Howard Alper
Chairman, Science, Technology, and Innovation Council, Government of Canada
Howard Alper is currently Visiting Executive at the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), and Distinguished University Professor at the University of Ottawa. The basic research Alper has been pursuing spans organic and inorganic chemistry, with potential applications in the pharmaceutical, petrochemical, and commodity chemical industries.
He has discovered new reactions using homogeneous, phase transfer, and heterogeneous catalysis (e.g. clays, dendrimers). He has also used chiral ligands in metal catalyzed cycloaddition and carbonylation reactions, and succeeded in preparing valuable products in pharmacologically active form. He has published 507 papers, has thirty-seven patents, and has edited several books.
Alper has received a number of prestigious Fellowships including the E.W.R. Steacie (NSERC, 1980 82), Guggenheim (1985 86), and Killam (1986 88) Fellowships. Major awards to Alper include the Alcan Award for Inorganic Chemistry (1986), Bader Award for Organic Chemistry (1990), Steacie Award for Chemistry (1993), all of the Canadian Society for Chemistry. The Chemical Institute of Canada has presented Alper with the Catalysis Award (1984), the Montreal Medal (2003), and the CIC Medal (1997), its highest honour. He also received the Urgel Archambault Prize (ACFAS) in physical sciences and engineering.
In 2000, the Governor General of Canada presented him with the first Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal in Science and Engineering. The following year, he was given the National Merit Award for contributions to the Life Sciences. In 2002, he received the Le Sueur Memorial Award of the Society of Chemical Industry (U.K.). In 2004, he was made an Honorary Fellow of the Chemical Research Society of India, and in 2006, Honorary Fellow of the Chemical Institute of Canada.
He has served on a number of NSERC committees (e.g. Committee on Research Grants), and as Chair of Boards and Committees including, amongst others, the Partnership Group for Science and Engineering (PAGSE), Council of Canadian Academies, Canadian Research Knowledge Network, and the Steacie Institute of Molecular Sciences.
Alper was appointed as a Titular Member of the European Academy of Arts, Sciences, and Humanities in 1996. He was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1999, and in 2002 he received the award of Officer, National Order of Merit, by the President of the Republic of France. He was named President of the Royal Society of Canada for a two-year term commencing November 2001, and currently serves as its Foreign Secretary. In 2004, he was elected to a three-year term as Co-Chair of the InterAmerican Network of Academies of Science (IANAS).
In December 2006, Alper was elected Co-Chair of the InterAcademy Panel (IAP) for a three-year term, with Chen Zhu, Minister of Health for China, as the other Co-Chair. In 2007, he was appointed Chair of the Government of Canada’s Science, Technology and Innovation Council.
He is passionate about Canada, research and chocolate.