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When Linda Nazar learned she would receive Canada’s most prestigious scientific award, she could hardly believe it.
“I felt quite honestly both humbled and inspired,” the University of Waterloo chemist told Quirks & Quarks. “It’s a real honour and I’m thrilled and deeply appreciative of receiving this and frankly I was surprised.”
But the award might not come as a surprise to anyone familiar with her track record.
Nazar has been collecting honours throughout her career. She’s a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the Royal Society (U.K.) and was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2015 for her contributions to battery research.
On November 4, she’ll add another to the collection: the $1-million Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal, the highest honour awarded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).
The medal was one of 26 prizes announced by the federal agency on Thursday. It recognizes Nazar’s pioneering work developing next-generation batteries, with discoveries that have helped advance the design of safer, more efficient batteries for electric vehicles, energy storage for power grids and beyond.
Awarded annually, the medal celebrates researchers “whose work has had a transformative impact on their field,” according to a statement from NSERC.
“Through visionary leadership, industry collaboration and mentorship, Dr. Linda Nazar has built a globally influential research enterprise at the intersection of chemistry, materials science and engineering,” said NSERC President Professor Alejandro Adem in the statement. “We celebrate her remarkable contributions and the profound influence she continues to have on science and the research community.”
Those contributions, her counterparts say, have helped tackle one of the biggest challenges in the transition to renewable energy: developing batteries that can store more power, last longer, cost less and operate safely.
Michael Pope, an associate professor at the University of Waterloo who co-directs the university’s Ontario Battery and Electrochemistry Research Centre alongside Nazar, says her cutting-edge research and “pioneering discoveries have advanced our fundamental understanding of battery chemistry.”
“[Her discoveries have] led to the development of entirely new battery materials and technologies,” Pope said in a statement to CBC. “Having worked closely with Linda, I have witnessed first-hand her extraordinary passion for science, unwavering dedication to discovery and genuine love of research, making this recognition incredibly well deserved.”
How Nazar got here
Nazar’s path into battery research wasn’t necessarily part of some big grand plan. In fact, it began, she says, with a side quest on Friday afternoons.
After earning a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of British Columbia in 1978, and a PhD from the University of Toronto six years later, Nazar went on to complete a postdoctoral fellowship at Exxon Research Labs in Annandale, N.J.
At the time, she says the lab was among the first working to develop rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. As a side project, Nazar says she would head into the lab every Friday to run battery experiments.
“It was just a great opportunity to kind of have some fun on a Friday afternoon,” she said.
That side project would soon help spark a career at the forefront of battery innovation.
By the early 2000s, Nazar’s research was helping advance the understanding of lithium iron phosphate — a material that has since become widely used in rechargeable batteries, including those powering electric vehicles and laptops.
An EV charging station is seen in Montreal on Friday, Feb. 20. Nazar’s research has contributed to developments that could one day allow electric cars to travel farther on a single charge. (Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press)
According to Ontario’s Universities, Nazar’s research has contributed to developments that could one day allow electric cars to travel farther on a single charge.
Ultimately, Nazar says what excites her most isn’t just the science itself, but what it could make possible.
She says the long-term potential for her research to benefit the environment — and humanity more broadly — is what keeps her motivated.
“Charging electric vehicles via renewable sources and mitigating climate change as a result is…extremely important, extremely important,” she said.
