Christopher J. Barrett PhD, BSc

Christopher Barrett was schooled indoors and out, in the Kawartha Lakes of Ontario, the Yorkshire Moors, and the Foothills of the Colorado Rockies. He attended Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario for a B.Sc. in Chemistry and Physics in 1992, and a M.Sc. in Chemistry in 1994, working for Environment Canada each summer. He then worked for a year in Engineering Physics at the Royal Military College Canada, and the Canadian Space Agency, and returned to Queen's in 1995 for a Ph.D. with the Polymer Chemist Almeria Natansohn and Optical Physicist Paul Rochon, on light-responsive polymers.

His Doctoral Thesis in 1997 was recognized with Canada's Top Graduate Awards, both in Polymer Chemistry from the CIC, and Optical Physics from the CAP, and Postdoctoral Fellowships to Harvard and MIT. Barrett joined the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT for 2 post-doc years, '98-'99, working with Anne Mayes, and Michael Rubner, on self-assembly of layers and multilayers for bio-surfaces.

Barrett joined the McGill Chemistry Faculty in 2000 to set up Polymer Materials and Laser Characterization labs, and establish collaborations with the Center for Physics of Materials, Biomedical Engineering, the Montreal Neurological Institute, and the Canadian Institute for Neutron Scattering. He and his 25 Graduate Students have written 90 papers on Self-Assembly and Light-Harvesting Polymers, which have been cited now more than 6500 times, h-index = 40. He has delivered more than 100 invited lectures on this research, and more than 20 Public Outreach talks on Green Materials, Sustainable Energy, Bio-Mimicry, and Bio-Engineering.

Prof. Barrett supports Sustainability McGill and other local Green Initiatives, UNESCO and the Trans Canada Trail, and the Canadian Cancer Foundation. After school, Prof. Barrett enjoys home wine-making, spicy cooking, snowshoeing, canoeing and kayaking, and Montreal's great Jazz clubs and Irish Folk Music. He lives on-the-grid in Plateau Montreal a short walk or Bixi from McGill, and off-the-grid during camping season on the Riviere Rouge, an hour north into the Quebec Laurentiens.