Kimberly "Kim" E. Strong is an atmospheric physicist and the first woman to serve as chair of the Department of Physics at the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university whose main campus is located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by ...

. Her research involves studying stratospheric

ozone Ozone () (or trioxygen) is an Inorganic compound, inorganic molecule with the chemical formula . It is a pale blue gas with a distinctively pungent smell. It is an allotrope of oxygen that is much less stable than the diatomic allotrope , break ...

chemistry,

climate Climate is the long-term weather pattern in a region, typically averaged over 30 years. More rigorously, it is the mean and variability of meteorological variables over a time spanning from months to millions of years. Some of the meteoro ...

, and air quality using ground-based, balloon-borne and satellite instruments.

Early life and education

Strong received a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, B.S., B.Sc., SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree that is awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Scienc ...

in physics from the

Memorial University of Newfoundland Memorial University of Newfoundland, or MUN (), is a Public university, public research university in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, based in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, St. John's, with satellite campuses in Corner Brook ...

in 1986. Strong was interested in fields that applied physics to larger problems, eventually deciding to focus on atmospheric physics for graduate studies. Supervised by Fred Taylor at the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

, she performed

near-infrared spectroscopy Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is a spectroscopic method that uses the near-infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum (from 780 nm to 2500 nm). Typical applications include medical and physiological diagnostics and research inc ...

in the lab, mimicking conditions in the atmosphere of

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a Jupiter mass, mass more than 2.5 times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined a ...

, in preparation for the Galileo spacecraft's arrival at Jupiter in 1995. She received a D.Phil. in 1992 from the Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Planetary Physics Group at the

. During her time at Oxford, she was a student at the first

International Space University The International Space University (ISU) is a higher education institute headquartered in Illkirch-Graffenstaden, a suburb of Strasbourg, France. It is dedicated to the discovery, research, and development of outer space and its applications f ...

Summer Session Program in 1988 and then returned as a staff member in 1990.

Career

After graduating with a doctorate, Strong moved to the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

, where she was a postdoctoral research associate from 1992 to 1994. In 1994, she returned to Canada, becoming a postdoctoral research associate at the Centre for Atmospheric Chemistry at

York University York University (), also known as YorkU or simply YU), is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's third-largest university, and it has approximately 53,500 students, 7,000 faculty and staff, ...

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

. One year later, she joined the faculty at York, becoming an assistant professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Science. In 1996, she moved to the

Department of Physics. She was the only female faculty member in the department at the time. She was promoted to associate professor in 2001 and full professor in 2006. After her graduate studies, Strong's research interests turned to

Earth's atmosphere The atmosphere of Earth is composed of a layer of gas mixture that surrounds the Earth's planetary surface (both lands and oceans), known collectively as air, with variable quantities of suspended aerosols and particulates (which create weathe ...

. Strong was the principal investigator of the Middle Atmosphere Nitrogen TRend Assessment (MANTRA) project from 1998 to 2006. This collaboration used a series of high-altitude balloon flights to measure trace gasses in the stratosphere over North America, including mid-latitude

stratospheric ozone The ozone layer or ozone shield is a region of Earth's stratosphere that absorbs most of the Sun's ultraviolet radiation. It contains a high concentration of ozone (O3) in relation to other parts of the atmosphere, although still small in rela ...

and compounds of nitrogen and chlorine that interact with ozone in the upper atmosphere. Strong has traveled to

Eureka, Nunavut Eureka is a small research base on Fosheim Peninsula, Ellesmere Island, Qikiqtaaluk Region, in the Canadian territory of Nunavut. It is located on the north side of Slidre Fiord, which enters Eureka Sound farther west. It is the third-northe ...

since 1999 to conduct research in the Canadian high arctic. She was one of the founders of the Canadian Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Change (CANDAC) which established the

Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory The Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory (PEARL) is an atmospheric research facility in the Canadian High Arctic, located on Ellesmere Island, Nunavut. Considered one of the most important Arctic research labs in the world, it was th ...

(PEARL) on

Ellesmere Island Ellesmere Island (; ) is Canada's northernmost and List of Canadian islands by area, third largest island, and the List of islands by area, tenth largest in the world. It comprises an area of , slightly smaller than Great Britain, and the total ...

in 2005. The PEARL station provides long-term monitoring of the Arctic atmosphere and data to track its evolution and variability. She was the director of the

NSERC The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC; , CRSNG) is the major federal agency responsible for funding natural sciences and engineering research in Canada. NSERC directly funds university professors and students as ...

CREATE Training Program in Arctic Atmospheric Science, which ran from 2010 to 2016. This program provided students and postdoctoral fellows with training in Arctic atmospheric science. Strong founded the University of Toronto Atmospheric Observatory (TAO) in 2001, which monitors trace gasses in the

stratosphere The stratosphere () is the second-lowest layer of the atmosphere of Earth, located above the troposphere and below the mesosphere. The stratosphere is composed of stratified temperature zones, with the warmer layers of air located higher ...

and

troposphere The troposphere is the lowest layer of the atmosphere of Earth. It contains 80% of the total mass of the Atmosphere, planetary atmosphere and 99% of the total mass of water vapor and aerosols, and is where most weather phenomena occur. From the ...

from the roof of the McLennan Physical Laboratories Burton Tower at the University of Toronto. She is also the principal investigator of the Canadian Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectrometer Observing Network (CAFTON), which uses several monitoring stations across Canada, including TAO, to measure gasses and monitor changes in the atmosphere. In 2010, she was a visiting fellow at the Centre for Atmospheric Chemistry at the

University of Wollongong The University of Wollongong (UOW) is an Australian public university, public research university located in the coastal city of Wollongong, New South Wales, approximately south of Sydney. , the university had an enrolment of more than 33,000 s ...

in Australia. Strong was the director of the School of the Environment at the University of Toronto from 2013 to 2018. She also served as vice-president (2018-2019) and is the current president of the

Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society The Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (CMOS; ) is the national society of individuals and organisations dedicated to advancing atmospheric and oceanic sciences and related environmental disciplines in Canada. CMOS was officially cr ...

. In July 2019, she began a 5-year term as the chair of the Department of Physics at the University of Toronto, the first woman to hold the position. She joined the board of directors of the

SNOLAB SNOLAB is a Canadian underground science laboratory specializing in neutrino and dark matter physics. Located 2 km below the surface in Vale's Creighton nickel mine near Sudbury, Ontario, SNOLAB is an expansion of the existing facilities con ...

Institute in July 2019. Strong is a member of the Centre for Global Change Science and the Graduate Faculty of the School of the Environment at the University of Toronto.

Honours and awards

* 2019:

Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada Fellowship of the Royal Society of Canada (FRSC) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Canada judges to have "made remarkable contributions in the arts, the humanities and the sciences, as well as in Canadian public life" ...

References

External links

Research website

Canadian Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Change

{{DEFAULTSORT:Strong, Kimberly Living people Canadian women physicists Academic staff of the University of Toronto Alumni of the University of Oxford Memorial University of Newfoundland alumni 20th-century Canadian women scientists 20th-century Canadian physicists 21st-century Canadian women scientists 21st-century Canadian physicists Year of birth missing (living people)