The celebration brought together more than 250 guests, including students, researchers, community members, and representatives from government, to honour the legacy of research excellence that continues to shape physics at Queen’s and nationwide.
Guests were welcomed by a performance of Oscillations, a piano piece composed by Queen’s professor John Burge (DAN School of Drama and Music) in 2016 to commemorate Dr. McDonald’s Nobel win, before Vice-Principal (Research) Dr. Nancy Ross opened the formal program.
Principal and Vice-Chancellor Patrick Deane spoke about the global significance of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics, which recognized Dr. McDonald and the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) team for revealing that neutrinos change form as they travel through space. The discovery proved that these tiny particles have mass and reshaped our understanding of the universe.