$8-million boost for Perimeter Institute through partnership with Stavros Niarchos Foundation
Posted Apr 28, 2016 01:38:32 PM.
Last Updated Apr 29, 2016 01:53:43 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A big boost for Waterloo’s Perimeter Institute as an $8-million partnership was announced with the Stavros Niarchos Foundation.
The Foundation is one of the world’s leading private international philanthropy organizations, and their partnership with Perimeter hopes to fuel groundbreaking research and foster ties between Perimeter and Greece.
Minister of Science Kirsty Duncan was at Perimeter and made another announcement– as local physicist Asimina Arvanitaki was named the first female inaugural Stavros Niarchos Foundation Aristarchus Chair in Theoretical Physics.
Duncan says she wouldn’t of missed the opportunity to see Arvanitaki get this honour as women in science are very important.
“Women in science matter because through the years we’ve gone from 20 to 22 per cent. As a former scientist myself, I’ve spent the past 25 years fighting so that women coming up now do not face the same challenges that I did. Having a female chair now, just really matters, and shows children and youth coming up that they can do it.”
Arvantaki says through this partnership and in her role as inaugural chair, Perimeter will have an opportunity to strengthen research and training ties to Greece, where there is a lot of untapped potential.
“It’s nice to be able to put a little work into trying to help Greece. The talent is there– there are young people that are as smart as in any other place in the world and have a will to produce and work and to dream, and it’d just be nice to be able to help make that dream a reality,” says Arvantaki.
For information about today’s announcement and the Perimeter Institute, click here.
