Biography

JOHN P. SMOL, OC, PhD, FRSC, FRS is a Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Biology at Queen’s University (Kingston, Ontario).

He also held the Canada Research Chair in Environmental Change from 2001 to 2021. Smol founded and co-directs the Paleoecological Environmental Assessment and Research Lab (PEARL), a dedicated group of students and other scientists to study long-term global environmental change, especially lake ecosystems.

John has authored more than 650 journal publications and chapters since 1980, as well as over 20 books. As of now he has a citation figure of 46,000 and an h-index of 100.

Much of his research deals with the impacts of climatic change, acidification, eutrophication, contaminant transport, and other environmental stressors.

Smol was the founding Editor of the J. Paleolimnology (1987-2007) and is current Editor of Environmental Reviews (Q1 journal).

Since 1990, John has received 6 honorary doctorates and has been awarded around 70 research and teaching awards and fellowships, including the NSERC Herzberg Gold Medal as Canada’s top scientist or engineer, and the International Ecology Institute Prize. Amongst his 15 teaching and outreach awards, he was named a 3M Teaching Fellow, and following a nation-wide search, the reputed journal Nature chose John as Canada’s Top Mid-Career Science Mentor.

In 2013, he was awarded the highest achievable honor for a Canadian Citizen, the Officer of the Order of Canada for his environmental work.

And in 2018 he was recognized as a Fellow of the Royal Society (London).

He was recently elected President of the Academy of Science, Royal Society of Canada.