For the second time, PhD student Nathan Drouillard (BSc 2021, MSc 2023) has won the Dr. John David Guiry Scholarship for Physics.

The annual $1,000 award is given in honour of the memory of John David Guiry, who received five degrees from the University of Windsor, including three in physics: BSc 1966, MSc 1967, and PhD 1976.

“I feel very fortunate to accept this award for a second time and I am grateful to Mr. Chouinard, nephew of Dr. Guiry, for continuing to support the Department of Physics via this award,” says Drouillard.

“This award, and what it takes to earn it, serves as a testament to the quality of research in our department. We may be small, but we have great researchers who all deserve to be recognized.”

Drouillard uses physics to better understand how to mitigate the threat of excess nutrient loading and pollution in the Great Lakes. He says there is a need for technological innovation to improve monitoring efforts and plans to develop a portable sensor that could be deployed in the field to complement his laboratory-based method.

“My work consists of a cutting-edge advancement in laser spectroscopy that will be used to measure chemicals of interest in the Great Lakes by a technique that I have developed and named Kerr-instability Amplification for Broadband Stimulated Raman Spectroscopy, or KAB-SRS,” he says.

“My goal is to develop better techniques in laser spectroscopy that will allow continuous, real-time monitoring of nutrients in the Great Lakes, producing data that will be of great use to ecologists.”

Physics department head Steven Rehse says Drouillard is a highly successful researcher and student.

“Nathan has developed and characterized a novel method for a laser-based analysis that uses an ultrafast femtosecond laser to measure the characteristic vibrations in soluble reactive phosphorus,” says Dr. Rehse.

“In this way, they are trying to develop a very sensitive, yet fast and robust way to measure soluble phosphorus in Great Lakes waters, which comes from rain run-off of fertilized fields. This is a really unique and cross-disciplinary application of physics.”

Drouillard has presented his work at international conferences and has several peer-reviewed papers to his name, four of those as first author. He won the Canadian Association of Physicists Student Presentation Competition at the annual 2024 Congress.

“For a student at this stage of career, he is highly experienced with significant achievements,” says Rehse.

Drouillard says he could not have achieved what he has without the support of UWindsor faculty.

“I'd like to thank my department for their continued support, especially my supervisor TJ Hammond. And I’d like to thank Aaron Fisk for advising the environmental applications of my work.”