Carty was the inaugural director[1] of the Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology at the University of Waterloo, special advisor to the President on international science and technology collaboration and research professor in the department of chemistry. From 2004-08, he served as Canada's first national science advisor to the prime minister and to the Government of Canada. Prior to his appointment as national science advisor, he was president of the National Research Council, Canada's leading knowledge and innovation organization, for ten years (1994-2004).
He earned a PhD in inorganic chemistry from the University of Nottingham. Before joining NRC in 1994, he spent two years at Memorial University and 27 years at the University of Waterloo where he was successively professor of chemistry, director of the Guelph-Waterloo Centre for Graduate Work in Chemistry, a pioneering joint graduate program, chair of the chemistry department and dean of research.[2][3]
Carty maintains an active interest in research in organometallic chemistry and new materials. He has over 300 publications in peer reviewed journals and five patents to his credit. He is a former president of the Canadian Society for Chemistry, an honorary fellow of the Chemical Institute of Canada and of the Fields Institute for Research in the Mathematical Sciences and a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.[4]
