Prof. Juan C Scaiano (born 1945) first came to Canada in 1975 as a visiting scientist with the National Research Council from Argentina. Returning to the NRC in 1979, he developed an innovative new program studying organic reaction intermediates using laser techniques. He then joined the University of Ottawa in 1991 as professor of chemistry. Current projects in the Scaiano Research Group include such diverse topics as fluorescent sensors, photolithography, persistent free radicals, and nanoparticles. Since then, he has won many national and international awards for his work in photochemistry. He was the first to use two lasers to follow photochemical changes in short-lived intermediates during a reaction which allows scientists to measure photochemical reactions. He has won awards including the Premier's Platinum Medal for Research Excellence, which is one of the largest single research awards in the world, the Tory Medal, the Rutherford Memorial Medal, the Izaak-Walton-Killam Award, and the 2002 Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal for Science and Engineering. In 2020, he received the Nicholas J. Turro award. In 2005, he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada. He is a member of the Centre for Research in Photonics at the University of Ottawa. He also founded a company named Luzchem which builds and sells photochemistry equipment.