Physicist.
Born at Winnipeg on 3 April 1925, son of Edgar Graham Standing (1895-1980) and Elsie Mellis Morison (1889-1988), he attended Daniel McIntyre Collegiate where a teacher inspired him to pursue a career in physics. He entered the University of Manitoba and studied for a year before interrupting his education to enlist in the Royal Canadian Navy during the Second World War. After his military discharge, he returned and finished his undergraduate degree then completed AM and PhD degrees in nuclear physics at Princeton University. He joined the staff of the University of Manitoba in 1953 where he designed, built, and commissioned a particle accelerator, and was its director from 1959 to 1974. In the late 1970s, he changed his research specialization to mass spectrometry of biological molecules. He received awards including the Canadian Society for Mass Spectrometry Award for Distinguished Contributions to Mass Spectrometry, the Canadian Association of Physicists Medal for Outstanding Achievement in Industrial and Applied Physics, the American Chemical Society Field and Franklin Award for outstanding achievement in mass spectrometry, and the Encana Principal Award from the Ernest C. Manning Foundation. He was elected as a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the Royal Society of Canada, and received an honorary doctorate from the University of Manitoba (2009). He retired in 1995 but continued his research into his 80s. He died at Winnipeg on 21 March 2019.
Obituary [Edgar Graham Standing], Winnipeg Free Press, 4 October 1980, page 78.
Obituary [Elsie Mellis Standing], Winnipeg Free Press, 29 May 1988, page 22.
Obituary, Winnipeg Free Press, 30 March 2019.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 31 March 2019
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