Gary Purdy joined the faculty of McMaster University in 1963.  He has held visiting fellowships and appointments in England, Sweden, Japan and France. At McMaster, he has served as Chair of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Associate Dean of the School of Graduate Studies, and Dean of the Faculty of Engineering. In the latter capacity, he helped establish McMaster’s Engineering and Society program; he designed and for several years taught a course within that program on “the History of Technology and its Impact on Society”. 

In the area of peace and peace education, he established and chaired a local chapter of Science for Peace.  In 1989, with nine other members of the McMaster community, he recommended to the President that a Centre for Peace Studies be established.  He is currently Director of the Centre; earlier this year he coordinated and taught in Peace Studies 1B03: “Introduction to the Study of War”.

He has received numerous awards and fellowships. Among them: He is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and a recipient of the Canadian Metal Physics Gold Medal; he was recently awarded a doctorate honoris causa by l’Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble; and, in 1998, he was appointed one of seven University Professors by McMaster University.