LAUSR

The news of the sudden passing of Dr. Denis Lynn came as a great shock to members of his former Department at the University of Guelph. Denis had spent the bulk of his career here, having completed his undergraduate degree in marine biology at the University of Guelph and returning as a faculty member in 1977, after earning a PhD at the University of Toronto and completing a stint as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Denis retired in 2010 and relocated to the University of British Columbia as an Adjunct Professor, continuing to pursue his passion for research and student training. By the time I first met Denis, he was already a senior faculty member in the (then) Department of Zoology. I began my graduate training in the Department in 1997 under Dr. Paul Hebert, who was then Department Chair. Most of my impressions of Denis during that time came indirectly through my advisor and via interactions with graduate students in his lab. My sense was that Denis was highly respected both academically and personally and that he was a devoted researcher and teacher who cared deeply about his science and his students. That early impression has been amply confirmed in my subsequent interactions with Denis, and through reflections provided by his long-standing colleagues (CBS, 2018 and pers. comm.): “Denis was a great hero of mine. As a person, he was so gentle and so kind. As a teacher, he was completely dedicated to advancing his students. His thoughtful lectures were challenging to everyone involved, himself included. Post lecture, he often meditated on, not at, his desk to regain inner calm. My graduate students loved their interactions with him; he asked them to place their work within the context of their discipline and the scientific enterprise. As a researcher, his knowledge of ciliates was unrivalled. When I was obsessed with the evolution of breeding systems and genome sizes, Denis provided fascinating perspectives from his strange world – the one dominated by protists. Denis never lost his fire for science. He was regularly at the bench, so unlike most senior academics. Denis was an academic who never grew old, who never lost his passion for science.” – Dr. Paul Hebert, Director, Centre for Biodiversity Genomics, University of Guelph