Dr Richard Florizone

Dalhousie Univ’s president is leaving the Nova Scotia university to join an innovation lab in Ontario. Dalhousie’s chair of the Board of Governors, Lawrence Stordy, announced on the university website that Dr Richard Florizone will be leaving Dalhousie for Quantum Valley Ideas Lab of Waterloo in the new year. Florizone, who has a PhD in physics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), started his term as Dalhousie’s 11^th president in 2013. Stordy thanked Florizone for securing the largest federal research grant for the university's Ocean Frontier Institute in 2016. Florizone was also instrumental in the university’s involvement in the ocean supercluster which was one of five successful superclusters to be federally funded. It is under Florizone’s leadership that an energized Dalhousie is celebrating its 200^th anniversary. In Ontario’s Budget 2017, the province invested $200 million over five years in Quantum Valley Ideas Lab to develop cutting-edge research and train qualified staff and support academia. The fund is from the province’s Business Growth Initiative, which supports the innovation-driven economy.