From food and water shortages to global warming and the energy crisis, most of the world’s issues can be reduced to scientific problems requiring the minds of today’s graduates, says leading Canadian scientist Paul Corkum.
Known as ‘the father of attosecond molecular imaging,’ Corkum was conferred an honorary Doctor of Science by The University of Western Ontario in recognition of his contributions to the field.
Paul Corkum
He spoke to about 540 graduates from the Faculty of Science/ Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry – BMSc Honors programs, the Faculty of Science – BSC and BA Honors programs, and the School of Graduate & Postdoctoral Studies at the June 11 afternoon session of Western’s 293rd Convocation.
Shedding light on the life of a scientist, Corkum told graduates how he has grown personally, socially and scientifically throughout his career.
“Society itself needs your skills and will value it very much,” he says. “We ourselves can only contribute a small part, but together many of us working on these problems can make progress.”
Like the many ‘greats’ that make up the canon of science, such as Newton, Darwin or Einstein, Corkum hopes graduates will also “add to the edifice of science.”
Corkum has made a name for himself in the field.
He is an internationally renowned physicist based at the University of Ottawa. He has earned numerous honours, including the 2008 John C. Polanyi Award, for his research into how intense laser light pulses interact with atoms and molecules.
Corkum’s love for physics started early. He earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from Acadia University in 1965, followed by a master’s and PhD at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania.
He began his scientific career at the National Research Council in Ottawa where he continues to discover different aspects of nature and create knowledge. Recently, he expanded his workplace to include the University of Ottawa, where he holds a joint appointment and a Canada Research Chair.
His groundbreaking work in the 1980s, introducing and experimentally confirming a model of atomic ionization, is fundamental to atomic physics and plasma physics research and has changed the approach to X-ray laser research.
Corkum also penned a comprehensive theory of strong field atomic physics. This work has become the foundation for all subsequent research in this area.
After 36 years on the job Corkum is not slowing down. Currently, his research involves exploiting the implications of the re-collision electron and he is the director of the Attosecond Science Program at the National Research Council.
He is the Canada Research Chair in Attosecond Photonics and an elected member of the American Academy of Science.
Corkum is a member of the Royal Societies of London and Canada. He also received the Canadian Association of Physicists’ gold medal for lifetime achievement in Physics (1996), the Royal Society of Canada’s Tory award (2003), the Optical Societies Charles H. Townes award (2005) and the IEEE’s Quantum Electronics award (2005). In 2006, he received the Killam award for natural sciences and the American Physical Society’s Arthur L. Schawlow prize for Quantum Electronics.
In 2007, he was inducted as an Officer to the Order of Canada.
In his citation, Faculty of Science dean David Wardlaw says Corkum has achieved one of the most important goals of science – the ability to control chemical reactions.
“When electronics, optical equipment, and the characteristics of existing lasers halted what had been steady progression to ever shorter pulses, Paul turned his experience, creativity and intellect to the situation and figured out how to use atoms or molecules themselves in tandem with existing lasers to generate the shortest laser pulses of all time,” he says, adding “one attosecond is to one second as one second is to the estimated age of the universe.”
Although Corkum is known for his research, he has also made contributions as an experimentalist, as a theoretician, as an innovator, as an educator and trainer of young scientists, and as a leader of scientific teams and projects, Wardlaw adds.
As part of the ceremony, the status of Professor Emeritus was conferred upon Professor Colin Baird (Chemistry). The Edward G. Pleva Award for Excellence in Teaching was presented to Professor Robert Dean (Biology) and the Marilyn Robinson Award for Excellence in Teaching was presented to Professor Felix Lee (Chemistry).