Co-Chair, InterAcademy Panel on International Issues (IAP)

Ex Officio Member, IAC Board

Howard Alper is Professor of Chemistry and Vice-President, Research, at the University of Ottawa. The basic research Alper has been pursuing spans organic and inorganic chemistry, with potential applications in the pharmaceutical, petrochemical, and commodity chemical sectors of industry. He has discovered new reactions using homogeneous, phase transfer, and heterogeneous catalysis (e.g. clays, dendrimers). He has also used chiral ligands in metal catalyzed cycloaddition and carbonylation reactions, and succeeded in preparing valuable products in pharmacologically active form. He has published 487 papers, has thirty-seven patents, and has edited several books. Alper has received a number of prestigious Fellowships including the E.W.R. Steacie (NSERC, 1980-82), Guggenheim (1985-86), and Killam (1986-88) Fellowships. Major awards to Alper include the Alcan Award for Inorganic Chemistry (1986), Bader Award for Organic Chemistry (1990), Steacie Award for Chemistry (1993), all of the Canadian Society for Chemistry. The Chemical Institute of Canada has presented Alper with the Catalysis Award (1984), the Montreal Medal (2003), and the CIC Medal (1997), its highest honour. He also received the Urgel-Archambault Prize (ACFAS) in physical sciences and engineering. In 2000, the Governor General of Canada presented him with the first Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal in Science and Engineering, the most prestigious award in Canada for science and engineering. The following year, he was given the National Merit Award for contributions to the Life Sciences. In 2002, he received the Le Sueur Memorial Award of the Society of Chemical Industry (U.K.), and the award of Officer, National Order of Merit by the President of the Republic of France. In the same year, he was made an Honorary Fellow of the Chemical Research Society of India, and in 2006, as an Honorary Fellow of the Chemical Institute of Canada. He has served on a number of NSERC committees (e.g. Committee on Research Grants), and as Chair of the Partnership Group for Science and Engineering (PAGSE). He is actively engaged in policy creation and implementation for research and innovation in Canada and abroad. He chairs the Steacie Prize committee (NRC), and is a member or chair of several corporate boards. He represents Canada on the NATO Science Committee. Alper was appointed as a Titular Member of the European Academy of Arts, Sciences, and Humanities (1996), and as an Officer of the Order of Canada (1999). He was named President of the Royal Society of Canada for a two-year term commencing November 2001, and is currently Foreign Secretary of the RSC: Academies of the Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada. As Foreign Secretary, he represents RSC to the G8 Academies. In 2004, he was elected to a three-year term as Co-Chair of the InterAmerican Network of Academies of Science (IANAS). In 2005, he was elected chair of the Board of the Council of Canadian Academies.