J. S. G. (Jack) Kirkaldy received his bachelor's degree in Engineering Physics and his master's in Nuclear Physics from the University or British Columbia, and his doctorate in Nuclear Physics from McGill University. As an Assistant Professor at McGill and a summer employee as Research Engineer at the Aluminum Laboratories in Kingston Ontario, he first encountered the problems of diffusion and phase transformations in multicomponent metallic systems, and as a physicist-cum-metallurgist, decided to undertake a systematic theoretical and experimental study of these phenomena. He came to McMaster University in 1957 to become a founding member of the Department of Metallurgy and Metallurgical Engineering. At McMaster, he helped to build that Department, and established a research tradition focusing on structural evolution in condensed systems that endures to this day.

Jack Kirkaldy has served the University and the broader academic and industrial communities with great distinction for more than forty years. He served as Chair of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and of the Department of Engineering Physics. In 1967, he was elected President of the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations, and in 1969-1971, served as a member of the Wright Commission on Post-Secondary Education in Ontario. In 1980 he became founding Director of the McMaster Institute for Energy Studies. He held the Steel Company of Canada Chair in Metallurgy from 1966 to 1969, and was, from 1974 To 1989, President of JASAK Ltd., developing and providing software for the prediction of the response of steels to thermal-mechanical processing. His Computer Assisted Steel Information System has been adopted by forty major corporations worldwide. Professor Kirkaldy is now Emeritus Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and Engineering Physics. He is active in and devoted to his research, which now centres on the theory of phase transformations and pattern formation in condensed matter.

Professor Kirkaldy is author or co-author of over 250 peer-reviewed papers in journals and proceedings; he has coauthored or co-edited eight volumes including his definitive synthesis, with D. J. Young, entitled Diffusion in the Condensed State, and published in 1987 by the Institute of Metals.

Professor Kirkaldy's achievements have been recognized by an impressive list of awards, too numerous to list here. A sampling includes the Henry Marion Howe award of the American Society for Metals, The Alcan Award, the Canadian Metal Physics Medal, and the R. F. Mehl medal and lectureship of the American Institute of Metallurgical Engineers. (He was the second Canadian in thirty years to be so honored). He has been elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering, Fellow of the Metallurgical Society of AIME, and Fellow of the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgical and Petroleum Engineers. He is an honorary member of the Societé Français de Métallurgie et de Matériaux. In 1992, he was awarded honorary doctorates by the University of Waterloo and Queen's University.

Jack Kirkaldy's work has benefitted and stimulated many. With his scientific curiosity, insight, ingenuity and tenacity, he has served as a model for aspiring scientists and engineers at McMaster and elsewhere.