Advance scientific discovery and knowledge and promote scientific literacy and understanding in our community.
To be the leading Faculty of Science in Canada and among the world’s best in strategic areas of strength through innovation, creativity and excellence in research, education, scholarship and service.
The Faculty of Science is one of the largest among Canadian universities, with more than 6,800 undergraduate and 600 graduate students.
Professor Gillian Goward was appointed Dean of the Faculty of Science for a five-year term effective July 1, 2026.
Goward, a professor and former chair in the Department of Chemistry & Chemical Biology, was previously the Associate Dean of Research and External Relations in the Faculty of Science.
During her time as chair from 2017 to 2022, and again from 2023 to 2024, Goward led the department through faculty renewal, program innovations, major multi-year renovations to the Arthur Bourns Building and the creation of Lab Stores and other campus-wide resources.
She also embedded equity, diversity and inclusion principles into all department policies, procedures and practices. Goward was the first woman to serve as chair of Chemistry & Chemical Biology and was the only female research-track faculty member in the department when she joined McMaster as an assistant professor in 2002.
Goward is an internationally recognized physical chemist whose leading-edge research integrates nuclear magnetic resonance and magnetic resonance imaging with electrochemistry to drive advances in lithium-ion batteries and other energy-storage materials.
For two decades, Goward’s Magnetic Resonance & Materials for Energy Storage Lab has collaborated with General Motors on electric vehicle battery performance and safety. As principal investigator, Goward has trained nine postdoctoral fellows, 18 PhD and 12 MSc students and more than 50 undergraduate researchers, with her lab co-authoring more than 140 peer-reviewed papers.
Goward earned an honours bachelor of science in Chemistry from McMaster, a PhD in Chemistry and a certificate in university teaching from the University of Waterloo, and completed an NSERC postdoctoral fellowship at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research.
She was named the McMaster Faculty of Science Research Chair in Magnetic Resonance Studies of Energy Materials in 2020 and received the peer-nominated McMaster Faculty Association Outstanding Service Award in 2024.