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Kerry Rowe and John Smol recognized for their significant research contributions by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

November 6, 2024 – KINGSTON – The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) is recognizing two Queen’s University researchers for their respective career and lifetime achievements in environmental science. Dr. Kerry Rowe (Civil Engineering) and Dr. John Smol (Biology) have each earned major NSERC awards that acknowledge the national and global impact of their work and underscore the university’s leadership in environmental research.

Dr. Rowe has received the prestigious Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal for Science and Engineering, named in honour of Canadian Nobel Laureate Gerhard Herzberg. The Herzberg  is the highest distinction awarded by NSERC in the fields of natural sciences or engineering and is awarded annually to a Canadian whose research achievements have demonstrated persistent excellence and influence. 

Dr. Smol has been awarded the Donna Strickland Prize for Societal Impact of Natural Sciences and Engineering Research. It is awarded annually to an individual or team whose outstanding research, conducted in Canada in natural sciences or engineering has significantly benefitted society, the environment or economy.

“These awards showcase the high calibre of environmental science research at Queen’s and its potential to create meaningful change," says Patrick Deane, Principal and Vice-Chancellor. "Drs. Rowe and Smol are addressing some of the world’s most critical challenges, and these recognitions emphasize the broad impact of their work, here and around the world.”  

With these awards, Drs. Rowe and Smol add to their long lists of accomplishments, including as Officers of the Order of Canada, members of the Royal Society of Canada and the Royal Society (London), and recipients of the Killam Prize. In 2004, Smol became the youngest Herzberg Gold Medalist, while Rowe in 2022 was the inaugural winner of the Strickland Prize. 

"The NSERC awards recognize the dedication and excellence of Drs. Rowe and Smol and the Queen’s research community,” says Nancy Ross, Vice-Principal (Research). “Together, their careers represent a remarkable eight decades of research. Their work advances knowledge, fuels innovation, and plays a pivotal role in shaping future generations of STEM researchers.”

Dr. Rowe is an internationally renowned expert in geoenvironmental engineering including landfill design and contaminant migration. He is credited with pioneering approaches that have transformed understanding of how different components, like leachate collection layers, geomembranes, and clay liners, work together to prevent ground and surface water contamination. 

Dr. Smol's work at the Queen’s Paleoecological Environmental Assessment and Research Laboratory (PEARL) has led to the development of many approaches for evaluating long-term ecological changes. Using lake sediment cores – long tubes of mud collected from lake bottoms, sliced into thin layers, and dated – he pioneered novel methods for reconstructing historical characteristics of lake ecosystems to better understand how they will respond to future changes and address many water quality issues.

Dr. Rowe and Dr. Smol will be recognized at a ceremony in Ottawa. For more information .

Quick facts

• Queen’s University has won 14 major NSERC prizes since 1990.
   
• The NSERC Herzberg Gold Medal includes a grant of up to $1 million over five years, supporting university research initiatives or funding scholarships and research chairs in Dr. Rowe’s name.
   
• Dr. Rowe will join an esteemed group of past recipients, including Queen’s Nobel Laurate (2015) Dr. Art McDonald who won the Herzberg Medal in 2003, and artificial intelligence experts Yoshua Bengio (2023) and Geoffrey Hinton (2010), who was recently awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics.
   
• The NSERC Donna Strickland Prize for Societal Impact of Natural Sciences and Engineering Research offers $250,000 in research funding paid over the course of three years.

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Queen’s University is one of Canada’s leading universities with recognized academic achievement in the faculties and schools of business, engineering, medicine, law, arts and science, and education. It offers a transformative student learning experience enriched by a research-intensive environment. Established in 1841, Queen’s is home to more than 31,000 full-time and part-time undergraduate and graduate students from all provinces and more than 100 countries around the world. In 2023, for the third year in a row, Queen’s University ranked in the top 10 globally in the Times Higher Education Impact Rankings, securing the position of third worldwide and first in North America.

Media Contact
Julie Brown
Media Relations 
Queen’s University
Brown.julie@queensu.ca