Thursday Aug 31, 2017

Denis Lynn

Visiting Professor

Russia 2016 — Part 1

About the Speaker
- Denis Lynn was born in 1947 in Kingston, ON, Canada, and before he was a year old, he was travelling with his father Ralph Beverley Lynn and mother Blanche Evalyn (nee Wellman). His first trip was to the United Kingdom where his father was training for a specialization in cardiothoracic surgery. By the time he was 8, he had crossed the Atlantic three more times, living in Cleveland (OH), Baltimore (MD), Hatfield (UK), Edinburgh (UK), and Saskatoon (SK), before his father was recruited as head of the Department of Surgery, Queens University in Kingston. During these travels, which may have inoculated him with the “travel bug”, three brothers were added to the family.
  
  Denis graduated from Frontenac Secondary School in Collins Bay in 1965 and went to the University of Guelph, graduating there in 1969 with an Honours B.Sc. in Marine Biology. He started his graduate work at the Department of Zoology, University of Toronto with a 1967 Science Scholarship. His graduate studies were interrupted by a “sabbatical” year at the Department of Zoology, University of Maryland, College Park, where he met and married Portia Holt, who was doing postdoctoral research there. Portia and Denis returned to Toronto to complete his Ph.D. in 1974, the same year their older son Francis was born. The family travelled to St. Andrews, Scotland, where Denis did postdoctoral research supported by a NATO Postdoctoral Fellowship. A second son Robin was born there in 1976. In 1977, the family returned to Canada where Denis took up a professorship at the Department of Zoology, University of Guelph. There he taught a variety of courses – Invertebrate Zoology, Cell Biology, Developmental Biology, Research Methods in Zoology, Natural History of Ontario, and Marine Biology and Oceanography – and supervised graduate students. Denis is an international authority on the biodiversity and evolutionary history of the ciliated protozoa, a group of more than 8,000 species of microbes that live in every conceivable habitat that has water. He has written a monograph on the group and published over 150 reports in refereed journals.
  
  In 2010, shortly after the birth of their granddaughter Kalyna, Portia and Denis moved to Bowen Island, BC, Canada, to be near family, as both sons now live on the West Coast of North America, one in BC and one in California. Portia and Denis have enjoyed travelling, and have been fortunate to do so as scientific conferences have enabled them to see various parts of the world. During a career that spanned 33 years, they have visited over 25 countries, and still have a long ‘bucket list’.
  
  Denis is currently a Professor Emeritus in Integrative Biology, University of Guelph, and an Adjunct Professor in Zoology, University of British Columbia. He is a Charter Member of the Rotary Club of Bowen Island, for which he has served as Director, Secretary, President, and currently Treasurer.
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Portia Lynn in Red Square

Portia and Denis Lynn travelled to Russia in the summer of 2016. Denis was attending the European Congress of Protistology, held in Moscow. While in that city, they toured the sights of Moscow. After the conference, they joined the Viking River Cruise “Waterways of the Tsars”, sailing from Moscow to St. Petersburg via the Volga-Baltic Waterway. The tour ended with a visit to some sights in St. Petersburg.

Denis planned to present a slide show in three parts – Moscow, cruising the Volga-Baltic Waterway, and St. Petersburg using pictures taken by Portia and Denis, highlighting their Russia 2016 Tour.

During this meeting there were enthusiastic reports of two major programs this month:

The 2017 Run for Rwanda. With perfect weather, this was huge success.
Bowen Rotary’s first time providing volunteers at the Bowen Island Recycling Depot (BIRD). President Ross let the club know that this raised substantial new funds for Bowen Rotary projects.

As a result, Denis had time to talk about only the Moscow part of his trip. He has promised to return to deliver the rest of his presentation.

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Denis Lynn

Russia 2016 — Part 1

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