The Dalhousie Originals 200th anniversary storytelling project acknowledges and celebrates the impact and contributions made to our campus, country and world by some of the outstanding individuals associated with the university since 1818.

Professor Emeritus, Dr. Ford Doolittle, of the Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology is a world renowned biologist. He is this week's Dalhousie Original.

In 2013, Dr. Doolittle received Canada’s highest recognition for scientific research: the Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSREC). He was the first researcher in Dalhousie history — and the first from any university east of Quebec — to receive the prestigious $1 million prize, which recognizes career achievement in the sciences.

Read: Challenging convention: Evolutionary biologist Ford Doolittle wins Killam Prize 

“I like to come up with ideas I think will be wildly unpopular and try to promote them,” he explains with a wry laugh. “Sometimes I’m successful, and sometimes I’m not.”

Learn more about Ford Doolittle and what makes him a Dalhousie Original.