Dr. Sajeev John is a world-renowned theoretical physicist and University Professor at the University of Toronto, holding the prestigious Government of Canada Research Chair. Born in 1957, he received his Bachelor's degree in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1979 and his Ph.D. in physics from Harvard University in 1984. Following his doctoral studies, he completed postdoctoral research at the University of Pennsylvania and served as a laboratory consultant to Exxon Research and Engineering Laboratories from 1985 to 1989. In 1989, he joined the senior physics faculty at the University of Toronto where he became a Professor of Physics in 1992 and established himself as a Principal Investigator for Photonics Research Ontario. His distinguished career has been marked by interdisciplinary collaborations and leadership in advancing Canada's position in photonics research.
Dr. John is internationally celebrated for his groundbreaking discovery and development of photonic band gap materials, which revolutionized the field of light manipulation at the microscopic scale. His seminal work on light-trapping crystals, for which he received the IEEE International Quantum Electronics Award in 2007, enables the confinement of photons to microscopic regions analogous to how semiconductors control electrons. This pioneering invention of Photonic Band Gap materials has enabled the development of optical microchips that could process information at the speed of light, potentially creating smaller and faster communication devices. His research has yielded practical applications including hollow-core optical fibers now used in life-saving laser surgeries and highly efficient thin-film silicon solar cells with unprecedented sunlight capture capabilities. The profound impact of his work extends across multiple disciplines, from revolutionizing optical computing to enabling new generations of lab-on-chip optical sensors for instantaneous medical diagnostics using minimal fluid samples.
Dr. John's leadership in photonics has earned him numerous prestigious accolades including the Herzberg Canada Gold Medal in 2021, the Killam Prize in Natural Sciences in 2014, and his appointment as an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2017. He has actively fostered the next generation of scientists through his mentorship and plans to use his Herzberg Medal award to attract promising young researchers to his team. His external affiliations reflect his global influence, including appointments as Adjunct Chair Professor at Soochow University in China and External Scientific Member of the Max Planck Institute for Microstructure Physics in Germany. Currently, Dr. John continues to push the boundaries of photonics research with applications in solar energy harvesting, medical diagnostics, and room temperature Bose-Einstein condensation. His ongoing work promises to further transform how we capture and utilize light, potentially revolutionizing renewable energy technologies and medical diagnostics in the coming decades.
