Seminar series

Dr. George Lubinsky was a parasitologist who taught and researched at the University of Manitoba for 21 years and is considered to have been one of the founders of the former Zoology department. Though Dr. Lubinsky’s professional focus was parasitology, he was known for his diverse interests. Over the years the Lubinsky lecturers have reflected this diversity by lecturing on parasitology, zoogeography, genetics, behavioral ecology, paleontology, and endocrinology. The goal of the Lubinsky Lecture is to enrich the knowledge and experience of the local scientific community through interactions with leading researchers in the field of Zoology. The Lubinksy Lecture is open free of charge to all students and staff in the university community, as well as the general public.

The series name commemorates one of the universities first distinguished alumnus, Dr. William Fielding Hanna (1892-1972). Dr. Hanna not only received the first doctorate degree in Botany from the University of Manitoba in 1928, but is also recognized as the first Ph.D. graduate in Western Canada. He was the recipient of the prestigious Order of Canada (1969) as well as the Legion of Merit (US).

Dr. Hanna had a  distinguished scientific career with Agriculture Canada, Botany and Plant Pathology, contributed to advancing cereal crop production capacity and coordinating research programs from western Canada to developing nations like Kenya. During the 1930s he published more than fifty scientific papers on his work on the smut diseases of cereals while engaged as a research scientist in Winnipeg at the Agriculture Canada Rust Research Laboratory (under the supervision of Dr. Reginald Buller).

The G.E.H. Hamilton Lecture series invites world-renowned scientists to present their work to the Department of Biological Sciences and the public. It was created as a tribute to Major G.E.H. Barrett-Hamilton, a renowned British naturalist and his daughter Geraldine Margaret (Peggy) Nesbitt, who was the first woman at the University of Manitoba to graduate cum laude with Honours in both Chemistry and Zoology in 1931.

Major G.E.H. Barrett-Hamilton was a renowned British naturalist whose most famous work, History of British Mammals, was published in 21 parts between 1910 and 1921 and is still available in a 1978 reprint edition today. A copy of this rare incomplete work from G. E. H. Barrett-Hamilton Library, bound in three volumes of seven issues each, exists with other related materials in the Rare Book Vault in Archives and Special Collections. At just 25 years of age, in 1896, Barrett-Hamilton, who was educated at Cambridge University (Science) and late at Oxford University (Law), was sent by Lord Salisbury with professor D'Arcy Thompson to the Behring Sea and the Pribiloff Islands to research Northern Fur Seals. He also contributed often to the journals “The Irish Naturalist” and “Ibis.” From 1901-02, he served in South Africa in the Boer War. In 1903, he married Maud C. Eland with whom he had six children. In October 1913, the British Colonial Office of the British Museum of Natural History sent him on a mission to research whales in the Antarctic, who were facing extinction due to over-fishing. He died of sudden heart failure on the island of South Georgia on January 17, 1914, at the age of 43.

Michael Nesbitt (B.Comm.[56], B.A.[57]) founded the G.E.H. Barrett-Hamilton Lecture to recognize the scientific achievements of his grandfather, Major Barrett-Hamilton and his mother, Peggy Nesbitt.