Time at STM foundation for career success, says science innovator

Robert Audette contemplated cause and effect as he walked the halls of St. Thomas More College on his most recent visit home. 

As a natural scientist, probing the ‘why’ of things is just built into him.  

Why has he been so lucky in life? How has success been achieved in his career? Who were the people, and what were the factors that guided him on his path? 

His visit back to the College from which he graduated in 1972 spurred all those thoughts. 

The answers came from the memories of countless conversations around the cafeteria lunch table with friends and in discussions with STM professors who took an interest in helping him succeed when he was struggling. 

In particular, Audette recalls his first foray into taking a philosophy course. 

“During that first year at STM (1965) I had to take an arts elective, and I chose Introductory Philosophy, with Fr. Tom Stokes,” he said. “It was interesting because a natural scientist has certain ways of thinking about things, but when you go over to philosophy, it’s completely different.” 

Audette remembers struggling mightily in making the leap in his thought processes, and even failed an early philosophy exam – not an experience with which he was familiar. 

“A group of us in the sciences formed a group talking at lunchtime about a whole bunch of things, and Fr. Stokes used to come and sit with us and talk about life and philosophy. That really helped. In fact, Fr. Michael Swan used to also come down and mingle with us, and those discussions opened up our minds.” 

Audette, now a Ph.D. in the fields of analytical inorganic and clinical chemistry, said he had several fruitful conversations with Fr. Stokes, and finally made the connection about what philosophy was all about, and ended up with a mark of 78. 

“I was absolutely over the moon with that,” he said. “And that really, it turns out, was the foundation for helping me in my scientific career open up my mind and helped me to jump paradigms and take cutting edge scientific ideas and instrumentation from other scientific disciplines and other parts of the world and put them into perspective of what was happening in my current scientific career.” 

After graduating with his second degree in 1972, he did a Post Doc in Hamilton and returned to teach undergraduates at University of Saskatchewan Chemistry Department until 1973. Audette and wife, Marjolyn, reconnected with the STM College family at Sunday masses in the chapel. They moved to Edmonton in 1973 where he began work at the RCMP forensic lab as a forensic chemist. 

He did that for eight years, delving into paint identifications, explosives, soils, glass, petroleum products and all kinds of things related to chemistry as they pertained to crimes. 

He vividly recalls a tragedy in 1973 when a pedestrian -- a young mother -- was killed by a car that fled the scene of the accident. 

“At that point in 1973 it was very hard to match and trace paint chips left in clothing from hit and run accidents back to a specific automobile.” 

Today we take for granted that it is easy to collect automotive paint chips from accident scenes and the clothing of hit and run victims and match those paint chips to a specific make, model, and year of vehicle. Back then, the science was not ready. 

“After my first year of training as a forensic chemist I decided to do some paradigm shifting,” Audette said. 

He pioneered the development of a nation-wide comprehensive forensic computerized paint classification and identification system for the RCMP and was ultimately successful. 

“I jumped multiple paradigms combining chemical analysis and microscope techniques, color identification and new computerization techniques of data. I was 15, 20 years ahead of my time,” he said. 

Audette is considered the “Father” of this RCMP National Forensic Services’ Paint Data Query computerized automotive DB paint system which is currently accepted as the gold standard worldwide for identifying automobiles involved in hit-and-run accidents, in particular, where they involve a human victim. It is used by famous law enforcement labs like the RCMP, FBI, Scotland Yard and in countries all around the world. 

“And that comes back to that basic foundation at STM,” he said. “The philosophy courses I took allowed myself as a natural scientist to start broadening what I was doing and taking other perspectives into consideration.” 

The elasticity in thinking required to make the innovations required can be attributed to his training at Campion College, for his first year of undergraduate studies, and STM College, he said. 

He said at Campion College, the Jesuits helped him understand that it was important to broaden his interests to include those in the social sciences. 

“When I transferred up to Saskatoon, our Campion College’s Dean, Fr. Gerald Francis Lahey, suggested that I register at STM, and I’m so grateful that happened because it continued the tradition started by the Jesuits at Campion with the Basilians at STM.” 

Even more innovation and success would come during the next phase of his career as Assistant Director/Provincial Analyst and Analytical Toxicologist at the Alberta Provincial Analysts Laboratory (1979-1985). Following this he became a Clinical Toxicologist/Biochemist and Medical Staff at the University of Alberta Hospital’s Dept. of Laboratory Medicine in Edmonton and a Clinical Associate Professor at UofA (1985-2001). 

There he made the realization that cutting edge instruments and scientific and computerization techniques used in other scientific fields outside the medical community could be applied to analyzing the trace levels of metals in humans, both toxic and beneficial, in a much more efficient way. 

As Founder/Head of the Trace Elements/Environmental Toxicology Laboratory, Audette is recognized internationally as a pioneer and leader in establishing (in 1991) the first innovative specialized ICP-MS ultra trace element analysis service in clinical biological samples. Audette’s laboratory was the only clinical lab in Canada innovating and implementing this simultaneous testing method for 20 trace metals in clinical samples at that time and one of only three clinical labs in North America using this technique. 

Now it was possible to quickly analyze, within minutes, trace amounts of beneficial micro-nutrients like selenium (Se), zinc (Zn), copper (Cu), as well as toxic metals like lead (Pb), arsenic (As), mercury (Hg), cadmium (Cd) when a life might be on the line. 

He said the new system of analysis for ultra trace elements in clinical samples that he helped pioneer is now the gold standard in clinical laboratories for patient care around the world. 

This is critical for renal dialysis patients, people with diabetes and in the field of occupational health, especially for people on farms who were exposed to toxic metals unknowingly. Also, in today’s world for sustainable environmental climate goals by employing in EV’s, the critical trace minerals in Lithium-Ion batteries expose miners, manufacturers, recyclers and the general public to toxic levels of Li, Co, Ni, Cr, Mn, Cu, Pb, Hg, Cd and his ultra-trace elemental system is critical in ensuring the safety of all citizens. 

As an internationally accredited lab auditor, Audette went on in the 1990s to help develop rules and regulations for mineral analysis, environmental and toxicology labs aiming to achieve accreditation to the international ISO laboratory standard around the world. 

Through the travel involved in North and South America, Asia and the Middle East from 1990-2019, he had exposure to world religions and again recalled the important teaching he received at Campion and STM Colleges: to respect other religions and to do a lot of listening and learning.  

In his dealings with other cultures, he showed respect, made connections and subsequently was able to offer his 40-plus years of experience to educate them to improve their labs and help them rise up to the international ISO standard. 

It’s all been very rewarding and gratifying, he said. 

“I learned from my father, and it’s been an underlying principle that I’ve used all my life, that one has the responsibility to give back to society. And I have been truly blessed. Not only by what has happened in my life, but in my exposure to the education that I had at STM.” 

During his time as a student at the College, Audette was involved in the Newman Players, the Newman Club and volunteered as a reader or altar server at Masses.   

He met Marjolyn at an STM Newman drama night she was attending while taking her nursing education at the University Hospital. It turned out they had mutual friends, and were, in fact, next-door neighbours where they were rooming. 

It was another STM connection that shaped the course of his life and brought him the greatest joys. 

They have two sons (Gerald and Cameron) and a daughter (Christine) (all involved in the sciences), and four grandchildren to show for that chance meeting. 

The couple recently celebrated their 55th wedding anniversary. 

He sees the foundation he received at STM as the thread that has wound through his life and career. 

“I’ve been blessed to be able to do these things,” he said. “It comes back to opening one’s mind and thinking about the gift that we can give to humanity from our Catholic intellectual tradition of education, and I can’t think of a better place to have trained and been exposed to that than through STM.”