Edwin Elliott Burnell

Edwin Elliott Burnell passed away in the early morning of January 22, 2026, after a brief hospitalization at Vancouver General Hospital. He is survived by his wife Bonnie, his three children Tara (and spouse Gordon Lawson), Fiona (and spouse Robin Miller), and Kaitlyn (and partner David Nguyen), and four grandchildren Christopher and Miranda Lawson, Alice Miller, and Nora Burnell. Elliott is fondly remembered by friends, family, and colleagues for his kindness, humor, and enthusiasm for both science and life’s many adventures. A memorial service will be held at Knox United Church on March 14, 2026 at 11 am.

Elliott was born on December 4, 1943, in Saint John’s, Newfoundland, the younger of two sons of Jessie Isabelle Burnell (nee Elliott) and Edwin John Burnell. A lover of mathematical puzzles, in 1960 he began his bachelor's at Memorial University of Newfoundland majoring in mathematics, but switched to chemistry to take advantage of a scholarship opportunity that included a summer internship in Schawinigan, Quebec. At Memorial he became excited about a newly developed technique for imaging molecules, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, in which he saw both challenging theoretical puzzles to solve, and the potential to discover new truths about the molecular world. This interest brought him to the university of Bristol in 1966 to pursue a PhD under the supervision of Prof. David Buckingham. There he enjoyed both a stimulating academic environment and the opportunity to travel all over Europe, including annual ski trips to the Dolomites in Italy, which left him with a life-long love of Italian culture and cuisine, and numerous adventures by motorcycle around the UK and the mediterranean.

After three years in Bristol Elliott moved to Vancouver, Canada, where he met his future wife Catherine Bonnie Burnell, whom he wooed with the help of a truly extraordinary pair of bright orange shoes and his ability to seize the moment, which brought them on countless adventures together in the decades to come. After marrying in 1971, a year living in Switzerland, and several summers of adventuring in their 1972 VW camper van, they had three children: Tara, Fiona, and Kaitlyn, whose early years included road trips, adventures in the North Shore mountains, regular model train time, and frequent visits to the Vancouver Aquarium, as well as many many weekends that Elliott spent chaffeuring them to Ringette games. The family took many memorable trips together, including to his home province of Newfoundland where they enjoyed the rugged coastline, rides on their uncle Robin’s boat and motorcycle, and absorbing the Newfie culture.

During this time Elliott pursued a productive scientific career in advanced NMR spectroscopy of liquid crystals, starting a faculty position at the University of British Columbia in 1972— a job that he held for 46 years until his retirement in 2018. His work was particularly distinguished by the integration of experiment and theory, leading him to develop methods to extract molecular structure, orientation and anisotropic properties from highly complex NMR data. He was also a pioneer in scientific computing at UBC, combining his results with computer simulations to understand orientational order in liquid-crystal solutions, and an early adopter of all things computational, from desktop computers to the internet. His professional life brought him to destinations all over the world, including a post-doc in Basel, Switzerland in 1971, sabbaticals in Sweden in 1986, Bologna in 1998, and Australia in 2007, and many other adventures in between. He relished these trips for their scientific opportunities, the chance to connect with life-long friends and collaborators, and the opportunity to explore new places.

In 2010 he became a grandfather for the first time, and over the next 15 years enjoyed providing his four grandchildren with the same playful love that he had provided to his own children decades before, including building a treehouse and a mini model railroad, reading stories, pushing strollers, and performing silly antics to make them smile.

Elliott Burnell lived life energetically, was enthusiastic about his work, and loved his family. He is a model to all of them of how to make the most of all that life brings.