Biologist John Smol has been named as one of the 2008 Environmental Scientists of the Year by The Royal Canadian Geographical Society. His half-brother, biologist Jules Blais, is the other winner of this prize, which is one of Canada's most prestigious in the environmental sciences. The prize recognizes the importance of the brothers' scientific work to Canadian society.
Smol is series editor of the Springer book series Developments in Paleoenvironmental Research and has also edited many individual books in the series.
Smol, who examines how lakes are affected by environmental change, has worked in some of the most isolated and inhospitable locations in Canada and abroad, finding in each place a noxious concentration of chemicals, contaminants and poisons in the ground, in the water and in the cells of living things.
A professor in the Department of Biology at Queen's University, Smol also has a cross-appointment at the School of Environmental Studies. He is co-director of the Paleoecological Environmental Assessment and Research Lab (PEARL) and holds the Canada Research Chair in Environmental Change.
Since 1990, he has won more than 20 research awards and fellowships (including the 2004 NSERC Herzberg Canada Gold Medal, as Canada's top scientist or engineer), as well as five teaching awards.
This is the third year The Royal Canadian Geographical Society has bestowed the honor. The Society, which was founded in 1929, has more than 210,000 members and is dedicated to broadening public knowledge through research and education.