Waterloo researcher wins Canada’s top science and engineering prize
Decades of work leads to prestigious award win for chemistry professor Dr. Linda Nazar
World-renowned energy materials scientist and solid-state electrochemist, Dr. Linda Nazar, Chemistry, has received the 2026 Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal for Science and Engineering for her immense contributions to battery research, a field where she continues to make waves.
The Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal for Science and Engineering is the highest honour awarded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), recognizing an individual whose body of work, conducted in Canada in the natural sciences or engineering, has demonstrated persistent excellence and influence. The award celebrates Canada’s most outstanding scientists and engineers and raises public awareness about the major contributions that top researchers make to science, technology and improving the lives of Canadians.
Nazar is a world authority in electrochemical energy storage whose impact on the field has resulted in seminal contributions to materials chemistry and electrochemistry. She has advanced fundamental knowledge to solve important problems related to sustainable energy storage. Her work has also inspired countless others to push the envelope in their research, which has enhanced the field overall. Over the past decade, she has been among the most highly cited researchers (Web of Science) each year with more than 300 co-authored papers and more than 82,000 citations.
Looking back on her career, Nazar has many standout moments that make it easy to see why she was an ideal candidate for the Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal for Science and Engineering. Her early work on high-capacity cathode materials such as lithium iron phosphate led to significant advances in battery technology and the development of cathodes that offered higher energy densities and better performance at lower cost.
More recently, a highlight of her career is her research on lithium-sulfur batteries, which hold the potential for higher energy densities and lower costs compared to traditional lithium-ion batteries. Another is her pivotal research in the last decade. “Our contributions to solid electrolytes and advanced solid-state batteries have been instrumental in moving this technology closer to practical, widespread use,” Nazar says.
Her team has also been involved in developing and applying advanced techniques for characterizing battery materials at the atomic and molecular levels, which has deepened the fundamental understanding of how materials behave and degrade, leading to better design and longevity of energy storage.
Nazar also received the Killam NRC Paul Corkum Fellowship in 2025, and the Royal Society U.K. Hughes Medal in 2024, an award rarely given to citizens outside of the U.K. Prior to the Hughes Medal, she was also appointed as a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 2020.
Winning the NSERC Herzberg Gold Medal for Science and Engineering is another significant career milestone for Nazar. “Receiving the Herzberg Gold Medal is an extraordinary honour,” she says. “To be recognized alongside scientists whose discoveries I have admired for so many years is both thrilling and deeply humbling. What has always driven me is the excitement of discovering something new and exploring bold ideas that can open doors to technologies we once thought impossible and contribute to a more sustainable energy future. I am deeply grateful to my students, colleagues and collaborators who have shared this journey, and to NSERC and the University of Waterloo for their longstanding support. There is still so much to discover, and that is perhaps the most exciting part of all.”
With the grant that comes with the award, Nazar plans to expand her research into bold new directions in solid-state and aqueous batteries.
Nazar embodies why Waterloo is recognized worldwide as a leading research-intensive university, celebrated for its entrepreneurship and innovation. We congratulate her on this honour.
Banner photo credit: Shoot Studio | Sylvie Li
