Sometimes, a high school teacher can become the spark that catapults a student鈥檚 career forward in an unexpected and surprising way.
For Erin Johnson, a professor in Dal鈥檚 Faculty of Science and of the world鈥檚 leading experts in theoretical chemistry, it was David Schneider, a grade 12 chemistry teacher who showed her how math could be used to predict and describe atomic orbitals.
鈥淚 found it fascinating that math could describe the structure of matter on such a fundamental level,鈥� says Dr. Johnson. 鈥淭he next semester, I took a co-op placement in a theoretical chemistry group at Carleton University, where I discovered my love of research. I was lucky enough to be able to stay involved in undergraduate research throughout my time at Carleton, and I decided to continue in this area for my graduate studies.鈥�
And this week, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) will honour her outstanding contributions to the field with the , a prestigious fellowship awarded to enhance the career development of outstanding and highly promising university faculty who are earning a strong international reputation for original research. Dr. Johnson will receive her award today (Monday, May 6) from The Right Honourable Julie Payette, Governor General of Canada at a reception in Ottawa鈥檚 Rideau Hall.
鈥淭his fellowship is an unparalleled opportunity for thinking time. Having uninterrupted blocks of time for research, particularly to think about projects, is invaluable and can be hard to come by since faculty members have to split their time between research, teaching, and service,鈥� she says. 鈥淭his fellowship gives faculty teaching and service relief, so they can devote much more of their time to research.鈥�
The E.W.R Steacie Memorial Fellowship was created to honour the memory of Dr. Edgar William Richard Steacie, an outstanding chemist and research leader. NSERC awards up to six Steacie Fellowships that are held for a two-year period. Since 1976, 网红黑料 has had nine other recipients, including Randall Martin (2012) and Boris Worm (2011). Successful fellows step away from teaching and administrative duties so they can devote all their time and energy to research with a grant of $250,000 over two years. Having that dedicated time to devote to pursue a specific research area is something to which Dr. Johnson looks forward.
鈥淚'm hoping that the thinking time provided by this fellowship will allow me to develop new theoretical methods to improve the accuracy of computational predictions for systems that are problematic for existing techniques. One example is intermolecular charge-transfer interactions. I'm also hoping to make a big push on our work towards molecular crystal structure prediction.鈥�
A creative and prolific scientist
A graduate of Carlton University in Ottawa, and Queen鈥檚 Universit