Viola Ingrid Birss is a Professor of Chemistry at the University of Calgary and has been the holder of a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Fuel Cells and Related Clean Energy Systems for two 7-year terms.
She has also supervised over 200 undergraduate, graduate and post-doctoral students and is an avid advocate for EDI, specifically in the attraction and retention of women in science and engineering.
[1] Having grown up with the wilderness close to her home, Birss was always aware of the environment, and interested in identifying clean ways of storing, converting and using energy.
[3] She was a postdoctoral research scientist at the University of Ottawa, where she worked on the supercapacitive properties of hydrous metal oxides.
[1] Birss began her independent career at Alcan International, where she helped develop techniques to evaluate the susceptibility of aluminum alloys to stress corrosion and pitting.
Other areas of research have included the development of core shell nanoparticles, protective coatings and other novel strategies to combat the corrosion of metals, as well as selective and sensitive electrochemical biosensors for the detection of pathogens.
[9] Birss currently also serves as the Co-Lead of the Electrolysis Theme of HyPT (Hydrogen Production Technologies), a Global Research Center.