Gabriel Walton, ArtSci ’11, PhD ’14, will join Queen’s next fall through a national program to recruit top researchers from around the world.
Walton, a geological sciences researcher at the Colorado School of Mines, was named the Eddie Goldenberg Research Chair in Slope Geohazard Management for Infrastructure and Mining in a Changing Climate.
The Eddie Goldenberg Research Chairs of Canada program, named after the late former chief of staff to Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, aims to recruit researchers based outside Canada to 100 new chairs in key priority areas through a $1 billion investment over 12 years.
Walton’s research focuses on slope geohazards, which involve materials coming down a slope, including rocks, landslides, and debris, he said in an interview with The Journal.
Originally from Ottawa, Walton said his years as a geological engineering student at Queen’s was an “awesome time” and formative experience.
“There’s something unique about having both the geological engineers and the geology students in the same department,” he said. He said the student body was very cohesive, with the student council, called Miller Club, organizing a lot of great events and building a strong community within the department.
A major reason for his return is the strength of the department and the broader Faculty of Engineering, as well as opportunities for collaboration on campus. He described Queen’s as a place with “a lot of potential for impactful interdisciplinary research,” citing both the faculty and the quality of students and trainees.
He is eager to study slope hazards across Canada, where geographic diversity shapes how they interact with climate and environmental conditions.
“We’re such a diverse country geographically that the nature of slope hazards and their interaction with climate and environmental variables is quite different in different parts of the country,” he said.
His research includes “open pit mining and the stability of the slopes associated with those mines,” he said. Working with government and industry partners, he aims to make these operations safer and more economically efficient.
Mine development and critical minerals are priorities for the Canadian government, he said.
Walton said climate change is intensifying the risks geohazards pose to mining, transportation, and communities. Climate change poses direct risks from events such as wildfires, hurricanes, and flooding, as well as cascading hazards such as landslides, rockfalls, and debris flows that these events can trigger, he explained.
He pointed to the November 2021 atmospheric river event in B.C., which caused $675 million in insured damage. “There was a lot of direct flooding damage, but there was also a very large number of slope failures that impacted infrastructure and communities,” he said.
Another industry affected is transportation, with commercial rail and trucking in B.C. facing a major risk.
The research chair offers $1 million or $500,000 for eight years, with an optional four-year extension at 50 per cent of the original award value.
Walton explained that the duration and size of the funding package will allow him to scale up his research program at Queen’s, support a large cohort of graduate trainees, and pursue ambitious, long-range projects beyond the typical three-year funding cycles.
More than three-quarters of the inaugural cohort come from the U.S., following a national effort to attract research talent in the face of research cuts by the Trump administration.
The research chair program is part of the larger Canada Impact+ Global Research Initiative, announced in December 2025, which commits $1.7 billion across several streams to attract talented early-career researchers and graduate students and support research infrastructure.
Tags
Alumni, geological engineering, Geology, Government of Canada, research chair
All final editorial decisions are made by the Editor(s) in Chief and/or the Managing Editor. Authors should not be contacted, targeted, or harassed under any circumstances. If you have any grievances with this article, please direct your comments to eic@queensjournal.ca.