Honorary Members of the NSIS

Dr. Jeffrey R. Dahn is a pioneer in the development of the lithium-ion battery, which has worldwide impact, and was elected an Honorary Member of the NSIS in 2024.  He established a world-leading centre of battery science at Dalhousie University, and trained a generation of students (more than 140). He has partnered effectively with the major technology innovators in the private sector including the 3M Corporation, and currently with Tesla Inc. 

Jeff has received numerous and significant Canadian and international awards for his accomplishments and contributions to research, education and innovation. He has also given at least one of our NSIS public lectures. 

Jeff received a BSc, from Dalhousie in 1978, and MSc. and PhD degrees from UBC in 1980 and 1982, respectively. He then worked for 3 years at NRC in Ottawa, and then was at Moli Energy Ltd. in Burnaby, BC for 5 years where he became Director of Research. From 1990 to 1996 he was at Simon Fraser University, where he became Professor of Physics. In 1996 he moved to Dalhousie U. in Halifax, where he is currently Professor of Physics and Professor of Chemistry.

Dr. Dahn is most noted for work on Lithium-ion batteries, doing key research on their physics and chemistry to make them more long-lived, energy-dense, safe, reliable, and lower-cost.  In the process he developed a world-class centre of research and teaching excellence at Dalhousie. He has more than 900 publications in the peer-reviewed literature, with over 90,000 citations, and a Web of Science H-index of 154. Jeff has 78 patents issued or filed.

While Dr. Dahn’s scientific work has focused on the development and understanding of carbonaceous materials for use in lithium-ion batteries, he and his students have worked on many other aspects of Li-ion battery science and technology. For example, he is a co-inventor of Li[Ni_xMn_xCo_1-2x]O₂ 0 < x < 0.5 (called NMC) class of positive electrode materials now used worldwide in Li-ion cells. He and his colleagues also developed “High Precision Coulometry” and other advanced diagnostics which allow decades-long lifetimes of Li-ion cells to be assessed in experiments that last only a few weeks. Two spinoff companies, DPM Solutions and Novonix, have successfully emerged from the Dahn group at Dalhousie University.

Jeff has been a consultant with almost a dozen significant global companies, and has served as an expert witness for five others.

Dr. Dahn’s cumulative work as a scientist, innovator and educator has received widespread recognition.  Some of the most significant awards include: being ranked 8th world-wide for impact of publications in the area of Materials Science between 1990 and 1995 (Science Watch), being elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and a Fellow of the Electrochemical Society, the Governor General of Canada Innovation Award, the Herzberg Medal and the Medal for Excellence in Teaching (Canadian Association of Physicists), the W. Lash Miller Award (Canadian Section of the Electrochemical Society), the Research Award by the International Battery Materials Association, and induction to the NS Science Hall of Fame (Discovery Centre, Halifax).

Dr. Mary Anne White

In 2016, after being a long-time member of the NSIS, and NSIS Vice-President (1993-1994) and President (1994-1995), Professor White was made an Honorary Member. This recognizes her conspicuous service to the advancement of science in Nova Scotia, Canada, and the world, as well as being a true role model for women in science. She is an Officer in the Order of Canada. 

Mary Anne White received her BSc in Honors Chemistry from the University of Western Ontario (London, Canada) and her PhD in Chemistry from McMaster University (Hamilton, Canada). She held an NSERC postdoctoral fellowship at Oxford University, and then was an NSERC University Research Fellow/Assistant Professor at University of Waterloo. In 1983 she moved to Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, where she was Professor of Chemistry and Physics until 2016. From 2002 to 2008, she was Director of the Institute for Research in Materials. She is now Harry Shirreff Professor of Chemical Research (Emerita). 

Her research interests centre on thermal properties of materials, especially where dynamical disorder is involved. This includes thermal stability, phase transitions, thermal conductivity and thermal expansion, ranging from fundamental approaches to applications as diverse as thermal energy storage materials, thermoelectrics, and thermochromic materials. She is an author of more than 200 papers and also a textbook, “Physical Properties of Materials” (now in its 3rd edition). She has led research projects totalling more than $17 million.

Dr. White is Canada’s leading expert on how various materials physically react to heat. Notably, she contributed to the understanding of materials that change colour based on their temperature, a breakthrough that is now used in commercial products.

She has been much involved with bringing science to the general public, and she has been a strong role model to aspiring young scientists, in particular to young women. Dr. White was one of the leaders in the creation of Halifax’s Discovery Centre, and is often heard on CBC radio, including as a frequent contributor to “Quirks and Quarks.” Professor White has received numerous awards from Dalhousie for both her teaching and research, and honorary degrees from McMaster University, the University of Western Ontario, and the University of Ottawa. She has been elected a Fellow of several prestigious societies, including the Royal Society of Canada, IUPAC and the Chemical Institute of Canada, and received numerous national and international awards. In 2016 she was appointed an Officer in the Order of Canada. A full summary of awards and distinctions is listed on the Dalhousie website, Thermal Properties of Materials – http://mawhite.chem.dal.ca/Biography.htm

Photo Credit: Miloš Tošić Photo Works, Vancouver, BC

Dr. Arthur B. McDonald

Dr. Arthur B. McDonald was made an Honorary Member in 2016 in recognition of his conspicuous contributions to the advancement of science in Canada and internationally. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2015.

Dr. McDonald was born in 1943 in Sydney, Nova Scotia, where he attended the Sydney Academy. He studied physics at Dalhousie University in Halifax, where he obtained both BSc and MSc degrees in Physics.  In 1965, he travelled west to the California Institute of Technology, from which he graduated with a PhD degree in Physics in 1969. 

After his doctoral work, he was employed at AECL’s Chalk River laboratories in northern Ontario until 1982 when he was appointed as a tenured Professor at Princeton University. It was while he was at Princeton that he began work on the project that eventually became the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO). In 1989 he moved from Princeton to Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, where he remained for the rest of his career and became emeritus faculty in 2013. Also, he has held visiting positions at several national and international institutes and universities.

Dr. McDonald was awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics jointly with Japanese physicist Takaaki Kajita.   In August 2001, the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO), led by Dr. McDonald since 1989, reported observations that directly showed that electron neutrinos from the Sun were oscillating into muon and tau neutrinos. This demonstrated that neutrinos, thought to be massless, actually have (a very small) mass. Professor McDonald and fifteen other scientists had formed the original SNO collaboration in 1984 to exploit the idea that heavy water (D₂O) would make a detector sensitive to two reactions, one reaction sensitive to all neutrino flavours, the other sensitive to only the electron neutrino. Thus, such a detector could measure neutrino oscillations directly. SNO was a detector facility using 1000 tonnes of heavy water located 2.1 kilometers underground in a mine outside Sudbury, Ontario. Prof. McDonald is continuing work on SNO+ and DEAP-3600 experiments at SNOLAB, an expanded underground laboratory at the original SNO underground site. 

In addition, in response to Covid-19, he has led a team with members from a number of Canadian R&D institutions as part of an international project to mass-produce low-cost mechanical ventilators. The details of the resulting Mechanical Ventilator Milano (MVM) were published by about 150 collaborators in March 2020, under the CERN Open Hardware License. Over 6000 units have been delivered under a federal government contract with Vexos Inc. of Markham, Ontario. These units are in the Canadian stockpile and also are being considered for donation to countries in need.

Dr. McDonald has received honorary degrees from fifteen universities in Canada and the USA. He has been elected a Fellow of several prestigious societies, including the Royal Society of Canada and the Royal Society (UK), and has received numerous national and international awards. He is a Member of the Order of Ontario and the Order of Nova Scotia and is a Companion in the Order of Canada. He became a Nobel Laureate in Physics in 2015.  A full summary of awards and distinctions is listed on this Nobel Prizes website: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2015/mcdonald/biographical/

Photo Credit: Queen’s University