Presenting the 2022 Winners of the Killam Prizes

Recognized for pushing boundaries and finding solutions to everyday issues

Ottawa, March 15, 2022 – The Canada Council for the Arts is pleased to announce the winners of the 2022 Killam Prizes. With this announcement today, the work of five distinguished researchers, who have actively devoted their careers to pushing the boundaries of knowledge and finding solutions to the issues we face every day, is being recognized and rewarded.

The Killam Prizes

The Killam Prizes honour eminent Canadian researchers in the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, health sciences and engineering. The work of these researchers has had and continues to have an outstanding impact on the lives of Canadians and people around the world. A prize of $100,000 is awarded to each researcher.

The 2022 winners

Humanities – Françoise Baylis

Françoise Baylis is a university research professor at Dalhousie University. For over 30 years, Baylis has made outstanding contributions to ethical debates on research involving humans, assisted human reproduction, transplantation, deep brain stimulation and genetic enhancement. She has also been acclaimed in the research community for her contributions to the field of humanities and bioethics as a Black Canadian woman scholar. In recent years, she has written intentionally for the public with a view to improving our understanding of ethics so that we can all take part in important public debates.

Engineering – Jeff Dahn

Jeff Dahn is a professor in the Department of Physics and Atmospheric Science and the Department of Chemistry at Dalhousie University. With a simple goal to “do something useful” in his lab, Dahn has consistently merged science and engineering in masterful ways to achieve his vision. He is recognized worldwide as a pioneer of the batteries now used to power everything from power tools to electric vehicles. He currently holds NSERC’s Tesla Canada Industrial Research Chair—the only research partnership that Tesla has entered into with any university anywhere.

Social sciences – Carl E. James

Carl E. James holds the Jean Augustine Chair in Education, Community & Diaspora at York University. James has spent his career studying how to create a more equitable society and was among the first to tackle and name issues of racial inequity. His groundbreaking interdisciplinary research on identity, race, class, gender, racialization, immigration and citizenship has reshaped how the academic community researches and understands these issues. James is also a scholar who has had a direct impact on individuals and communities. In 2017, he co-produced the first community-led study, capturing the perspectives of Black community members, parents, students and educators about issues of inequity. The study has been used to influence government educational policies and programs across Canada. 

Natural sciences – Geoffrey Ozin

Geoffrey Ozin is a Distinguished Professor at the University of Toronto and a giant in the world of nano-chemistry. Ozin’s work has inspired the development of lithium-ion batteries, supercapacitors, fuel cells and photovoltaics (to name a few)—technologies that are used today in products as diverse as cell phones and electric vehicles. He has taken his scientific knowledge well beyond academia and has written books that general audiences can appreciate—most recently, The Story of CO₂: Big Ideas for a Small Molecule, and Energy Materials Discovery for a Sustainable Future.

Health sciences – Salim Yusuf

Salim Yusuf is an internationally renowned cardiologist and epidemiologist. He holds the Heart and Stroke Foundation Marion W. Burke Chair in Cardiovascular Disease and is a Distinguished Professor of Medicine at McMaster University Medical School (Hamilton Health Sciences). Best known for programs such as INTERHEART, INTERSTROKE and PURE, his work has substantially influenced the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease for millions of patients around the globe through the improvement of the medical community’s knowledge about the biological, behavioural and societal causes of heart disease and stroke.

About the Killam Program

The Killam Program was established in 1967, with the creation of the Killam Research Fellowships, and the Killam Prizes were inaugurated in 1981.

The Program’s awards are part of a larger set of Killam Trusts. In total, the Killam Trusts are valued at over $500 million, of which the Canada Council portion is $70 million.

The Killam Prize winners are selected by a peer assessment committee.

Previous winners include renowned scholars such as Brenda Milner, Victoria Kaspi, Mark Wainberg, Molly Shoichet, John Borrows, Yoshua Bengio and Nobel Prize winners Arthur McDonald and John Polanyi, to name but a few.

In August 2021, the Killam Trusts, the Canada Council and the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding for the transfer of the administration of the Killam Program to the NRC. 

In the spring of 2022, the NRC will be working alongside the Killam Trusts and the Canada Council for the Arts to support the promotion of the 2022 Killam Prizes, before taking over the administration of the program, beginning with the 2023 competition cycle. In addition, the NRC will engage with key stakeholders and lead the redesign of the Killam Research Fellowships to relaunch the program in spring 2022.

About the Canada Council for the Arts

The Canada Council for the Arts is Canada’s public arts funder. The Council’s grants, services, initiatives, prizes, and payments contribute to the vibrancy of a creative and diverse arts and literary scene and support its presence across Canada and abroad. The Council’s investments foster greater engagement in the arts among Canadians and international audiences.