Henry Van Driel

Dr. van Driel did his undergraduate work at the University of Toronto, where he continued as a graduate student, completing his Ph.D in condensed matter physics in 1975. After a period as NRC Postdoctoral Fellow at the Optical Science Center, University of Arizona, he began a faculty position at the University of Toronto in 1976. He became a full professor of physics in 1985, served as Associate Chair (Undergraduate) from 1994-97 and Chair of the Department from 2000-2004. He has been a visiting scientist at Harvard University, the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Sciences, the University of Amsterdam, IBM labs (Yorktown Heights), and NRC, Ottawa.

His research interests are in experimental nonlinear optics and ultrafast phenomena in semiconductors. He supervises a research group of graduate and undergraduate students, exchange students and postdocs. He is very interested in undergraduate teaching and currently offers the 1st year physics course in the Engineering Science program at U of T. Professor van Driel is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America, American Physical Society and the Royal Society of Canada. He was a Divisional Associate Editor for Physical Review Letters from 2001-2006 and has been Editor of the Journal of the Optical Society of America (B) since 2006.

Dr. van Driel has been a member of the Canadian Association of Physicists for over 30 years and was Chair of the Division of Optics in 1992-93 and Director of Academic Affairs/Chair of the CAP-NSERC Liaison Committee from 2000-2003. He was a member of the NSERC GSC for General Physics from 1989-93 and served as Chair in 1991-2. He has been on numerous advisory boards and conference committees in Canada and abroad, was General Chair of the International Quantum Electronics Conference (San Franciscio) in 2000 and Chair of the Canadian National IUPAP Liaison Committee from 1996-2002.