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Stewart MCLEAN Obituary
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Memories and Condolences
for Stewart MCLEAN
2 Entries
Ulric Trotz
July 9, 2023
It is with great sadness that I received the news of Stewart's passing. He was my PhD supervisor at the University of Toronto from 1966-1970 and I am eternally grateful for his guidance and patience during those challenging years. After returning to my home institution in Guyana Stewart provided some excellent advice and support that in no small way contributed to the consolidation of our programme in the Chemistry Department at the University of Guyana. He had established firm relationships with the Natural Products Chemistry community in the Caribbean and was a core member of the fraternity when we met at the biennial Natural Products symposium at the Chemistry Department at the Mona campus of the University of the West Indies in Jamaica. Over the years we have maintained our relationship and I am proud to claim him as a friend. The last time we met was at the Faculty club in Toronto just before the pandemic where we had lunch together with my daughter Alissa who is now a Faculty member of the University. We exchanged correspondence earlier this year when he described the issues with water shortages he experienced as a child growing up in a small island in the Andamans in response to my comments on challenges we face in the Caribbean with water availability in the age of climate change. Stewart's relationship with me evolved from one of a teacher and mentor to that of a dear and trusted friend. I shall miss his wise counsel and his quintessential Scots sense of humour. Alissa and I convey to his bereaved family our sincere condolences . May he Rest In Peace.
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Helen, Winston, Anderson, Baldwin
July 9, 2023
Tribute to Professor Stewart McLean from retired faculty members of the Departments of Chemistry, University of the West Indies, Mona, Cave Hill and St Augustine campuses
Professor Stewart McLean´s contribution to research in natural products chemistry at the University
of Guyana (UG) and the University of the West Indies (UWI) has been immense. In the early 1980s he
initiated a joint project between the University of Toronto (U of T) and UG which grew into research
partnerships with a number of faculty members from all three campuses of the UWI (Mona in Jamaica,
Cave Hill in Barbados and St. Augustine in Trinidad). Over the years, he hosted about 30 graduate
students from the Caribbean in his labs at the U of T, advancing their research projects and offering
mentorship and hospitality. These collaborations resulted in over 150 scientific papers describing
many novel compounds from terrestrial and marine sources in the Caribbean and Guyana.
By his own account, the genesis of Stewart´s relationship with the Caribbean was his attendance in
Jamaica in 1966 at the first of the biennial Mona Symposia on Natural Products, followed (on the same
trip) by a visit to Guyana. He formed friendships with the natural products chemists at the UWI Mona
campus in Jamaica at the time (Willie Chan, David Taylor et al) and was a regular Mona Symposium
participant up to the mid-1980s. In Guyana, he met Neville Trotz, who became his PhD student at the
U of T and a lifelong friend and key contact in Stewart´s later involvement with the UG.
Stewart recognized the potential for natural products research in Guyana and developed the idea of
creating a centre for natural products chemistry at UG. He formulated the project Natural Resources
Utilization Liaison in Guyana which received funding from CIDA. After overcoming several significant
obstacles the project ran between 1982 and 1990 (with Helen Jacobs and Winston Tinto operating,
sequentially, in Guyana) and resulted in eight students gaining MSc degrees from UG and about 40
scientific papers.
In the 1990s, after Helen and Winston moved to UWI (Mona and Cave Hill, respectively) other sources of funding supported Stewart´s further collaboration with them and their students as well as with Baldwin Mootoo and Anderson Maxwell and their students from St Augustine.
Stewart had to have been really adventurous and imaginative to conceptualize the Guyana project,
and executing it required extraordinary commitment, perseverance and composure. He has made an invaluable contribution to natural products research in the Caribbean and while we are saddened by Stewart´s passing, we recognize our good fortune to have had the pleasure of working with him over the years. We give thanks for his intellect, his high ethical standards, collegiality, his affable nature, generosity of time and effort, and his friendship. May his family be comforted and may his soul rest in peace.
As we say in the Caribbean - "walk good, friend!"
Helen, Winston, Anderson, Baldwin
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