Hats off to Professor Nando Canalis MD, this year’s recipient of the Carole E. Goldberg Emeriti Service Award recognizing UCLA emeriti for exemplary service to the university and their department. Nando’s publications and activities with CMRS since his retirement from the Department of Medicine are a huge part of his contribution to our university and Vesalius scholars everywhere!
Rinaldo “Nando” Canalis, Professor Emeritus of Head and Neck Surgery, retired in 2010 after thirty-seven years at UCLA as a surgeon-scientist with extraordinary skill as a teacher and mentor. He is a world-renowned authority on the facial nerve and has offered special anatomy labs to resident physicians who praise his intellectual nimbleness, civility and graciousness. He was, and remains, a beloved figure for his numerous trainees. Since retirement Rinaldo has continued to teach, collaborating in setting up a new anatomy course for the residents and helping to develop a Facial Nerve Center. His gracious diplomacy has been praised as a stabilizing force when his department recently went through a difficult leadership transition. He continues to contribute his academic wisdom as an emeritus.
Perhaps his most notable accomplishment in retirement has been his partnership with the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (CMRS). In 2015 he co-organized a major international conference inspired by the work of the 16th century anatomist, Andreas Vesalius, entitled “The Illustrated Body: Painting, Anatomy and Art in the Renaissance,” and he co-edited the resulting volume in 2018 published by Brepols Publishers. Dr. Canalis, in 2018, co-organized a conference on the representation of disease in art and literature in the Medieval and Early Modern Eras. Both conferences were funded by the Ahmanson Foundation, as will his future explorations in Medical Humanities at CMRS. He has shown himself to be a genuine “Renaissance Man,” whose emeritus service to two disparate schools at UCLA makes him worthy of the 2019 Carole E. Goldberg Award.
Please join us in wishing Distinguished Professor Emeritus Canalis a well-deserved congratulations for outstanding service to UCLA since retirement and for serving as a powerful example of intellectual and professional achievement.