Sponsored by the CIC Analytical Chemistry Division
The Fred Beamish Award is presented to an individual who demonstrates innovation in research in the field of analytical chemistry, where the research is anticipated to have significant potential for practical applications.
View the Terms of Reference and list of Past Winners
The 2024 winner of the Fred Beamish Award is:
Yolanda Hedberg MCIC
The University of Western Ontario
Yolanda Hedberg is an interdisciplinary analytical chemist focused on understanding corrosion and other degradation processes, and their impact on human health. She has an engineering degree (2009) from the Friedrich Alexander University, Erlangen, Germany, a Ph.D. (2013) in corrosion science from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden, and she did her postdoc at Karolinska Institute, Sweden. Since 2020, she is Assistant Professor at UWO, where she holds a Tier II CRC in Corrosion Science. Her diverse research projects focus on materials degradation, as well as interfacial processes of metals, metallic implants, nanoparticles, and a wide range of consumer products. Hedberg is particularly interested in liquid and solid-state chemical speciation determining bioaccessibility, bioavailability, transport processes, and their implications for human health. She uses a wide range of analytical techniques, including electrochemical, spectroscopic, chemical speciation modelling, and microscopic methods, many of which had to be customized to allow their application to real-world samples under in-situ conditions. She developed electrochemical, solution analytical, and spectroscopic methods to characterize interfacial processes of surfaces and nanomaterials. Her findings have impacted legislation in several countries, best clinical policies, and industrial processes and products.