Arthur Carty

Who is Arthur Carty?

Arthur J. Carty, OC FRSC, is a Canadian academic and former National Science Advisor to the Government of Canada.

Carty is executive director of the Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology at the University of Waterloo, special advisor to the President on international science and technology collaboration and research professor in the department of chemistry. From 2004 to 2008, he served as Canada’s first national science advisor to the prime minister and to the Government of Canada. Prior to his appointment as national science advisor, he was president of the National Research Council, Canada’s leading knowledge and innovation organization, for ten years. Carty has a PhD in inorganic chemistry from the University of Nottingham. Before joining NRC in 1994, he spent two years at Memorial University and 27 years at the University of Waterloo where he was successively professor of chemistry, director of the Guelph-Waterloo Centre for Graduate Work in Chemistry, a pioneering joint graduate program, chair of the chemistry department and dean of research.

Carty still maintains an active interest in research in organometallic chemistry and new materials. He has over 300 publications in peer reviewed journals and five patents to his credit. He is a former president of the Canadian Society for Chemistry, an honorary fellow of the Chemical Institute of Canada and of the Fields Institute for Research in the Mathematical Sciences and a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada Amongst his many awards are the Alcan Award and the Montreal Medal of the Chemical Institute of Canada, the EWR Steacie Award of the Canadian Society of Chemistry, the Purvis Award of the Society of Chemical Industry, the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal and the Taiwan National Science Council Professional Medal. He has been accorded thirteen honorary degrees from foreign and Canadian universities as well as two honorary professorships from other institutions outside Canada. Carty has received Canada’s highest civilian award as an Officer of the Order of Canada and has also been honoured by France as Officier de l’Ordre national du Mérite.