Waterloo battery researcher Linda Nazar awarded Canada’s top science prize

University of Waterloo chemist Dr. Linda Nazar, pictured at the Mike & Ophelia Lazaridis Quantum-Nano Centre last month, has spent decades researching materials for next-generation batteries. Azad Amin/The Globe and Mail

Linda Nazar always liked science in high school and she was good at it. When she headed off to university, her plan was to aim for medical school.

But then a first-year chemistry course unexpectedly captured her imagination. The more she learned, the more she was drawn to the world of atoms and the elegant geometry that governs their structure and behaviour.

“For some reason it just really clicked,” said Dr. Nazar, who now holds the title of university research professor in chemistry at the University of Waterloo. “It might have been a sense of understanding – or feeling like I understood something about nature at the point of chemical reactions.”