Dr. Chuji Hiruki receives Consul General's Commendation
On July 8th at the opening for the EJCA Summer Festival held in Edmonton, Consul-General Tanabe conducted the Consul-General’s Commendation ceremony for the 2017/18 fiscal year, awarding Dr. Chuji Hiruki, Professor Emeritus (Plant Pathology) at the University of Alberta.
Alongside Dr. Hiruki’s teaching as a professor from 1966 to 1996 at the University of Alberta, he engaged in developing a virus-free seed potato production method, was elected a Fellow of The Royal Society of Canada (1990), and, among other honours, was awarded the Alberta Science and Technology Leadership Award. Furthermore, he discovered an abnormally occurring virus in pasture, winning him the grand prize from the International Society of Plant Pathology, as well as received the Arthur Gilbert McCalla Professorship, and the Distinguished University Professorship (1991) from the University of Alberta. Following Dr. Hiruki’s retirement, in recognition of his achievements he was bestowed the special title of Professor Emeritus at the University of Alberta.
Furthermore, after leaving the UofA he popularized the Camellia, a specialty flower of his hometown Goto City, in Nagasaki Prefecture, and he currently holds the positions of Vice-president of the Japan Camellia Society as well as President of the Goto Camellia Society. Dr. Hiruki also attends the International Camellia Society, and is engaged in activities attracting the ICS’s interest in Goto City, while having vigorously worked to popularize the Camellia as a flower of Japan.