John Smol

Last updated
John P. Smol
John Smol holding corer.jpg
John Smol holding a Glew lake sediment corer in his lab at Queen`s University
Born
John P. Smol

Montreal, Quebec, Canada
NationalityCanadian
Alma mater
Known forAdvancements in the field of long-term environmental change
Awards Steacie Prize (1992)
Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal for Science and Engineering (2004)
Flavelle Medal (2008)
Vega Medal (2023)
Scientific career
Fields Limnology
Paleolimnology
Limnogeology
Arctic
Diatoms [1]
Institutions Queen's University
Thesis Postglacial changes in fossil algal assemblages from three Canadian lakes  (1982)
Website queensu.ca/pearl/

John P. Smol, OC OOnt FRS FRSC [2] is a Canadian ecologist, limnologist and paleolimnologist who is a Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Biology [3] 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 (2001–2021). [4] He founded and co-directs the Paleoecological Environmental Assessment and Research Lab (PEARL). [5] [1] [6]

Contents

Early life

John Smol was born in Montreal, Canada. Both his parents were originally from Czechoslovakia. His mother was a war refugee and his father a political defector, who met in the immigrant sections of Montreal. His father was killed by a drunk driver in a car accident when Smol was 8 years old. He has three siblings, all of whom are in academia/education.

Education

Smol was educated at McGill University (BSc), [7] Brock University (MSc), [8] and Queen's University (PhD). [9]

Career and research

Smol works on a diverse range of subjects, most of which focus on using lake sediments to reconstruct past environmental trends. Topics include: lake acidification caused by acid rain, sewage input and fertilizer runoff (eutrophication), studies of nutrient and contaminant transport by birds and other biovectors, and a large program on climatic change. For about three decades, he has been leading research in the high Arctic, studying the present-day ecology of polar lakes and ponds, and then using paleolimnological approaches to determine how these ecosystems have been changing due to natural and anthropogenic stressors.

The author or editor of 24 books and over 700 journal publications and book chapters, [1] [10] Smol is an international lecturer and media commentator on a variety of topics, but most dealing with environmental issues. From 1987 to 2007, he edited the Journal of Paleolimnology. [11] Since 2004, he has been editor of the journal Environmental Reviews. [12] He is the series editor of the Developments in Paleoenvironmental Research [13] book series. He held the Chair of the International Paleolimnology Association [14] for two three-year terms ending in August 2018, and until recently was President (2019–2022) of the Academy of Science, Royal Society of Canada.

John Smol Royal Society.jpg
John P. Smol at the Royal Society admissions day in London, July 2018

Honours and awards

Among over 100 awards and fellowships, [2] Smol is the recipient of the Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal for Science and Engineering, [15] given by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) [16] to honour Canada's top scientist or engineer. He also holds the distinction of being awarded four individual medals from the Royal Society of Canada, namely: the Miroslaw Romanowski Medal for significant contributions to the resolution of environmental problems; the Flavelle Medal for outstanding contribution to biological science; the McNeil Medal for the Public Awareness of Science; and the Sir John William Dawson Medal for important and sustained contributions in two domains (in his case, geology and biology) of interdisciplinary research. Smol was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2018. [17] He holds seven honorary degrees: LLD, St Francis Xavier University (2003); PhD, University of Helsinki (2007); DSc, University of Waterloo (2012); LLD, Mount Allison University (2016); DSc, Ryerson University (2016); DSc, Western University (University of Western Ontario) (2017); DSc, Acadia University (2024). In 2013 he was named an Officer of the Order of Canada. [18] The Vega Medal from the Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography (SSAG) was presented to Smol in 2023. [19] Smol was made a Member of the Order of Ontario for the class of 2022. [20]

Selected publications

John Smol giving the 2023 Vega Medal Lecture in Stockholm, Sweden. JPS Vega lecture April 21 2023 Stockholm.jpg
John Smol giving the 2023 Vega Medal Lecture in Stockholm, Sweden.
John Smol on the Victoria Strait Expedition, Northwest Passage, High Arctic Canada. John Smol Victoria Strait Expedition Sept14.jpg
John Smol on the Victoria Strait Expedition, Northwest Passage, High Arctic Canada.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Polanyi</span> Canadian chemist (born 1929)

John Charles Polanyi is a German-born Canadian chemist. He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his research in chemical kinetics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paleolimnology</span> Scientific study of ancient lakes and streams

Paleolimnology is a scientific sub-discipline closely related to both limnology and paleoecology. Paleolimnological studies focus on reconstructing the past environments of inland waters using the geologic record, especially with regard to events such as climatic change, eutrophication, acidification, and internal ontogenic processes.

Sir Martin Wyatt Holdgate is an English biologist and environmental scientist.

Simon Asher Levin is an American ecologist and the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and the director of the Center for BioComplexity at Princeton University. He specializes in using mathematical modeling and empirical studies in the understanding of macroscopic patterns of ecosystems and biological diversities.

Edward A. Johnson is a Canadian ecologist. His research focuses on the contact between geosciences and ecology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Speakman</span> Biologist and professor at the University of Aberdeen

John Roger Speakman is a British biologist working at the University of Aberdeen, Institute of Biological and Environmental Sciences, for which he was Director from 2007 to 2011. He leads the University's Energetics Research Group, which uses doubly labeled water (DLW) to investigate energy expenditure and balance in animals. Between 2011-2020, he was a '1000 talents' Professor at the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, in Beijing, China, where he ran the molecular energetics group. In 2020 he moved to the Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shenzhen, China where he works at the Center for Energy Metabolism and Reproduction and Head of the Shenzhen Key laboratory of Metabolic Health.

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).

IISD Experimental Lakes Area is an internationally unique research station encompassing 58 formerly pristine freshwater lakes in Kenora District, Ontario, Canada. In response to the International Joint Commission (IJC)'s 1965 recommendations related to transboundary pollution, the federal and provincial governments set aside these lakes to study water pollution. During the 1970s and 1980s, David Schindler, who was at that time 'Canada's leading ecologist', conducted a series of innovative, landmark large-scale experiments in ELA on eutrophication that led to the banning of phosphates in detergents. In an unexpected and controversial move that was widely condemned by the scientific community, in 2012 the ELA was de-funded by the Canadian Federal Government. The facility is now managed and operated by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) and has a mandate to investigate the aquatic effects of a wide variety of stresses on lakes and their catchments. IISD-ELA used the whole ecosystem approach and makes long-term, whole-lake investigations of freshwater focusing on eutrophication.

Branchinecta gaini is a species of fairy shrimp from Antarctica and Patagonia. It is the largest freshwater invertebrate in Antarctica, at 16 mm (0.63 in) long. It lives on bacteria and other organisms, surviving the winter as resting eggs.

Sarah Perin Otto is a theoretical biologist, Canada Research Chair in Theoretical and Experimental Evolution, and is currently a Killam Professor at the University of British Columbia. From 2008-2016, she was the director of the Biodiversity Research Centre at the University of British Columbia. Otto was named a 2011 MacArthur Fellow. In 2015 the American Society of Naturalists gave her the Sewall Wright Award for fundamental contributions to the unification of biology. In 2021, she was awarded the Darwin–Wallace Medal for contributing major advances to the mathematical theory of evolution.

John Reynolds is a Canadian ecologist and holder of the Tom Buell BC Leadership Chair in Salmon Conservation and Management at Simon Fraser University. He is a specialist in fish ecology and conservation, particularly Pacific salmon in the Great Bear Rainforest, as well on extinction risk in marine fishes. He is Co-Chair of marine fish committee of the COSEWIC.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steven J. Cooke</span> Canadian biologist

Steven J. Cooke is a Canadian biologist specializing in ecology and conservation physiology of fish. He is best known for his integrative work on fish physiology, behaviour, ecology, and human-dimensions to understand and solve complex environmental problems. He currently is a Canada Research Professor in Environmental Science and Biology at Carleton University and the Editor-in-Chief of the American Fisheries Society journal Fisheries, Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Collaboration for Environmental Evidence journal Environmental Evidence, and Emeritus Editor and Strategic Advisor for the journal Conservation Physiology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paleophycology</span> Study and identification of fossil algae

Paleophycology is the subdiscipline of paleobotany that deals with the study and identification of fossil algae and their evolutionary relationships and ecology.

Ronald Kerry Rowe is a Canadian civil engineer of Australian birth, one of the pioneers of geosynthetics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Herb Wright</span>

Herbert Edgar Wright Jr. was an American Quaternary scientist. He contributed to the understanding of landscape history and environmental changes over the past 100,000 years in many parts of the world. He studied arid-region geomorphology and landscape evolution, as well as glacial geology and climate history. His study of these topics led him to the study of vegetation development and environmental history and allowed him to define the timing and mechanisms of climate-driven vegetational shifts in North America during the last 18,000 years and to recognize the role of natural fire in the dynamics of northern coniferous forests. He applied these insights to wilderness conservation and landscape management. He covered many other aspects of paleoecology including lake development and paleolimnology, and the history and development of the vast patterned peatlands of Minnesota and elsewhere in the Northern Hemisphere. Although his work was concentrated in Minnesota, he was also involved in a major synthesis of global paleoclimatology. Beyond Minnesota and the Great Lakes region, Wright studied a wide range of research questions elsewhere in North America, and in the Near East, Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Antarctica. He advised over 75 graduate students and mentored many more students, visitors, and colleagues worldwide.

Joanna Yvonne Wilson is a Canadian aquatic toxicologist and physiologist. Wilson is a multidisciplinary scientist whose work intersects the fields of environmental physiology, biochemistry, toxicology, bioinformatics and functional genomics. Her research focuses on studying cytochrome P450 enzymes and the effects of environmental contaminants on marine and freshwater species, the most notable being the impact of pharmaceuticals in the environment. She is a professor in the department of biology at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Birks</span> English botanist and paleontologist

Harry John Betteley Birks is a botanist and emeritus professor at the University of Bergen and University College London. He is best known for his work on the development of quantitative techniques in Quaternary palaeoecology. He has researched the vegetational and environmental history over the past 10–20,000 years in many parts of the world, including Fennoscandia, UK, Minnesota, the Yukon, Siberia, and Tibet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jeremy Kerr</span> Canadian biology professor

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, and of the Royal Society of Biology.

Hugh Joseph MacIsaac is a Canadian ecologist. He is a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Aquatic Invasive Species at the University of Windsor and a professor at the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research.

Marc Johnson is a professor of biology at the University of Toronto Mississauga. He is the Canada Research Chair for Urban Environmental Science, and was the first Director of the Centre for Urban Environments from 2018-2023.

References

  1. 1 2 3 John Smol publications indexed by Google Scholar OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
  2. 1 2 "Professor John Smol Developments in Paleoenvironmental Research". www.queensu.ca.
  3. "Undergraduate Degree Biology Graduate Courses Research – Queen's Biology Department". biology.queensu.ca.
  4. "Research Chair". 29 November 2012.
  5. "PEARL".
  6. John Smol's ORCID   0000-0002-2499-6696
  7. Algal blooms OCLC   883989884
  8. Paleolimnology of selected Precambrian Shield lakes OCLC   1032916530
  9. Postglacial changes in fossil algal assemblages from three Canadian lakes OCLC   15941406
  10. "Publication List".
  11. "Journal of Paleolimnology". Springer.
  12. "Canadian Science Publishing". Environmental Reviews.
  13. "Developments in Paleoenvironmental Research".
  14. "Home". Paleolim.
  15. "Herzberg Gold Medal". 28 June 2016.
  16. "NSERC". 28 June 2016.
  17. Anon (2018). "John Smol". royalsociety.org. Royal Society.
  18. General, Office of the Secretary to the Governor. "The Governor General of Canada". The Governor General of Canada.
  19. "Other awards". PEARL. 2023-05-24.
  20. "The 2022 Appointees to the Order of Ontario". Ontario.ca (Press release). November 6, 2023.
  21. Smol, John (July 29, 2016). "Some advice to early career scientists: Personal perspectives on surviving in a complex world". Ideas in Ecology and Evolution. 9 (1). doi: 10.4033/iee.2016.9.5.e via ojs.library.queensu.ca.