John P. Smol

JOHN P. SMOL, OC, PhD, FRSC, FRS is a Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Biology at Queen’s University (Canada). Smol founded and co-directs the Paleoecological Environmental Assessment and Research Lab (PEARL), a group of ~40 students and other scientists dedicated to the study of long-term global environmental change, and especially as it relates to lake ecosystems. John has authored >660 journal publications and chapters, as well as completed 22 books. Smol was the founding Editor of the J. Paleolimnology (1987-2007) and is current Editor of Environmental Reviews (2004 – present). Since 1990 he has received six honorary doctorates and has been awarded >70 research and teaching awards and fellowships, including the International Society of Limnology Naumann-Thienemann Medal, both the Hutchinson Award and the Margalef Award from the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography, the International Ecology Institute Prize, and the NSERC Herzberg Gold Medal as Canada’s top scientist or engineer. He was named an Officer of the Order of Canada for his environmental work, a Fellow of the Royal Society (London), and was elected President of the Academy of Science, Royal Society of Canada (2019-2022).