and Opto-electronic Materials in 1992. She joined the University of Waterloo in 1997 as an assistant professor. She became the first full-time female professor in physics at the University of Waterloo. Strickland is currently a professor, leading an ultrafast laser group that develops high-intensity laser systems for nonlinear optics investigations. She has described herself as a "laser jock": Strickland's recent work has focused on pushing the boundaries of ultrafast optical science to new wavelength ranges such as the mid-infrared and the ultraviolet, using techniques such as two-colour or multi-frequency methods, as well as Raman generation. She is also working on the role of high-power lasers in the microcrystalline lens of the human eye, during the process of micromachining of the eye lens to cure presbyopia. Strickland became a fellow of Optica in 2008. She served as its vice president and president in 2011 and 2013 respectively, and was a topical editor of its journal Optics Letters from 2004 to 2010. She is currently the chair of Optica's Presidential Advisory Committee. She is a member of and previously served as a board member and Director of Academic Affairs for the Canadian Association of Physicists. Awards and recognition 1998 – Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship 1999 – Premier's Research Excellence Award 2000 – Cottrell Scholars Award from Research Corporation 2008 – Fellow of The Optical Society 2018 – Nobel Prize in Physics 2019 – Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement presented by Awards Council member Frances Arnold 2019 – Companion of the Order of Canada 2019 – Honorary Fellow of The Canadian Academy of Engineering 2019 – Fellow of Royal Society of Canada 2020 – Member of the National Academy of Sciences 2020 – Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) 2021 – Appointed to Pontifical Academy of Sciences 2022 – Awarded the insignia of Chevalier de la Légion d'honneu, the highest French distinction. Nobel Prize On 2 October 2018, Strickland was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for her work on chirped pulse amplification with her doctoral adviser Gérard Mourou. Arthur Ashkin received the other half of the prize for unrelated work on optical tweezers. She became the third woman ever to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, after Marie Curie in 1903 and Maria Goeppert Mayer in 1963. Strickland and Mourou published their pioneering work "Compression of amplified chirped optical pulses" in 1985, while Strickland