of Canada and others as the “foremost expert in Labour Law in the region” and as the “leading” expert in the region in International/Offshore Financial Law, Labour Law and the law on HIV. This is the second time that Professor Antoine has won a Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Excellence, the first time in 2006 for her accomplishments in Research. 

Dr Carol Logie, Administrative Director of the St. Augustine Family Development and Children’s Research Centre since 1996 and a tenured University Lecturer since 1998, will receive the award for University Service and Public Service. Her more recent achievements include the creation of a National Child Development Awareness programme to bring greater Early Childhood Awareness to Trinidad and Tobago and service as Technical Advisor to the Government of the Bahamas and IDB Bahamas: Investing in Students & Programmes for the Innovative Reform of Education (INSPIRE).  Her list of refereed publications and technical reports is vast. 

The UWI St. Augustine Seismic Research Centre (SRC) will be honoured for Research and Public Service. This regional institution is responsible for the surveillance of and fundamental research into volcanoes and earthquakes for the English-speaking Eastern Caribbean. Since its establishment in 1953, the Centre has become an internationally recognised centre of excellence in its core areas of seismology, volcanology and outreach.  

The Vice-Chancellor’s Awards for Excellence were established in 1993 under then Vice-Chancellor Sir Alister McIntyre to recognise high achievement by academic and senior administrative UWI personnel.  The 2013 ceremony will take the total recipients of this prestigious award past the century mark, to 101.

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About The UWI

Over the last six decades, The University of the West Indies (UWI) has evolved from a fledgling college in Jamaica with 33 students to a full-fledged University with over 40,000 students. Today, UWI is the largest and most longstanding higher education provider in the English-speaking Caribbean, with main campuses in Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, and Centres in Anguilla, Antigua & Barbuda, The Bahamas, Belize, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, St Christopher (St Kitts) & Nevis, St Lucia, and St Vincent & the Grenadines. UWI recently launched its Open Campus, a virtual campus with over 50 physical site locations across the region, serving over 20 countries in the English-speaking Caribbean. UWI is an international university with faculty and students from over 40 countries and collaborative links with over 60 universities around the world. Through its seven Faculties, UWI offers undergraduate and postgraduate degree options in Engineering, Humanities & Education, Law, Medical Sciences, Pure & Applied Sciences, Science and Agriculture, and Social Sciences. 

(Please note that the proper name of the university is The University of the West Indies, inclusive of the “The”, hence The UWI.) 

For the latest UWI News, click http://sta.uwi.edu/news.

 

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