Richard Boudreault, FRSC, FCAE

Richard Boudreault served as the inaugural Chairperson of Polar Knowledge Canada and helped to establish the Canadian High Arctic Research Station (CHARS), where polar sciences and traditional knowledge of First Nations and Inuit people cohabit and thrive. He is an insightful leader, strategic thinker, and agent of change, transforming organizations through business planning, financial management, and team leadership. He was also principal in the development of the National Optics Institute and the Space Agency. He held five federal and two provincial and native government appointments and served on over 30 boards of directors, including Atomic Energy of Canada and Canada’s Space Advisory Board. He is a professional physicist from Cornell University, has an MBA, and master’s and doctorate degrees from the University of Sherbrooke in environment and sustainability. He is Adjunct Professor of Chemical Engineering at Polytechnique Montréal, Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Waterloo, and a Visiting Scholar at McGill University. He is a governor of the First Nation University of Canada and a board member of the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique. His research involves cryosphere physics, boreal and High Arctic environments, climate change, and biodiversity. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the Canadian Academy of Engineers, the Royal Canadian Geographic Society, the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, and of the World Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was awarded the George E. Pake award from the American Physical Society, the Gold Medal from the Royal Canadian Geographical Society for his polar and indigenous endeavours, and the Alouette prize from the Canadian Aero and Space Institute. He was also knighted into the Order of Academic Palms by France. He is presently CEO of Awn Nanotech, an energy-efficient extractor of potable water from the atmosphere and is an executive in mining corporations.

---