WIN member Linda F. Nazar, a professor in the department of Chemistry, is this year’s E.W.R. Steacie Award. The award is presented to a scientist who has made a distinguished contribution to chemistry while working in Canada.
Professor Linda Nazar received her B.Sc. in Chemistry from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, her Ph.D in Chemistry from the University of Toronto, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Exxon Research Labs in Annandale, N.J. She joined the faculty at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada where she is a Chemistry professor, Senior Canada Research Chair in Solid State Energy Materials, and Distinguished Research Professor. Nazar is known for her research on electrochemical energy storage with topics that span Li-ion batteries, “beyond Li-ion”, and solid state electrolytes/batteries. She has co-authored ~ 260 publications garnering over 58,000 citations. She is on the Web of Science’s Highly Cited Researcher Lists from 2014-2021, and a Fellow of the Royal Society (London & Canada).
Nazar is an Officer of the Order of Canada, and the recipient of several international awards including the MRS Medal, the Battery Research Award from the Electrochemical Society, the August-Wilhem von Hofman Lectureship (Germany Chemical Society), the International Battery Association award and the International Automotive Lithium Battery award. She has been a member of the Joint Centre for Energy Storage Research (USA) since 2013. She has spent sabbaticals at UCLA; the Jean Rouxel Institute of Materials and the CNRS in France; she was a Moore Distinguished Scholar at the California Institute of Technology and is currently a Visiting Liebig Professor at the Justus Liebig University in Giessen, Germany.
Congratulations Linda!
Professor Scott Hopkins, a member of WIN, has been named the winner of the 2021 Keith Laidler Award for his outstanding early-career contributions to physical chemistry, for research carried out in Canada, by a scientist residing in Canada.
Scott Hopkins is an Associate Professor of Chemistry at the University of Waterloo. His research explores gas phase ion chemistry and employs controlled environments to study the evolution of condensed phase properties. Hopkins’ research develops and uses experimental tools such as ion mobility spectrometry, mass spectrometry, and laser spectroscopy, as well as computational tools including artificial intelligence. His work has application in areas such as nanotechnology, environmental analysis, and drug discovery.
As of early 2022, Hopkins has authored three patents and 80 peer-reviewed articles in top tier chemistry journals. He has co-authored more than 210 presentations at conferences and research institutions, including 47 invited seminars, and his work has been highlighted on journal covers 12 times. Hopkins has been recognized with several awards and honours, including the Early Researcher Award of the Province of Ontario (2017), and the Young Investigator Award of the Canadian Society for Mass Spectrometry (2020). He was invited to co-chair the 2021 American Society for Mass Spectrometry Annual Conference and he served on the NSERC Evaluation Group for Chemistry as member (2020-2021) and group co-chair (2022) for physical, theoretical, and analytical chemistry.
Congratulations Scott!