Biography of Dr. Jillian M. Buriak

Dr. Jillian Buriak leads the Materials and Interfacial Chemistry Group at NRC’s National Institute for Nanotechnology, and is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Alberta. She is a leading expert in semiconductor surface chemistry, and is developing new methods to integrate catalysts, molecular electronics and sensing elements with technologically important semiconducting and conducting materials. Her group investigates the use of organometallic and inorganic chemistry on silicon surfaces, and works to demonstrate the fabrication of nanoscale structures that have a broad range of potential applications.

Dr. Buriak was born in Toronto, Ontario. She attended Harvard University and graduated with an A.B. in 1990, and then taught high-school science in the Fiji Islands on a Catherine Innes Ireland Fellowship from Harvard. In 1991, she began her doctoral studies in chemistry under the guidance of John A. Osborn at the Université Louis Pasteur in Strasbourg, France. After obtaining her Ph.D. in 1995, she was awarded an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowship and conducted two years of post-doctoral work at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California with M. Reza Ghadiri. She moved to Purdue University in 1997 as an assistant professor, and was promoted to associate professor in 2001. Dr. Buriak returned to Canada in 2003 to join NINT and the University of Alberta.

Dr. Buriak has been the recipient of many academic and professional awards, including:

• American Chemical Society Pure Chemistry Award, 2003
• Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation, Teacher-Scholar Award, 2002
• Fresenius Award, 2001
• 3M Untenured Faculty Award, 2000
• School of Science Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Award (Purdue), 2000
• Cottrell Teacher-Scholar Award, 2000
• Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow, 2000
• National Science Foundation Career Award, 1999
• Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation, New Faculty Award, 1997
• NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowship, 1995-97

Dr. Buriak is the author of 38 scientific papers and book chapters, and has 6 patents (etc. etc.). She is a member of the Canadian Institute of Chemistry (CIC), the American Chemical Society (ACS), the Materials Research Society (MRS), and the American Academy for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).