John Root
Executive Director
John Root received his PhD from the University of Guelph in 1986, after developing a way to measure quantum effects in the structure of water and other liquids. He joined Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL), where he helped to develop a method to map stresses inside materials using a beam of neutrons from the NRU reactor at Chalk River Laboratories. This method has been copied at neutron-beam laboratories around the world, and is applied to help industries improve their products, and expand their businesses. In 2003, Dr. Root was appointed as Director of the NRC Canadian Neutron Beam Centre (CNBC), which was comprised of six neutron spectrometers, supported by a team of 20 expert researchers and technicians, and managed as an international user facility. By the time the NRU reactor was closed, in 2018, the CNBC was supporting a community of more than 800 research participants from more than 20 universities across Canada and over 100 foreign institutions. CNBC users generated knowledge of materials at the molecular and nano-scale, for applications such as transportation safety, manufacturing competitiveness, lifetime management of infrastructure, and fundamental scientific understanding. (https://cins.ca/discover/)
In 2011, Dr. Root established the Sylvia Fedoruk Canadian Centre for Nuclear Innovation, a not-for-profit corporation with the purpose of placing Saskatchewan among global leaders of nuclear research, development and training. From 2017 to 2025, Dr. Root served as Executive Director of the Fedoruk Centre. (www.fedorukcentre.ca)
From 2016 to 2022, the Fedoruk Centre supported the Canadian Neutron Initiative working group, led by VPs of Research from the University of Saskatchewan and McMaster University, which culminated in the establishment of Neutrons Canada. Neutrons Canada is a not-for-profit corporation, aspiring to govern, manage, and represent Canada’s infrastructure program for research with neutron beams. The Fedoruk Centre provided interim management service to stand up the corporation with institutional Members, a Board of Directors, and a governance framework suited to the future purpose of Neutrons Canada. (www.neutrons.ca)