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Miroslaw Romanowski Medal
- 2011 - Andrew J. Weaver, FRSC
- 2010 – Donald Mackay
- 2009 – Stan Boutin, FRSC
- 2008 – Warwick F. Vincent, FRSC
- 2007 - Christopher M. Wood
- 2006 - Richard Peltier
- 2005 - Robie Macdonald, FRSC
- 2004 - Derek C.G. Muir, FRSC
- 2003 - Peter J. Dillon
- 2002 - Kevin J. Kennedy
- 2001 - John P. Smol, FRSC
- 2000 - David R.S. Lean
- 1999 - Howard Roy Krouse, FRSC (Co-medallist)
- 1999 - Jerome O. Nriagu, FRSC (Co-medallist)
- 1998 - Thomas C. Hutchinson, FRSC
- 1997 - Michel Maldague
- 1996 - John A.Cherry, FRSC & Robert W. Gillham
- 1995 - Pierre Legendre, MSRC
- 1994 - David W. Schindler, FRSC
Top of Page2011 - Andrew J. Weaver, FRSC
Andrew Weaver is Canada's best-known climate-change scientist. He is recognized internationally as a leader in climate modeling and analysis and, in particular, a foremost expert on the role of the ocean in climate variability and change. His exceptional research achievements, scholarly writings, and resolute efforts to share his knowledge on climate change have been critically influential the world over. An exceptionally productive researcher, Weaver has transcended disciplinary boundaries, authoring or co-authoring almost 200 peer-reviewed papers in a number of disciplines including climate, meteorology, oceanography, earth science, mathematics, policy, education, and anthropology.
Andrew Weaver is a leader in the development and application of intermediate complexity Earth System models and contributed to building the ocean component of the first generation of the CCCma climate model. With assistance from the Killam Fellowship program and NSERC Steacie Fellowship program, Professor Weaver and his group developed an Earth System Climate Model (ESCM) of intermediate complexity (referred to internationally as the UVic climate model) to explore climate feedbacks within the climate system. He is one of the first climate scientists to engage in quantitative paleoclimate modeling. His recent research in this area has contributed significantly to our understanding of the fundamental mechanisms of climate change and variability over the last 130,000 years of Earth history. Weaver also has recently become interested in how climate has affected human dispersal over this period, and together with his students/postdoctoral fellows, he has published or submitted eight manuscripts in this emerging field.
2010 – Donald Mackay
Donald Mackay is a pioneer in improving our scientific understanding of the pathways of chemicals in the environment, including bioaccumulation and global transport to remote regions such as the Arctic. His quantitative simulation models employing the thermodynamic concept of fugacity, known as “Mackay Models” are used internationally to assess and regulate chemical exposure and risks of toxic effects in humans and the ecosystem.
2009 – Stan Boutin, FRSC
Stan Boutin's 30-year research career has focused on understanding how boreal organisms adapt to environmental change and supplying the information necessary to make ecologically informed landuse decisions.
2008 – Warwick F. Vincent
Warwick F. Vincent has contributed fundamental insights into the structure and functioning of aquatic ecosystems and their sensitivity to changes such as eutrophication, UV increases and global warming. His most significant scientific impact has been in Antarctic and Arctic environmental research. Dr. Vincent has won several awards for his environmental research, outreach and teaching.
2007 - Christopher M. Wood
Dr. Wood is an outstanding scientist who has made substantial contributions to the proper stewardship of our environment. His recent work on the role of natural organic matter in predicting toxicity of metals will have far reaching effects on the regulatory industry. His work has advanced the understanding of impacts of acidic deposition, metal pollution, alkalinization, climate change, and dissolved organic matter on aquatic organisms, as well as their mechanisms of adaptation to extreme environments.
2006 - Richard Peltier
Department of Physics, University of Toronto
Dr. Peltier’s research focuses on one of the most pressing environmental problems, that of global warming due to increasing atmospheric concentrations of the "greenhouse gases", most notably carbon dioxide. His detailed theoretical models of contamination are now widely employed internationally and are uniquely distributed through the web site of the Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level.
2005 - Robie Macdonald, FRSC
Robie Macdonald, FRSC, Research Scientist at the Institute of Ocean Science, is a world-class scientist, internationally recognized for his work on contaminant pathways in environmental systems. His research includes the role of the ocean in arctic contaminant transport, arctic hydrological and ice interactions and organic carbon cycling. His time-series data for the Beaufort Sea reveals that recent surface freshening of the Canada Basin results largely from diverted runoff pathways. While these studies have led to insights on contaminants in aquatic systems, they have at the same time illuminated the biogeochemical systems into which contaminants enter. He has studied all major contaminants suspected to disrupt development of aquatic organisms. He is recognized internationally as the country's leading expert on the behaviour of contaminants in the marine environment. In addition to contaminants, Dr. Macdonald has studied the freshwater balance and carbon cycling in the Arctic, which is critically important for our understanding of sources and sinks of greenhouse gases. He was awarded the CMOS (Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society) President's Prize (2000) for leading the synthesis of Canadian arctic contaminant studies and was co-recipient of the Head of the Public Service Award for Excellence in Policy (2002).
2004 - Derek C.G. Muir, FRSC
Derek Muir, FRSC, is Project Chief of the Aquatic Ecosystems Protection Research Branch, National Water Research Institute, Burlington, Ontario. He heads Canada's major environmental chemistry program that studies sources, fates and bioaccumulation of persistent organic contaminants and trace metals in aquatic and terrestrial environments throughout Canada. His work has led to the detection of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in the environment and the understanding of their global movement in the atmosphere and bioaccumulation in high latitude and high altitude ecosystems and in the Great Lakes. He was among the first to discover that concentrations of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and trace metals in piscivorous fishes and marine mammals in remote parts of Canada are high enough to pose potential health risks for human consumers. Muir's work on the biogeochemistry of pesticides and PCBs was important evidence that contributed to the recent international circumpolar treaty to reduce the use of persistent airborne chemicals. More recently, he has done pioneering work in the detection and biogeochemistry of new organic chemicals, including fluorinated surfactants, brominated diphenyl ethers, and chlorinated paraffins. His studies have been widely used in assessments of the persistence, bioaccumulation and potential health effects of organic chemicals and toxic trace metals. He is one of the 10 most highly cited authors in the world in the fields of Ecology and Environment for the period 1992-2002.
2003 - Peter J. Dillon
Prof. Peter J. Dillon FRSC is an internationally respected environmental scientist, who has been active in the field of biogeochemistry for over 25 years. He is currently the Director of the Water Quality Centre at Trent University where he also holds the NSERC Industrial Research Chair in Watershed Biogeochemistry. He has often led Canada and the world in furthering our understanding of the effects of human activities on aquatic resources (e.g., acidification, eutrophication, contaminants) and the relative effects of natural factors (climatic variability) and the roles that watersheds play on the aquatic ecosystems. One of his greatest accomplishments has been the generation of long-term monitoring programs that have generated amongst the longest and highest quality records that exist in North America. He fostered and managed the development of the Dorset Research Centre, which has come to be recognized as one of the key freshwater research centres in the world - making fundamental contributions to our understanding of eutrophication, acid rain, and climate change, metal pollution, and other stressors. These findings are now being used in numerous innovative ways to understand the factors that ensure continued good water quality and ecological integrity of our aquatic resources. His research has always led to significant improvements in the ways we manage and protect lakes and other ecosystems.
2002 - Kevin J. Kennedy
Kevin J. Kennedy is a tenured professor cross-appointed between the departments of Chemical Engineering and Civil Engineering at the University of Ottawa. He is a world-renowned researcher in the field of biological waste treatment systems, in particular high rate anaerobic digestion processes. Using his varied academic background resulting from degrees both in Science and Engineering, Dr. Kennedy's research has been innovative and able to cross boundaries between the disciplines. His pioneering research, both fundamental and applied, covers topics that encompass both the science and the engineering of waste treatment. Anaerobic treatment, although well established as an industrial treatment technology, was largely based on trial and error design and black box technology. Dr. Kennedy's theoretical and laboratory research in such areas as biofilm modelling, fixed film reactor modelling, development/application of downflow fixed film anaerobic reactors and hybrid anaerobic reactors as well as application and modelling of anaerobic sequencing batch reactors has cast scientific light on the technology and contributed not only to understanding many of the underlying biological interactions that control the process but also to improved design and control of anaerobic system applications. Recently, Dr. Kennedy has turned his attention to determining the fate of chlorinated phenolics in waste treatment and the use of soybean peroxidase enzymes for treatment of ground waters contaminated with halogenated aromatics.
The results of his research are the subject of about eighty scientific papers, five book chapters as well as many industrial reports, conference presentations and proceedings. Research projects conducted by Dr. Kennedy and his students have been the recipient of many national and international awards.
2001 - John P. Smol, FRSC
John P. Smol, FRSC is a professor in the Department of Biology, cross-appointed with the School of Environmental Studies, at Queen's University, where he currently holds the Canada Research Chair in Environmental Change. He has devoted his career to the study of environmental problems, focussing on approaches that use long-term data. For example, his work was instrumental in the acid rain debates, and his paleoenvironmental approaches have been rapidly incorporated into other studies of global environmental change, such as climatic change, biodiversity, fisheries, and lake management issues. He founded and presently co-heads the Paleoecological Environmental Assessment and Research Lab (PEARL), a group of about thirty scientists dedicated to the study of environmental change using primarily lake and river sediments (the largest such group of paleolimnologists in the world). Smol has more than 230 publications to his credit, and is soon to finish his thirteenth book, all related with environmental issues. He has authored well over 400 conference presentations; many of these were invited and several were opening keynote addresses. Smol is the founding editor of the international Journal of Paleolimnology and continues on as co-editor-in-chief (presently at volume 25). He is on the editorial boards of several other journals, and is the coeditor of a new book series on environmental change. Over the last decade, Smol has been awarded eighteen medals, fellowships, and prizes for his environmental work, as well as several teaching awards.
2000 - David R.S. Lean
David R. S. Lean is one of the foremost freshwater scientists in Canada. Before moving to his current position as NSERC-Industrial Chair in Ecotoxicology in the Department of Biology at the University of Ottawa, he spent twenty-four years as a scientist and project leader at Environment Canada’s National Water Research Institute in Burlington, Ontario. Lean has produced 134 peer-reviewed scientific papers, twenty-four book chapters and thirteen refereed conference papers. In 1993, he and two co-investigators received the Chandler-Misener Award for excellence in Great Lakes research; he also received the Frank Rigler Award for outstanding freshwater research. Lean’s early work on the dynamics of phosphorus cycling is widely cited. His paper "Phosphorus dynamics in lake water", published in Science in 1973, is considered to be a citation classic. More recently, his work on the physics, chemistry and biological effects of UV radiation in freshwater and marine systems has made several important discoveries. He and his associates have demonstrated that coloured dissolved organic compounds are the major attenuators of UV radiation in most freshwater lakes, and that in addition to the direct biological damage caused by exposure to UV radiation, the interaction of UV with dissolved organic compounds can produce hydrogen peroxide, carbon monoxide, superoxides and other reactive chemicals that are toxic to aquatic organisms. His current research includes the role of UV on the fate of mercury and persistent organic pollutants.
1999 - Howard Roy Krouse, FRSC (Co-medallist)
Howard Roy Krouse, Department of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Calgary, has been involved for about thirty years in environmental studies employing stable isotope fractionation to demonstrate how isotope abundances have been determined by physical, chemical and biological means. His work has improved our understanding of environmental phenomena through the study of isotopes of oxygen, carbon, sulfur and nitrogen in biological, geological and hydrologic systems. Tagging and tracing using isotopes have been used by Krouse to understand problems of waste management and point to long term management strategies. Among his diverse environmental research efforts he is best known for his extensive studies of sulfur cycling in the environment. The Canadian studies have generated interest in sulfur isotope studies generally. His environmental studies have involved humans in space and studies of plants and animals associated with the land, sea and atmosphere. Dr. Krouse has been invited to share his expertise and insights at institutions all over the word as well as in the United Nations Environmental Program. His enthusiasm and breadth of knowledge have demonstrated that information from stable isotope systems can assist in producing essential data in our quest for a better understanding of our environment and indeed the universe.
1999 - Jerome O. Nriagu, FRSC (Co-medallist)
Jerome O. Nriagu, Department of Environmental and Industrial Health, University of Michigan, is the world’s leading expert on the atmospheric transport of trace metals, their biogeochemical cycles, and their significance for human health. He has published well over 150 widely cited articles (including a dozen in Nature and Science) and edited more than twenty-five books that bring together the scattered information on these topics. From Environment Canada, where he had an extremely productive and distinguished career in its National Water Research Institute at Burlington, Ontario, he has taken a leadership role as Director of the Environmental Health Sciences Program at the University of Michigan. He began his career as a classical geochemist, publishing papers on the chemistry of lake sediments, dealing in particular with sulfur, iron and phosphorus. He soon developed an interest in the chemistry of precipitation, with special attention to isotopes of sulphur. In 1979 he began a long series of papers on anthropogenic emissions of trace metals to the atmosphere, and his interest in health aspects of trace metals began with a 1983 paper on saturnine gout among aristocrats in the Roman Empire. Nriagu has been unusual in the number of trace-element pollutants that he has investigated, ranging from arsenic to zinc.
1998 - Thomas C. Hutchinson, FRSC
Thomas C. Hutchinson, Department of Environmental and Resource Studies, Trent University, is one of Canada's leading ecologists, with a distinguished international reputation for his research on the effects of smelter pollution at Sudbury upon both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. His studies have been diverse, examining the impacts of various pollutants such as sulfur dioxide, sulfuric acid and trace metals on a variety of organisms ranging from microbes and algae to crops and forest trees, as well as from insects to fish and birds, and in a variety of ecosystems. He has also investigated nutrient cycling under stress and the adaptations of organisms to stress, including the evolution of metal tolerance. In addition, Professor Hutchinson has studied the causes of sugar-maple decline, the responses of tundra and boreal ecosystems to oil spills, and the toxicity of specific oil hydrocarbons in controlled experimental conditions. His investigations have ranged from the arctic to the tropics and from urban to rural environments searching for common elements of ecosystem response to both anthropogenic and natural stresses, and noting both synergisms and antagonisms. Recently, he has focused on the ability of ecosystems to recover from stress.
1997 - Michel Maldague
Michel Maldague is renowned for his diverse work in applied zoology. His studies of note include:
· examinations of the basic fertility mechanisms of equatorial forest soils, particularly the role of termites in evergreen rainforests;
· work concerning the role of earthworms in decomposition of forest litter and the generation of zoogenic humus;
· use of earthworms as indicators of soil pollution or compost quality;
· development of an ecological method (non-destructive and non-polluting) to avert the presence of earthworms near airports (to resolve the problem of birds in the vicinity of airport landing strips);
· development and invention of an original method and apparatus to lower the water level in beaver ponds;
· invention of a method and development of a semi-automatic apparatus to inventory termite populations;
· development of a new radioactive carbon-based biotic soil activity indicator.
Professor Maldague also pioneered the use of radioactive isotopes at the Faculty of Forestry and Geomatics of Université Laval, establishing their first forest soil biology laboratory.
1996 - John A.Cherry, FRSC & Robert W. Gillham
The university research community and industry have worked together to address the problem of solvent contamination of groundwater. Removing these contaminants has been estimated to be costly-up to $1.0 trillion in the USA alone-because of the huge volumes of water involved.
Dr. Cherry has made significant contributions to the development and implementation of new approaches including sealable-joint steel sheet pile cells (Waterloo Barrier), for conducting field studies of solvent contamination and cleanup. Dr. Gillham has invented and conducted the pioneering research on reactive iron technology, which is now the leading new technology for controlling solvent contamination with minimal long term cost and maximum water conservation.
The reactive iron technology developed by Dr. Gillham has proved to be an inexpensive and highly effective method for in situ degradation of chlorinated organic contaminants. This process requires no energy source and further, the reactive materials should remain effective for several years or much longer. Currently, this technology has been selected as the preferred technology at one EPA Superfund site and is being evaluated at more than 125 sites, including two full-scale installations, one in California and one the other in Northern Ireland.
The test cell approach for field research using the Waterloo Barrier fostered by Dr. Cherry has provided an environmentally safe and scientifically controlled means of observing the subsurface behaviour of solvents and other hazardous industrial chemicals in natural aquifers. From its initial use in numerous field experiments at Canadian Forces Base Borden, Ontario, it has recently been adopted for major field experiments in the United States. Also, use of this barrier system has expanded beyond research to installations at municipal landfills, and many old industrial sites in Canada and the United States, to prevent the spread of groundwater contamination.
1995 - Pierre Legendre, MSRC
Pierre Legendre, Université de Montréal, has realized two fundamental scientific contributions concerning the solution to environmental problems: the development of a sub-domain of the ecology (now known as Écologie numérique) and, more recently, the introduction of spatial structures as explicit components in ecosystem models. Environmental management of large ecosystems today inspires a global view of their principal functions. It is in this view, essentially multivariable and multi-causal, that the impact of pollutants and different uses and abuses of ecosystems by humans must be evaluated. L'écologie numérique, formally created in the work of Pierre Legendre and his collaborators during the 1970s and 80s, has now become the obligatory methodological frame of reference by which environmental problems are judged.
In addition, since 1983, Dr. Legendre has worked to understand the importance of spatial organization of ecosystem components for their functioning. He is looking to describe it in a quantitative way and then explicitly incorporate spatial structure of populations and settlements in ecological models currently employed in the management of ecosystems. He has developed two methods which permit the integration of the spatial component in causal models of population and biological communities. The spatial component represents a synthetic element, integrating the effects of numerous environmental variables, as well as a way of quantitatively expressing the global action of dynamic processes of populations. These new methods have already been applied to studies of an impressive number of ecosystems in Canada and abroad.
1994 - David W. Schindler, FRSC
David W. Schindler, professor in the Department of Zoology at the University of Alberta, is exceptionally qualified for the Romanowski Medal because of his many contributions to theoretical and applied limnology, particularly through pioneering "whole-lake" experiments on eutrophication and acidification. These studies were absolutely critical to USA/Canada agreements on cleaning up the Great Lakes and controlling cross-border transport of pollutants. His papers are widely cited, and his awards are numerous: Frank Rigler Award, Canadian Society of Limnologists; Outstanding Achievement Award, American Institute of Fisheries Research Biologists; Hutchinson Medal, American Society of Limnology and Oceanography; Naumann-Thienemann Medal, International Limnological Society; Stockholm Water Prize. These awards attest to David Schindler's position as the preeminent freshwater scientist in the world today.