Appointment of ordinary member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences

The Holy Father has appointed Professor Donna Theo Strickland, Nobel Prize winner for physics in 2018, lecturer in optical physics at the Department of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Waterloo, Canada, as ordinary member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.

Curriculum vitae

Professor Donna Theo Strickland was born on 27 May 1959 in Guelph, Canada. She graduated from McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada, and was awarded a doctorate in physics, specialising in optics, from Rochester University, United States of America. In 2018, Professor Strickland and Professor Gérard Mourou were awarded the Nobel Prize for the invention of chirped pulse amplification for lasers in 1985. She is currently professor of optical physics in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Waterloo, Canada; member of The Optical Society, where she served as vice-president (2011) and president (2013); and member of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.