The University of Toronto's Barbara Sherwood Lollar has received the prestigious Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal - the country's top prize for science and engineering research - for her work on water and the life it supports.
The University Professor in the department of Earth sciences was recognized for decades-long research into the geochemistry of deep crustal fluids, drinking water remediation and astrobiology - which seeks to understand the potential nature of life beyond Earth.
Yet, when speaking with someone outside her field, Sherwood Lollar often says, simply, that she "works on water."
"It makes it easy to tell the story because, at its fundamental level, water is such a touchstone for humans," she said.
Named after the 1971 Nobel Prize laureate, the gold medal is awarded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, or NSERC, for excellence and influence in research for a body of work conducted in Canada that has advanced the fields of natural sciences or engineering. The Herzberg comes with a grant of up to $1 million, distributed over five years, that can be used to fund university-based research or establish scholarships or research chairs in the winner's name.
