The Road to Stockholm

Dr. McDonald formally received his Nobel Prize from King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden in a ceremony at the Stockholm Concert Hall. (Clip from live stream)
The Department of Physics, Engineering Physics and Astronomy held a celebration for Dr. McDonald. Here, he chats with students in Stirling Hall. (Photo by Stéphane Courteau)
Dr. Art McDonald, the inaugural chair of the Gordon and Patricia Gray Chair in Particle Astrophysics, pictured with Patricia and Gordon Gray.
Physics colleagues (Photo by Bernard Clark)
At the Homecoming football game in October, Dr. McDonald opened the game with a ceremonial kick-off. (Photo by Suzy Lamont)
At the Homecoming football game in October, Dr. McDonald opened the game with a ceremonial kick-off. (Photo by Suzy Lamont)
On Thursday December 3, 2015, with the Nobel Prize ceremony just a week away, Queen’s University took time to honour Professor Emeritus Arthur McDonald with a special "Big Bang Send-off" event in Grant Hall. (Photo by Bernard Clark)
Dr. McDonald takes a photo with members of the Queen’s Bands after a university-wide “Big Bang Send-off” with students, staff and faculty in Grant Hall. (Photo by Bernard Clark)
Dr. McDonald has been known to use Timbits to explain neutrinos and other mysteries of the universe (Photo by Bernard Clark)
December 7, 2015: Dr. Art McDonald Nobel Laureates press conference.
At a Nobel reception at the Canadian Embassy in Sweden, Dr. Art McDonald celebrated with hockey great Börje Salming. (Photo by Gunnar Seijbold)
At the Nobel lecture at Stockholm University, Dr. McDonald discusses the history of the SNO experiment before explaining the neutrino breakthrough. (Photo by Gunnar Seijbold)
Dr. McDonald formally received his Nobel Prize from King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden in a ceremony at the Stockholm Concert Hall. (© Nobel Media AB Photo Pi Frisk)
Dr. McDonald formally received his Nobel Prize from King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden in a ceremony at the Stockholm Concert Hall. (Clip from Nobel live stream)
At the Nobel banquet: Michiko and Takaaki Kajita, King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia of Sweden, and Art and Janet McDonald. (© Nobel Media AB Photo Alexander Mahmoud)
December 11, 2015: Dr. Art McDonald at the taping of the Nobel Minds program. (Photo by Gunnar Seijbold)

October: It has been a whirlwind few months for Professor Emeritus Art McDonald. Following the Oct. 6 announcement of the Nobel Prize for Physics, the world’s attention focused on Dr. McDonald and his co-winner, Dr. Takaaki Kajita of the University of Tokyo.

October & November: Over the next weeks and months, Dr. McDonald’s work was covered by media around the world, from The New York Times to The Indian Awaaz.

Dr. McDonald also showed his lighter side in a clip for television’s This Hour Has 22 Minutes, during which he patiently demonstrated the notion of a neutrino changing flavours using an iconic Canadian donut, the Timbit.

In November, Dr. McDonald and the SNO Collaboration received another major award: the 2016 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics. The SNO Collaboration shared the $3-million prize with four other international experimental collaborations studying neutrino oscillations: the Superkamiokande, Kamland, T2K/K2K and Daya Bay scientific collaborations.

December: He also took the time to celebrate with the Queen’s community before he left for Sweden to accept his award. At the Queen's "Big Bang" send-off in Grant Hall, members of the Queen's community watched a congratulations video created by Studio Q, a Queen's AMS student-run creative agency. The video includes messages from colleagues from SNOLAB and Queen's, Governor General David Johnston, and Ted Hsu, former MP for Kingston & the Islands (and himself a Queen's physics grad.)

When Dr. McDonald formally received his Nobel medal from King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden in a ceremony at the Stockholm Concert Hall, back in Kingston, members of the Queen’s campus gathered in Stirling Hall to watch the ceremony.

While in Stockholm, Dr. McDonald took part in Nobel Minds 2015, a BBC roundtable discussion with his fellow Nobel laureates in science, economic sciences and literature.

January: In January, Dr. McDonald, an Officer of the Order of Canada since 2006, was promoted within the Order, to Companion.