Eight Waterloo researchers join the Royal Society of Canada, and Geoffrey Fong wins the Eric Jackman Prize

Eight University of Waterloo researchers were elected Fellows and College Members of the Royal Society of Canada (RSC) in 2026, in fields from global governance and public health to AI, cybersecurity and quantum neurobiology. Separately, Dr. Geoffrey Fong, who has been an RSC Fellow since 2017, became only the second person to receive the Eric Jackman Prize in the Human Behavioural and Social Sciences.

Fong founded the International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Project (the ITC Project) and is its chief principal investigator; it was the first international cohort study to track tobacco use alongside tobacco control policy. More than 150 researchers across 31 countries have used it to evaluate measures under the World Health Organization’s tobacco treaty, such as warning labels, smoke-free laws and taxes.

Andrew Fenton Cooper (BA ’72, MA ’73) studies diplomacy and global governance, including the G20 and BRICS, and has written nine books on his own. Myra Fernandes, a psychology professor, studies how the brain coordinates systems to optimize memory in younger and older adults and in people with dementia, and she chairs the Psychonomic Society.

Upcoming: the Waterloo group will be among 159 scholars, artists and scientists formally inducted at the RSC Celebration of Excellence and Engagement in Ottawa on November 13.