Former SNOLAB director elected Fellow of the Royal Society  

Former SNOLAB Executive Director Dr. Nigel Smith has been has been elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society, the UK’s national academy of sciences.  

Smith’s tenure at SNOLAB ran from 2009 to 2021, helping lead the transformation from the original SNO experiment into the world’s deepest cleanest multidisciplinary underground science laboratory. Smith left SNOLAB in 2021 to take on the role of executive director and CEO of TRIUMF in Vancouver. 

The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge was founded in 1660, and since that time has supported and promoted science and research, the benefits and knowledge of science, and cooperation in research. Smith and the other newly elected Fellows and Foreign members join the ranks of Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, Lise Meitner, Charles Darwin, and other esteemed scientists and researchers who have shaped the course of history.  

As executive director of TRIUMF and SNOLAB, Smith has led and advanced large-scale research facilities which enable and support a broad range of world-class research across physical and life sciences. Smith was also awarded a US Congressional medal for his Antarctic duty, where he was the first Briton to ‘winter-over’ at the South Pole and is a CIFAR Fellow with the Earth 4D program looking at deepening our understanding of deep subsurface processes. 

“This honour is a testament to the achievements of many friends and colleagues that I have worked with over my career, from the ZEPLIN dark matter program, to the facility developments in Canada, the South Pole, and the UK,” Smith said. 

“I am especially grateful to the many mentors I have had, including Alan Watson, George Kalmus, and Art McDonald who sponsored me through the nomination process.”  

The 2025 Fellow cohort recognizes researchers working in a variety of STEM-related fields, including physics, technology, public health, and neuroscience.  

You can read through Nigel Smith’s Fellow page here.