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News & impact
What has come out of this lab
News, publications and impact in one place. Papers are one output. The other is what happens to the people who trained here — the awards they win as students, and the careers they build afterwards. The full publication list is on Publications, and press coverage on Media & recognition.
News, publications and impact
Everything this lab has put out
Papers, awards, student awards and outreach, most recent first. Everything here has a date and a moment it happened. What the work amounted to is a different question, and it is gathered in impact at the foot of this page.
Showing all 14 items.
- 2026
In progress: Generational Status, Informal Education and Persistence in STEM for the Black Learner
Book chapter in preparation for Across Regions and Borders (2026). B. Ayoola and K. Hewitt.
- 2026
In progress: Young, Gifted and Black Future Physicists
A four-year study of culturally responsive STEM immersion. Book chapter in preparation for Across Regions and Borders (2026). B. Ayoola, M. Godwin and K. Hewitt.
- 2026
Submitted: Canadian Physics Counts on identity and experiences of harm
Considering how identity relates to experiences of harm within the Canadian physics community. Submitted to FACETS, March 2026. A. Tassone, E. Hennessey, A. Smolina, S. Hennessey, K. C. Hewitt and S. Ghose.
- 2025
Canadian Physics Counts published in FACETS
The first national exploration of the diverse identities of physics students and professionals in Canada. Hennessey, Smolina, Hennessey, Tassone, Jay, Ghose and Hewitt.
- 2025
Liver discard rates quantified in Transplantation
Hao Guo leads a study showing how conservative visual estimation of steatosis costs transplantable organs. Transplantation vol. 109, no. 10.
- 2025
Robert J Holland Jr Award for Research and Leadership
Awarded to Dr Kevin Hewitt. ‘Research knows no borders’: Physics prof recognized for leadership and research excellence — DalNews, 26 March 2025 →
- 2024
Portable ambient-light probe validated on human liver specimens
A twelve-author study across Dalhousie, Leiden, the BC Cancer Agency and Vanderbilt evaluates the probe from minimal to severe steatosis. Journal of Biophotonics.
- 2023
Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee Medal
Awarded to Dr Kevin Hewitt.
- 2021
NSERC Award for Science Promotion (individual)
Awarded to Dr Kevin Hewitt for science promotion, recognising two decades of outreach in Nova Scotia. DalNews coverage →
- 2021
Rosemary Gill Award for Outstanding Service to Students
Awarded to Dr Kevin Hewitt by Dalhousie University.
- 2021
Two graduate students take the William Leiper Memorial Scholarship
Hao Guo and Benjamin Hansson. Guo also received the Vitamin Scholarship, a two-year award starting May 2021. Hansson holds an NSERC CGS-D and the Dalhousie President’s Award, and received a Teaching Assistant Award.
- 2018
Named Science Champion by the Nova Scotia Discovery Centre
Recognising Dr Hewitt’s science outreach work in Nova Scotia, after being a finalist in 2008, 2011, 2012 and 2017.
- 2018
Imhotep’s Legacy Academy receives the first Dalhousie President’s Award for EDI
The first Dalhousie President’s Award for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion ever granted. Community engagement →
- 2014
Harry Jerome Award for Professional Excellence
Awarded to Dr Kevin Hewitt.
The full, chronological publication list lives on Publications — 45 refereed papers, filterable by research area.
Scholarships established
Money that reaches students directly
Awards for students entering Dalhousie, two of them supported by Dr Hewitt. If you are applying to the lab, these are worth reading before you write to us.
$48,000
Over four years · $12,000 annually, renewable
Joan and Dr Kevin Hewitt Sankofa Scholarship
Part of Dalhousie’s Sankofa Scholarships, established in 2021 to break down barriers for students of African descent. This award is named for Dr Hewitt and his mother, Joan Hewitt — her name was added at his request.
Ongoing
Funded by payroll deduction since inception
Physics and Atmospheric Science Bursary for Black/African Canadian or Aboriginal Students
Established by department staff to support Black Canadian and Aboriginal students in Physics at Dalhousie. Dr Hewitt has contributed to it through payroll deduction every year since it was created, over the past decade.
Graduate
Entrance scholarship
James Robinson Johnston Graduate Entrance Scholarship for African Canadians
A Dalhousie entrance scholarship for African Canadian students starting a graduate degree.
The wider Sankofa programme also includes awards of $32,000 over four years for Black Canadian students of Caribbean heritage and for African Nova Scotian students. See Join us for how funding works if you are applying to this lab, and Community engagement for the programmes behind these awards.
Media & recognition
Covered since 1999
Forty-nine media features, interviews and broadcast appearances, most of them about Imhotep’s Legacy Academy and the participation of Black students in science. Kept on its own page so this one stays about the lab and its students.
50 items from 1999 to 2025, filterable by theme.
Eighteen items spanning 1999 to 2021, from VTV in Vancouver to the Chronicle Herald.
Seventeen items — CBC, the Globe and Mail, the Canadian Black Scientists Network and the NSERC inclusion team.
Coverage of the lab’s own work, including the medical diagnostic programme.
Impact
What this work has changed
The news above records what happened. This is the difference it made — for patients, for physics, and for who gets to do science. Each statement links to the work behind it.
Clinical
A quarter of the instrument cost
Redesigning the steatosis analyser from a spectrometer to a filter-based system cut the build cost from roughly $65,000 to about $18,000, and made it work under theatre lighting. Patents filed 2015 and 2016.
Discovery
A world first
The first demonstration anywhere of CW stimulated SERS, using continuous-wave rather than pulsed sources. Faraday Discussions 2017, extended in Scientific Reports 2019.
People
Researchers trained from high school to postdoc
Postdoctoral fellows and doctoral, masters and honours graduates since 2003 — many first authors on their own papers, several of whom built the instruments the lab still uses. Behind them, the high school and university students brought into science through Imhotep’s Legacy Academy and CBSN Youth.
More than 60 trainees have passed through the lab.
Recognition
Papers chosen for the cover
Three papers were selected as the cover image of the issue they appeared in, which is the journal saying the work was the most notable thing it published that month.
Biomedical Optics Express, October 2022 (volume 13, issue 10), selected from the 31 articles in that issue: H. Guo et al., “Real-time assessment of liver fat content using a filter-based Raman system, operating under ambient light through lock-in amplification”, pp. 5231–5245 — featured on the cover as an optical diagnostic tool for organ biomarker assessment. See the issue →
Dr Hewitt was also co-editor of a special issue of Physics in Canada.
Students
Two scholarships established
The Joan and Dr Kevin Hewitt Sankofa Scholarship, worth $48,000 over four years, and an award for Black students entering Physics funded by payroll deduction since it was created.
Public
Twenty-five years in the press
Forty-nine media features, interviews and broadcast appearances since 1999, most of them about Imhotep’s Legacy Academy and the participation of Black students in science.
Alumni
Trained here? Tell us where you landed
The alumni table is the page prospective students read most closely. Send your current role and institution and we will keep your entry current.