Professor Janet A. W. Elliott

Dr. Janet A. W. Elliott is a University of Alberta Distinguished Professor and Tier I Canada Research Chair in Thermodynamics in the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering. Dr. Elliott obtained her BASc in Engineering Science (Engineering Physics Option), and her MASc and PhD in Mechanical Engineering, at the University of Toronto. She has been a Visiting Professor at MIT and at the Oxford Centre for Collaborative Applied Mathematics. Dr. Elliott currently serves as Editor-in-Chief of the journal Cryobiology, on the Editorial Advisory Boards of The Journal of Physical Chemistry and Langmuir, and on the Editorial Board of Advances in Colloid and Interface Science. She has previously served on the Physical Sciences Advisory Committee of the Canadian Space Agency, the Board of Directors of the Canadian Society for Chemical Engineering, and the Executive Committee of the American Chemical Society Division of Colloid and Surface Chemistry. Dr. Elliott's research interests include Gibbsian thermodynamics, transport, drops, bubbles, wetting, interfacial tension, adsorption, evaporation, freezing, solidification, nucleation, curved fluid interfaces, superhydrophobic surfaces, phase change in confined geometries, interfacial and membrane transport, capillarity in gravitational fields, thermodynamics of solutions and suspensions, nanoscale science, mathematics of functions, and experimental and computational cryobiology and cryopreservation of many cell and tissue types for medical and biotechnology applications. Dr. Elliott's research has been recognized nationally and internationally in science and engineering by many awards including the Basile J. Luyet Medal of the Society for Cryobiology and Time Magazine's Canadians Who Define the New Frontiers of Science. Dr. Elliott has also received many provincial and University awards including the APEGA Summit Excellence in Education Award. As one student put it, "She could convince rocks to study thermodynamics."