William A. Bridger
R.M. Spencer & Associates
Edmonton, Alberta

Dr. Bill Bridger was born in 1941 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and received both his undergraduate and graduate training in Chemistry and Biochemistry from the University of Manitoba. Following postdoctoral research at the Department of Chemistry at UCLA under Nobel Laureate Paul Boyer, Dr. Bridger joined the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Alberta in 1968. He was made a full Professor in 1977, and served as Chair of the Department of Biochemistry from 1987 to 1993. He then joined the central administration of the University of Alberta as Associate Vice-President (Research) until his move to The University of Western Ontario in 1996 as Vice-President (Research). In 2001 he was appointed the founding President & CEO of the Alberta Ingenuity Fund, a foundation dedicated to supporting science and engineering research in the province. He retired from that position in 2004, and presently is a partner and consultant with R.M. Spencer & Associates of Edmonton.

Dr. Bridger’s personal research has been concerned with the structure and function of enzymes and other proteins using the tools of molecular biology and protein crystallography. He has won numerous awards for his research, including the Ayerst Award from the Canadian Biochemical Society (1980). He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1989. In 2005 he was chosen as the recipient of the ASTech Award for service to Alberta’s science and technology community His scientific bibliography includes over 90 papers in refereed journals and one book (Cell ATP) published by Wiley in 1983.

Dr. Bridger has served on many committees and boards. Some highlights include the Board of Directors and Executive of the Robarts Research Institute and the Lawson Research Institute (affiliates of The University of Western Ontario), the Board of the Protein Engineering Network of Centres of Excellence (PENCE), and the Boards of Materials and Manufacturing Ontario (MMO), the Centre for Research in Earth and Space Technologies (CRESTech), Genome Prairie and Genome Canada, and the Fellowship Committee of the Royal Society of Canada. He has served as both Secretary and President of the Canadian Biochemical Society, and on both the Board and Executive of the Canadian Federation of Biological Societies. He served as Chair of the Board of The University of Western Ontario Research Park and as Chair of the Ontario Council on University Research. With RM Spencer & Associates, he now serves as a consultant to several research funding organizations, institutions, and government.

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