Dr. Carty is honorary dean of CNST and SUN-WIN Joint Research Institute for Nanotechnology. He is also executive director of the Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology at the University of Waterloo, special advisor to the President on international science and technology collaboration and research professor in the department of chemistry. From 2004-2008, he served as Canada’s first national science advisor to the prime minister and to the Government of Canada. Prior to his appointment as national science advisor, he was president of the National Research Council, Canada’s leading knowledge and innovation organization, for ten years (1994-2004). Dr Carty has a PhD in inorganic chemistry from the University of Nottingham. Before joining NRC in 1994, he spent two years at Memorial University and the 27 years at the University of Waterloo where he was successively professor of chemistry, director of the Guelph-Waterloo Centre for Graduate Work in Chemistry, a pioneering joint graduate program, chair of the chemistry department and dean of research.

Dr Carty still maintains an active interest in research in organometallic chemistry and new materials. He has over 300 publications in peer-reviewed journals and five patents to his credit. He is a former president of the Canadian Society for Chemistry, an honorary fellow of the Chemical Institute of Canada and of the Fields Institute for Research in the Mathematical Science and a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Amongst his many awards are the Alcan Award and the Montreal Medal of the Chemical Institute of Canada, the EWR Steacie Award of the Canadian Society of Chemistry, the Purvis Award of the Society of Chemical Industry, the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal and the Taiwan National Science Council Professional Medal. He has been accorded twelve honorary degrees from foreign and Canadian universities as well as honorary professorships at two other institutions outside Canada. Dr Carty has received Canada’s highest civilian award as an Officer of the Order of Canada (OC) and has also been honoured by France as Officier de l’Ordre National du Mérite.

He has served as chair and member of many boards of directors including the Atomic Energy Control Board (AECB) and its successor CNSC, the Council of the Canadian Space Agency, the Boards of Genome Canada, of MITACs and the Stroke Network, both Networks of Centre of Excellence (NCE) and of Environment Canada and National Defence R&D. He was the founding Chairman of the Board of the Canadian Light Source (CLS), serving from 1999 to 2008. He is a member of the Council of Japan’s Science and Technology in Society Forum (STS) and has served on the International Advisory Boards of the APEC Centre for Technology Foresight and the Euroscience Open Forum (ESOF). Dr. Carty currently serves on the Boards of Directors of Bilcare Global Clinical Supplies and of Innovative Materials Technologies. Dr Carty was inaugural Canadian co-chair of the Joint S and T Cooperation Committee for the Canada-India science and technology agreement and has contributed to the growth of R&D collaboration between the two countries. As national science advisor, he also represented Canada from 2004-2008 on behalf of the Minister at the semi-annual Carnegie Group G-8 meetings of science ministers and science advisors.