NAME: Dr. Sylvia Fedoruk
UNIVERSITY: Saskatchewan
CATEGORY: Builder
YEARS ACTIVE: 1946-1951
HIGHLIGHTS:
Member of 12 Saskatchewan teams that won intervarsity championships
First female Chancellor at the University of Saskatchewan
Member of the Saskatchewan Huskies Hall of Fame
Officer of the Order of Canada
BIOGRAPHY:
Dr. Sylvia Fedoruk had a remarkable multi-sport at the University of Saskatchewan and went on to make tremendous contributions in the field of medical physics.
At the U of S, Fedoruk competed in basketball, volleyball, track and field, hockey, golf, and was a member of 12 intervarsity championship teams: She celebrated with the Cecil Race Trophy five times as part of Huskiette basketball team; was on the track team that won the Rutherford Trophy twice, played with the volleyball squad that captured the Landa Trophy three times and on two occasions helped the golf team lay claim to the Birks Trophy.
The Canora, Sask., native was active in many facets of campus life, serving as president of the Women’s Athletic Board in 1948-49. In 1949 she received the Spirit of the Youth Trophy, a prestigious award given to a U of S female student-athlete in recognition of leadership, sportsmanship, character, academics and athletics.
Fedoruk went on to a distinguished career in medical physics, specializing in the use of radiation in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. One of Canada’s foremost medical biophysicists, Fedoruk was the only woman conducting medical physics research in Canada in the 1950's. She was part of a a team of scientists involved in the development of one of the world's first cobalt-60 units and one of the first nuclear medicine scanning machines, which pioneered the curative treatment of cancer using high intensity radioactive cobalt in humans.
She served as chief medical physicist for the Saskatchewan Cancer Foundation. In 1986 she became the first female Chancellor at the University of Saskatchewan, a role she held until 1992, and was Saskatchewan's Lieutenant-Governor from 1988 to 1994.
In 1987 Fedoruk was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. She was inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame in 2009.
She was Inducted as an athlete into the Saskatchewan Huskies Hall of Fame in 1984.