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University of Victoria oceanographer Dr. Chris Garrett is one of 18 foreign associates—and the only Canadian— recently elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.
The academy is an honorific society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research and is dedicated to the furtherance of science and technology and their use for the general welfare.
Election to the academy is considered one of the highest honours that can be accorded a scientist or engineer. Members and foreign associates are elected in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. Among its 2,000 members and 350 foreign associates are approximately 200 Nobel Prize winners.
Garrett, the Lansdowne Professor of Ocean Physics, joined UVic in 1991 after 20 years at Dalhousie University. He was born in Bude, England, and earned an undergraduate mathematics degree and a PhD in fluid dynamics from the University of Cambridge.
His scientific interests are mostly in the theoretical fluid dynamics of the ocean, with some emphasis on the processes that lead to ocean mixing. This plays a major role in controlling ocean circulation and climate, and in marine productivity and oceanic waste disposal. Garrett also contributes directly to the evaluation of ocean energy sources such as tidal power.
“Physical oceanography provides a wonderful combination of intellectual challenge and societal relevance,” says Garrett, who has some advice for budding oceanographers. “Students wishing to work in this and most areas of ocean science need to recognize that it’s really a field for post-graduate rather than undergraduate study. A first degree in a basic science or mathematics is almost essential.”
Garrett is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and of the Royal Society of London, as well as the American Geophysical Union and the American Meteorological Society (AMS). Other awards include an NSERC Steacie Memorial Fellowship (1977-78), a Guggenheim Fellowship (1981–82) and the Henry Stommel Research Award (2001) from the AMS.
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