Honouring A Trailblazer

Ideacity alum Ronald O’Dor was honoured posthumously on November 22, 2023 at the Halifax Discovery Centre’s Discovery Awards, celebrating outstanding innovators in science and technology in Nova Scotia. He was a noted squid biologist and Professor Emeritus at Dalhousie University, where he’d spent most of his career after joining its Department of Biology in 1973. In his 2020 obit, he was remembered for “his big ideas on big science, use of cutting-edge technologies, for his ready smile and laugh, (and) for his infectious enthusiasm associated with all things to do with cephalopods.” At ideacity some years ago, while he was Senior Scientist at the then nascent Ocean Tracking Network, Ronald shared why tracking animals and marine species with tags and sensors was providing researchers with critical information about warming waters, endangered species and depleting fish stocks, tools that are still used to this day at OTN.