Professor John Smol OC, OOnt, PhD, FRSC, FRS, is a Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Biology (cross-appointed with the School of Environmental Studies) at Queen’s University where he also held the Canada Research Chair in Environmental Change for the maximum three 7-year terms (2001-2022). He was the founding editor of the Journal of Paleolimnology and is currently in his 5th term (20 years) as editor-in-chief of the journal Environmental Reviews. He is also the series editor of the book series Developments in Paleoenvironmental Research and is on the editorial boards of 11 other journals.

John founded and now co-directs the Paleoecological Environmental Assessment and Research Laboratory (PEARL) at Queen's University, a group of about 30 paleolimnologists (researchers studying long-term changes in aquatic ecosystems using lake and river sediments as archives of long-term natural and human-related environmental change) working throughout the world on a variety of limnological and paleoecological problems. Recent projects include studying the long-term effects of lake eutrophication, acidification, contaminant transport, calcium decline, fisheries management, and a large body of work on climate change with a special focus on the Arctic.