Report on the 35th POMs

November 9 - 11, 2007

The 35th POMs was expertly organized by Monica Barra (Waterloo) and Ken Maly (Wilfrid Laurier).  It was held at the University of Waterloo, ON, for the first time.  In part, the meeting was to honour Keith Yates (1928-2006), one of the founding fathers of POMs.

Monica Barra

Ken Maly

Keith Yates

The meeting went off very smoothly with 107 registrants: 44 Faculty/Industry and 63 UG/Grads/post-docs.  Compared to last year, there was a somewhat better turnout from the U.S.A. (John Richard, Tina Amyes, Vladimir Popik, Mike Novak, Bill Saunders, John Baldwin and Shelley James). We also witnessed the return to the fold of Dan Wayner (SIMS-NRCC) who had been "away" for about 10 years.  Let's hope it's not 10 more years before he comes to POMs again. 

The excellent scientific program featured 47 poster and 29 oral presentations (PDF here).  Several of the speakers made reference to Keith Yates during their opening remarks, some with personal anecdotes. Ossie Tee (Concordia) gave a specific talk about KY, in the last session on Saturday afternoon.  A simplified version of his Powerpoint presentation (PPS file, 2.9 MB) is available here. 

As we have come to expect, the standard of the student and post-doc presentations - both oral and poster - was very high. Thus, once again it was a difficult task for the judges choosing the prize winners. 

The prizes for the best graduate student presentations were awarded as follows:

Talks	Posters
1st place - Petrina Kamya (Concordia University/Muchall)  "Effects of tandem GU mistmatch motifs on the electron density  in the hydrogen bonding and p-stacking regions of flanking Watson-Crick base pairs" (Book prize)	1st place - Paul Billone (University of Ottawa/Scaiano)  "Dynamics of the dissociation of a disulfide biradical on a CdSe nanoparticle surface" (Book prize)
2nd place - Mathieu Frenette (University of Ottawa/Scaiano) "Studies in lipid oxidation.  A long overlooked source of OH radical and a fluorescent probe for secondary oxidation products" (Honourable Mention)	2nd place - Johan Brinkhorst (Queen's University/Pratt) "Hock cleavage of cholesterol 5a-hydroxyperoxide: an ozone-free pathway to the cholesterol ozonolysis products identified  in arterial plaque and brain tissue" (Book prize)

The social program began with the welcoming Mixer + Registration on the Friday night in the "Speakeasy Billiards Room" of the Huether Hotel (in uptown Waterloo).

The Banquet on Saturday evening was held at the University Club of the University of Waterloo and it was attended by 94 participants. Special invited guests were some members of Keith Yates' family: June Yates (his wife), Nicola Fillier (daughter) with her husband Rick Fillier, and their children Alanna, Robert and Paige, along with Darren Mossman, a friend.  After dinner, Ossie Tee gave a different speech about KY from the perspective of a post-doc, a colleague and a long-time friend, lacing his talk with personal anecdotes (PDF file here).  At the end he read out some e-mail comments from friends and former collaborators of KY who were absent and then he called upon others in the audience to say a few words.

A selection of photographs are presented ...  HERE.