Chemistry Prof Earns Award
June 16, 2010 - News Release
A University of Guelph professor has received a prestigious award for his contributions to advancing electrochemistry. Prof. Jacek Lipkowski, Department of Chemistry, was named the recipient of the 2010 E.B. Yeager Award this week. He will be honoured at a special symposium in the fall.
The award, named for renowned electrochemist Ernest B. Yeager, is presented every two years to an outstanding North American researcher. A professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Yeager founded the Yeager Centre of Eletrochemical Sciences, one of the largest university research groups in the field. He died in 2002 of Parkinson’s disease. The award is presented by the Electrochemical Society.
“It’s a great honour for me to be selected as the E.B. Yeager Award winner,” Lipkowski said, adding that he plans to take several of his students to the symposium. “It’s particularly significant for me because I knew Yeager personally. He was an outstanding scientist and outstanding human being, very hard-working and conscientious and devoted to his research and his students. For those who knew him, it’s this aspect of science with a human face that makes the award with his name so significant.”
A U of G professor since 1983, Lipkowski is renowned for groundbreaking research conducted over the past 30 years. Currently, he is co-ordinating research on proteins and peptides through the Guelph-based Advanced Foods and Materials Network, which involves 13 scientists from across Canada.
He is also leading a research team that received $2.7 million from the Canada Foundation for Innovation in 2006 to conduct leading-edge life science and soft materials research involving biomolecules, cells and bacteria. This project involves 24 investigators at U of G and more than 100 post-doctoral researchers and students.
In 2007, Lipkowski received a Killam Research Fellowship from the Canada Council for the Arts. He was elected to the Royal Society of Canada in 2004 and was named one of U of G’s first Canada Research Chairs in 2001.
His many other honours include a research award from Germany's Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in 1995, the Prix Jacques Tacussel Award from the International Society of Electrochemistry in 1997, the Canadian Society for Chemistry’s Alcan Award in 1998, the gold medal of the International Society of Electrochemistry in 2004, and a gold medal from the Canadian section of the Electrochemical Society in 2005.
Lipkowski received his master’s degree and PhD in chemistry from the University of Warsaw. He was a visiting professor at the Fritz-Haber Institute in Berlin and was a 1996 Humboldt Fellow in electrochemistry at the University of Ulm in Germany.
For media questions, contact Communications and Public Affairs: Lori Bona Hunt, 519-824-4120, Ext. 53338, or l.hunt@exec.uoguelph.ca, or Deirdre Healey, Ext. 56982 or d.healey@exec.uoguelph.ca.
