The University of Waterloo’s (Ontario, Canada), Professor Linda Nazar of the Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology (Note: Website say ‘for’ but the news item states ‘of’.) just had her position as a Canada Research Chair renewed and consequently received a grant of $1.4M for her work in alternative energy. From the March 23, 2012 news item on Nanowerk,

The six Canada Research Chairs from the University of Waterloo included a CRC in Solid State Energy Materials, going to Professor Linda Nazar, Waterloo Institute of Nanotechnology. She receives $1.4 million over seven years (Renewal). Research: One of the greatest challenges to the sustainable energy field is adequate storage. For 15 years, Nazar has focused her research on developing new materials to store and deliver energy at a high rate. This ongoing work is exploring the potential of nanotechnology to improve rechargeable batteries, like those used in plug-in hybrid vehicles.

For anyone not familiar with the funding programme (from the news item),

Canada Research Chairs is a federally funded program that is part of a strategy to make Canada one of the top research and development countries in the world. The program invests $300 million annually to attract and retain to top researchers in the world.

The Nazar Group lab can be found here. Excerpted from the Group’s home page,

Research Interests:

§     Design of nanomaterials for energy storage, conversion and delivery applications

§     Materials solid state chemistry and nanotechnology

§     Li-ion and lithium batteries; fuel cells; supercapacitors; hydrogen storage materials

§     Fundamental solid state chemistry & structure-property relationships

§     Mesoporous and nanoporous materials

Professor Linda Nazar is a faculty member of the Department of  Chemistry at the University of Waterloo, and is cross appointed  to the Department of Electrical Engineering. Prof. Nazar, holder  of a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Solid State Materials since 2004, has focused her research on developing new materials for energy storage and conversion for the past 15 years. She has published well over 100 papers, review articles and patents in the field which are cited on average over 125 times each year.

Congratulations!