Finalists for Canada’s top science prize announced (October 07, 2003)

Ottawa, ON October 7, 2003 – Tom Brzustowski, President of the National Science and Engineering Council, this morning named the finalists for the 2003 Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal for Science and Engineering:

– Richard Bond, Director of the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics at the University of Toronto, is one of the world’s leading cosmologists. He is responsible for major new insights into the nature of dark matter and black holes and for greatly expanding our knowledge of the structure and evolution of the early universe.

– Arthur McDonald, Queen’s University, Kingston, is a renowned subatomic physicist and leader of the Sudbury Neutrino Project (SNO). The SNO experiment received worldwide acclaim for providing the definitive answer to what happens to solar neutrinos after they leave the sun.

– John Smol, Queen’s University, Kingston, transformed paleolimnology and the study of ancient lake sediments into one of the hottest fields in ecology and a powerful tool for revealing how aquatic organisms interact with their environment and respond over time to climate change.

Dr Brzustowski says the 2003 winner will be announced November 24 and awarded the Gold Medal the following day at a gala event at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. Canadian high-tech leader and NSERC Council member Mike Lazaridis will give the keynote address.

The winner’s NSERC Discovery Grant will be increased to $1 million over five years. If the annual grant is already greater than $150,000 a year, it will be topped up by a further $50,000 a year. The other two finalists will receive a research grant of $50,000 each.