Purvis Memorial Award

2025 Recipient - Professor Geoffrey Ozin

Geoffrey A. Ozin is a distinguished University Professor in the Chemistry Department at the University of Toronto where he spearheads the Solar Fuels Team. His current research is a photochemical engineering approach to help decarbonise the chemical and petrochemical industries for a sustainable future.

He has held positions as Honorary Professor at The Royal Institution of Great Britain and University College London, External Adviser for the London Centre for Nanotechnology, Alexander von Humboldt Senior Scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Surface and Colloid Science, Potsdam, Germany, and the Center for Functional Nanostructures and Microstructure Engineering at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany, and Global Chair at Bath University. Read more about Geoffrey on Wikipedia.

Award presentation

The award shall normally be presented at the annual SCI Canada Awards Dinner, typically held in early April, where the winner will be expected to attend and deliver a short acceptance speech. The winner may be invited to present a lecture at this event and will also receive a plaque.

2024 Recipient - Oliver Technow, BioVectra

Oliver holds an Industry Master’s Degree from Frankfurt Chamber of Commerce, Frankfurt Germany and has more than 30 years of global pharmaceutical industry experience.

In 1997 he joined Eisai GmbH in Germany and, in 2002, was appointed Director, CNS Business Unit; in 2006, he was appointed Vice President, Head of Global Marketing for Eisai Inc. in the US. In 2011 was appointed Vice President, Established Products Business Unit; in 2013, was appointed President & General Manager for Eisai Limited in Canada. He became President of BIOVECTRA Inc., in 2015 gaining promotion to his current role of Chief Executive Officer In November 2019. He is a Board Director for BIOTECanada and in 2017 was appointed to the Government of Canada’s Health/Bio-sciences Strategic Economic Table.

2023 Recipient - Mr Rory Francis, PEI BioAlliance

Mr Rory Francis, PEI BioAlliance will receive the Purvis Memorial Award at SCI's Canada Awards 2023. The award is presented to an individual for significant strategy development and successful implementation within the Canadian chemical Industry.

• SCI Canada Awards 2023

2022 Recipient - Dr Henry Stronks, Bruker Ltd

As Global Head of Sales at Bruker, Henry facilitated the purchase of instrumentation, including the world’s first ultra-high solids nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) system (900 MHz) in Ottawa and Canada’s first 1 GHz NMR spectrometer. He also assisted research teams across the country to assemble cutting-edge-infrastructure for tackling research challenges supported by the Canadian Foundation for Innovation and other granting agencies.