Baycrest scientist inducted into The Canadian Medical Hall of Fame

Toronto, Canada – Dr. Endel Tulving, a pre-eminent senior scientist with Baycrest’s Research Centre for Aging and the Brain, has been inducted into The Canadian Medical Hall of Fame.

Dr. Tulving, a cognitive psychologist and the Anne and Max Tanenbaum Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience at Baycrest and the University of Toronto, is internationally recognized for his landmark research to distinguish different types of human memory. His work has important implications for the study of normal memory as well as memory breakdown related to brain injury, brain diseases and normal aging.

“No single cognitive scientist has made a greater impact on the understanding of human memory than psychologist Dr. Endel Tulving,” said The Canadian Medical Hall of Fame in its press release issued today.

“His presence has been a magical elixir in creating the world-class reputation of excellence in brain research at Baycrest,” said Dr. Donald Stuss, Baycrest’s Vice-President of Research and Academic Education, who nominated Dr. Tulving for induction into the Hall.

“I feel greatly honoured to be elected to The Canadian Medical Hall of Fame and am delighted with this totally unexpected happening,” said Dr. Tulving, who was born in Estonia. “As a freshly arrived immigrant in 1949, I began my life in Canada working on a farm close to London, Ontario and that The Canadian Medical Hall of Fame has its home in London renders the whole experience especially wondrous. I seem to have come full circle. I am deeply grateful to all my colleagues, known and unknown, who have made it all possible.”

“What could be more important for an organization whose mission is to transform aging through a special focus on brain functioning than to have a scientist of Dr. Tulving’s stature,” said Baycrest President and CEO Stephen W. Herbert. “We are truly honoured to have him on our team and gratified to know that his research impact is felt around the world.”

This latest honor for Dr. Tulving comes on the heels of several others in recent years. In 2006, Dr. Tulving was made an Officer of the Order of Canada, and in 2005 he received one of the world's highest scientific honours – the Gairdner International Award which recognizes outstanding contributions by medical scientists worldwide whose work will significantly improve health and wellbeing of people everywhere.

In a rare feature interview with The Toronto Star last year, Dr. Tulving reminisced about his childhood growing up in Estonia, and the darker days when he and his younger brother managed to flee the country amid the chaos when the Russians invaded in 1944. Their parents were unable to make it out and for the next 14 years the two boys did not know if their parents were alive. Their parents did survive and were given erroneous information that their boys had been fatally shot.

“I did not know where to write. I did know our old home had burned down, because the whole town was burned down,” he told The Star.

Other honours for Dr. Endel Tulving include emeritus professor at the University of Toronto; the Clark Way Harrison Distinguished Visiting Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis; the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the American Psychological Association (1983); Guggenheim Fellowship (1987); National Academy of Sciences (1988); Fellow, Royal Society of London (1992); Gold Medal Award for Life Achievement in Psychological Science from the American Psychological Foundation (1994); and the McGovern Award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1996).

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For more information on this release, please contact:
Kelly Connelly
Senior Media Officer
Baycrest
416.785.2432
kconnelly@baycrest.org