Vicky Kaspi first woman to win Canada’s top science prize

For the first time this year, the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada announced the Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal for Science and Engineering, it’s most prestigious prize, was awarded to a woman: Victoria Kaspi, astrophysics professor at McGill University.

“I am profoundly thrilled and humbled to receive the NSERC Herzberg Gold Medal.” said Professor Kaspi through NSERC’s news release. “It is truly overwhelming to think that I am in the same category as some of its previous recipients. I accept this award on behalf of my research group and all of the talented students, postdocs and collaborators who’ve played major roles in the research successes and discoveries that are being recognized with this honour.”

Professor Kaspi and her team use the advanced research computing resources provided by Calcul Québec and its partners to conduct research about pulsars, neutron stars and magnetars. To learn more about her work, see the Research Highlights we published about her in 2013[insert link to her profile in research showcase].

Victoria Kaspi was also awarded the prestigious Killam Prize for the natural sciences recognizing her lifetime contributions to her field last April, as well as the Herzberg medal by the Canadian association of physicists in 2004, the National Research Council’s Stacie Prize for Natural Sciences in 2006, the Commemorative Rutherford Medal Rutherford of the Royal Society of Canada in 2007 and the Prix Marie-Victorin, one of the Prix du Québec, in 2009.

According to the CBC, Professor Kaspi intends to use the award to fund research at the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME), a radio telescope being built in B.C.