John P. Smol | |
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 John Smol holding a Glew lake sediment corer in his lab at Queen`s University | |
| Born | John P. Smol Montreal, Quebec, Canada |
| Nationality | Canadian |
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| Known for | Advancements in the field of long-term environmental change |
| Awards | Steacie Prize (1992) Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal for Science and Engineering (2004) Flavelle Medal (2008) Vega Medal (2023) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Limnology Paleolimnology Limnogeology Arctic Diatoms[1] |
| Institutions | Queen's University |
| Thesis | Postglacial changes in fossil algal assemblages from three Canadian lakes (1982) |
| Website | queensu |
John P. Smol,OC OOnt FRS FRSC[2] is a Canadian ecologist,limnologist andpaleolimnologist who is a Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Biology[3] atQueen's University, Kingston, Ontario, where he also held theCanada Research Chair in Environmental Change for the maximum of three 7-year terms (2001–2021).[4] He founded and co-directs the Paleoecological Environmental Assessment and Research Lab (PEARL).[5][1][6]
John Smol was born in Montreal, Canada. Both his parents were originally from Czechoslovakia. His mother was a war refugee and his father a political defector, who met in the immigrant sections of Montreal. His father was killed by a drunk driver in a car accident when Smol was 8 years old. He has three siblings, all of whom are in academia/education.
Smol was educated atMcGill University (BSc),[7]Brock University (MSc),[8] andQueen's University (PhD).[9]
Smol works on a diverse range of subjects, most of which focus on using lake sediments to reconstruct past environmental trends. Topics include:lake acidification caused byacid rain, sewage input and fertilizer runoff (eutrophication), studies of nutrient and contaminant transport by birds and other biovectors, and a large program on climatic change. For about three decades, he has been leading research in the highArctic, studying the present-day ecology of polar lakes and ponds, and then using paleolimnological approaches to determine how these ecosystems have been changing due to natural andanthropogenic stressors.
The author or editor of 24 books and over 700 journal publications and book chapters,[1][10] Smol is an international lecturer and media commentator on a variety of topics, but most dealing with environmental issues. From 1987 to 2007, he edited theJournal of Paleolimnology.[11] Since 2004, he has been editor of the journalEnvironmental Reviews.[12] He is the series editor of theDevelopments in Paleoenvironmental Research[13] book series. He held the Chair of the International Paleolimnology Association[14] for two three-year terms ending in August 2018, and until recently was President (2019–2022) of the Academy of Science,Royal Society of Canada.
Among over 100 awards and fellowships,[2] Smol is the recipient of theGerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal for Science and Engineering,[15] given by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)[16] to honour Canada's top scientist or engineer. He also holds the distinction of being awarded four individual medals from theRoyal Society of Canada, namely: theMiroslaw Romanowski Medal for significant contributions to the resolution of environmental problems; theFlavelle Medal for outstanding contribution to biological science; the McNeil Medal for the Public Awareness of Science; and theSir John William Dawson Medal for important and sustained contributions in two domains (in his case, geology and biology) of interdisciplinary research. Smol was elected aFellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2018.[17] He holds seven honorary degrees: LLD,St Francis Xavier University (2003); PhD,University of Helsinki (2007); DSc,University of Waterloo (2012); LLD,Mount Allison University (2016); DSc,Ryerson University (2016); DSc, Western University (University of Western Ontario) (2017); DSc,Acadia University (2024). In 2013 he was named an Officer of theOrder of Canada.[18] TheVega Medal from the Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography (SSAG) was presented to Smol in 2023.[19] Smol was made a Member of theOrder of Ontario for the class of 2022.[20]
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