Dan Wayner

Vice-President
Emerging Technologies

Dr. Dan Wayner was appointed as an NRC Vice-President in January 2010. He currently leads NRC’s emerging technologies research activities.

Prior to his appointment, Dr. Wayner served as Director General of the NRC Steacie Institute for Molecular Sciences (SIMS), a position he had held since June 2003. Under his leadership, SIMS strengthened its work in several pioneering sciences and convergence technologies. New and stronger partnerships were established with local universities, including one with the University of Ottawa that led to the unveiling of the Joint Attosecond Science Laboratory (JASLab). This state-of-the-art laboratory established Ottawa as the "attosecond science" capital of the world.

Dr. Dan Wayner received a BSc from McMaster University in 1980 and a PhD with distinction from Dalhousie University in 1984. Following a two-year postdoctoral position with K.U. Ingold at NRC in the area of organic free radical chemistry, Dr. Wayner joined the NRC Division of Chemistry in 1986 where he carried out pioneering work in the electrochemistry and thermochemistry of transient reaction intermediates. He served as leader of the Molecular Interfaces Program, an interdisciplinary research initiative that earned worldwide recognition for its groundbreaking work in self-directed nanoscale chemical reactions using scanning tunneling microscopy.

Dr. Wayner is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a Fellow of the Chemical Institute of Canada. He has served on the editorial advisory boards of the Journal of the American Chemical Society and Surface Science. In 1999, the Royal Society of Canada recognized his contributions by awarding him the Rutherford Medal – Chemistry.