An Ontario resident who shares the same name as Nobel Prize winner Donna Strickland got to meet her new hero.

Donna Strickland of Cambridge, Ont., woke up earlier this month to Facebook messages and phone calls from journalists and others hoping to congratulate her.

At first, she was confused. Then she realized they were actually looking for a professor at the nearby University of Waterloo who has the same name.

Strickland told CTV Kitchener that she hoped to meet the Nobel Prize winner to, “shake her hand, give her a big hug and say thank you for her findings.”

That’s what happened at a Tim Hortons on Sunday.

“I do get friend requests but not that many in one day,” Strickland joked.

Strickland the physicist said her children and husband encouraged her to meet the other Donna.

“She’s being such a good sport about this so they all said you have to meet her,” she said.

“I’ve never heard of another Donna Strickland before,” she added. “To think that we would be in the same Waterloo Region is pretty amazing.”

Strickland the scholar said she still has about 1,800 unread emails. She shares the Nobel Prize for Physics with two others for their work on a technique that led to the use of high-intensity lasers.

With a report from CTV Kitchener’s Marta Czurylowicz