George Albert Sawatzky FRSC FRS (born 16 May 1942, Winkler, Manitoba, Canada) is a Canadian physicist, known for his research in solid state physics and strongly correlated electron systems.

in physics with Honours from the University of Manitoba and there in 1969 his PhD with thesis Some properties of Ferrimagnetic Spinels and their determination with the Mössbauer effect under the supervision of Allan H. Morrish.

He generated some of the earliest ideas about effects such as transferred and, especially, supertransfered hyperfine fields and developed the theory to describe these in terms of the covalency of the Fe–O bonds.

He pioneered the cluster approach now used in understanding the Fe-O-Fe bond angle, the superexchange interaction, and the supertransferred hyperfine fields, as well as the electronic structure of strongly correlated systems like the high temperature superconductors and colossal magneto resistance materials.

Together with Jan Zaanen and James W. Allen, Sawatzky developed the ZSA model (which became widely used) for describing the basics of the electronic structure of 3d transition metal oxides.