Honorary degree recipient - David Keith
Citation reader: Alex De Visscher
Mr. President, it is my honour to present to you Dr. David Keith, to recognize his advances on finding practical solutions to climate change.
Dr. Keith put the academic world on notice as a student in the 1980s, when he finished first in Canada’s national physics prize exam and then won MIT’s prize for excellence in experimental physics.
He would soon start on his path of examining how climate can be engineered, such as by injecting sulphur particles in the stratosphere to reflect sunlight back into space, or by directly capturing CO2 to convert it back to fuel.
Dr. Keith has since studied the science, technology, and policy issues of such measures as well as their potentially hazardous side effects on entire populations.
Dr. Keith, now a professor of applied physics and of public policy at Harvard University, has also researched the climatic impacts of large-scale wind power and pioneered studies of risk, regulatory policy and public perception of carbon capture and storage.
He emphasizes educating the general public, such as through his book, A Case for Climate Engineering, and through his popular online edX course that provides a quantitative introduction to energy production and its environmental impact.
Mr. President, on behalf of the Board of Governors and Senate, it is my privilege and honour to present to you Dr. David Keith, so that you may confer upon him the degree of Doctor of Science, honoris causa.