Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal for Science and Engineering | |
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Awarded for | Continued excellence and influence in research |
Country | Canada |
Presented by | Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council |
Eligibility | Scientists or engineers working at a university, government or private laboratory |
First awarded | 1991 |
Last awarded | 2022 |
Total | 31 |
Total recipients | 31 |
The Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal for Science and Engineering is awarded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada to recognize "research contributions characterized by both excellence and influence." [1] Prior to 2000, NSERC had awarded the Canada Gold Medal for Science and Engineering, before deciding to rename the award to honour Gerhard Herzberg, winner of the 1971 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. [2]
The Herzberg medal is commonly called Canada's top award for science and engineering. [2] [3] [4] It is an individual annual award that recognizes continued excellence and influence in research in either natural sciences or engineering. [5] The award is a gold medal, and the guarantee of $1 million over five years to use for personal research. [5]
NSERC's Canada Gold Medal for Science and Engineering was first awarded in 1991 to Raymond Lemieux, a chemist working at University of Alberta. [6] Mathematician James Arthur from the University of Toronto was the 1999 recipient, [7] the last year before the award was renamed in honour of Gerhard Herzberg, the winner of the 1971 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. [2] NSERC decided to rename the award after Herzberg because they felt he embodied the two main qualities of the award, namely research contributions that are of high quality and influential. [5]
The Herzberg medal is awarded to a scientist or engineer working at a facility in Canada. It is considered Canada's top award for science and engineering. [2] [3] [4] Eligible facilities include universities, government and private labs. Nominations can be submitted by any Canadian citizen or permanent resident. The winner is chosen by a selection committee representing different scientific disciplines, who make a recommendations to the current NSERC president. [8] The award consists of a gold medal, and the guarantee of at least $1 million to use for research or for establishing research chairs, fellowships or scholarships in the recipients' name. [5]
From 2002 until 2009, three finalists were selected for the Herzberg Medal, and the winner selected from among them. The other two finalists (if it was their first time as a finalist) were awarded NSERC's Award of Excellence. [12]
Stephen Arthur Cook, is an American-Canadian computer scientist and mathematician who has made major contributions to the fields of complexity theory and proof complexity. He is a university professor at the University of Toronto, Department of Computer Science and Department of Mathematics.
Gerhard Heinrich Friedrich Otto Julius Herzberg, was a German-Canadian pioneering physicist and physical chemist, who won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1971, "for his contributions to the knowledge of electronic structure and geometry of molecules, particularly free radicals". Herzberg's main work concerned atomic and molecular spectroscopy. He is well known for using these techniques that determine the structures of diatomic and polyatomic molecules, including free radicals which are difficult to investigate in any other way, and for the chemical analysis of astronomical objects. Herzberg served as Chancellor of Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada from 1973 to 1980.
The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada is the major federal agency responsible for funding natural sciences and engineering research in Canada. NSERC directly funds university professors and students as well as Canadian companies to perform research and training. With funding from the Government of Canada, NSERC supports the research of over 41,000 students, trainees and professors at universities and colleges in Canada with an annual budget of CA$1.1 billion in 2015. Its current director is Alejandro Adem.
John Charles Polanyi is a German-born Canadian chemist. He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his research in chemical kinetics.
Gilles Brassard, is a faculty member of the Université de Montréal, where he has been a Full Professor since 1988 and Canada Research Chair since 2001.
Peter William Hochachka, was a Canadian professor and zoologist at the University of British Columbia (UBC). He is known for his foundational work in creating the new field of adaptational biochemistry, connecting metabolic biochemistry with comparative physiology.
Juan Cesar (Tito) Scaiano, OC, FRSC first came to Canada in 1975 as a visiting scientist with the National Research Council from Argentina. Returning to the NRC in 1979, he developed an innovative new program studying organic reaction intermediates using laser techniques. He then joined the University of Ottawa in 1991 as professor of chemistry.
Howard Alper, is a Canadian chemist. He is a Professor of Chemistry at the University of Ottawa. He is best known for his research of catalysis in chemistry.
David H. Dolphin, is a Canadian biochemist.
Arthur Bruce McDonald, P.Eng is a Canadian astrophysicist. McDonald is the director of the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory Collaboration and held the Gordon and Patricia Gray Chair in Particle Astrophysics at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario from 2006 to 2013. He was awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics jointly with Japanese physicist Takaaki Kajita.
Axel Dieter Becke is a physical chemist and Professor of Chemistry at Dalhousie University, Canada. He is a leading researcher in the application of density functional theory (DFT) to molecules.
Paul Bruce Corkum is a Canadian physicist specializing in attosecond physics and laser science. He holds a joint University of Ottawa–NRC chair in Attosecond Photonics. He is one of the students of strong field atomic physics, i.e. atoms and plasmas in super-intense laser fields.
David William Schindler,, was an American/Canadian limnologist. He held the Killam Memorial Chair and was Professor of Ecology in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta. He was notable for "innovative large-scale experiments" on whole lakes at the Experimental Lakes Area (ELA) which proved that "phosphorus controls the eutrophication in temperate lakes leading to the banning of phosphates in detergents. He was also known for his research on acid rain. In 1989, Schindler moved from the ELA to continue his research at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, with studies into fresh water shortages and the effects of climate disruption on Canada's alpine and northern boreal ecosystems. Schindler's research had earned him numerous national and international awards, including the Gerhard Herzberg Gold Medal, the First Stockholm Water Prize (1991) the Volvo Environment Prize (1998), and the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement (2006).
Victoria Michelle Kaspi is a Canadian astrophysicist and a professor at McGill University. Her research primarily concerns neutron stars and pulsars.
John P. Smol, is a Canadian ecologist, limnologist and paleolimnologist who is a Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Biology at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, where he also held the Canada Research Chair in Environmental Change for the maximum of three 7-year terms. He founded and co-directs the Paleoecological Environmental Assessment and Research Lab (PEARL).
Molly S. Shoichet, is a Canadian science professor, specializing in chemistry, biomaterials and biomedical engineering. She was Ontario's first Chief Scientist. Dr. Shoichet is a biomedical engineer known for her work in tissue engineering, and is the only person to be a fellow of the three National Academies in Canada.
Barbara Sherwood Lollar, is a Canadian geologist and academic known for her research into billion-year-old water. She is currently a Professor in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Toronto. In 2007, she was made a Canada Research Chair in Isotope Geochemistry of the Earth and the Environment. It was renewed in 2014.
Jeff Dahn is a Professor in the Department of Physics & Atmospheric Science and the Department of Chemistry at Dalhousie University. He is recognized as one of the pioneering developers of the lithium-ion battery that is now used worldwide in laptop computers, cell-phones, cars and many other mobile devices.
Erin Johnson is a Canadian computational chemist. She holds the Herzberg–Becke Chair at Dalhousie University. She works on density functional theory and intermolecular interactions.
Jeremy Kerr is a biology professor at the University of Ottawa (uOttawa) where he holds the University Research Chair in Macroecology and Conservation. Kerr is a member of the NSERC Council, including its executive committee, and the past president of the Canadian Society for Ecology and Evolution (CSEE). He is the Chair of NSERC's Committee on Discovery Research and a founding member of its EDI subcommittee. In 2021, Kerr was elected to be a member of Sigma Xi Society and is an elected lifetime Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.