Dear Fellows of the Academy of Science,
This newsletter is to briefly inform you about our academy's activities over the past year, our contributions, and the remaining events leading up to our annual meeting at the Celebration of Excellence & Engagement (COEE2025) in Montréal this fall.
Over the past year, our academy, Fellows, and I have actively participated in several events. Notably, we contributed to the RSC Dialogues @ Massey - a partnership between Massey College and the RSC on Dec 13, 2023. This discussion, entitled Creativity in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: Exploring the Intersection of Technology and Human Innovation, brought together Steve DiPaola (Simon Fraser University) and Joelle Pineau (McGill University), and presented many facets of artificial intelligence (AI) on the human creative process. You can access the event recording here.
More recently, our academy, supported by the RSC team, organized an RSC Dialogues @ UQO event, with the Université du Québec en Outaouais (UQO) entitled Cybersecurity Debt is Everyone’s Problem. This topic is one of the 2025 G7 themes of Advanced Technology and Data Security, which Canada will host in the coming months. This dialogue was led by Atefeh Mashatan (Toronto Metropolitan University) and Benoît Dupont (U de Montréal), who discussed AI security from an individual perspective to the security of large informatics systems. You can access the event recording here.
Thank you to our colleagues at Massey College and UQO, for kindly hosting these events!
During the COEE2024 at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, our academy welcomed 53 new Fellows and held a collegial cocktail event. During an evening gathering, our academy also had the opportunity to discuss internal operations, including committee structures and the selection of Chairs for our five divisions.
We are pleased to introduce the Division Directors for 2025!
- Biological Sciences (BIOS): Prof. Marla Sokolowski continues her mandate for 2024-2025.
As we transition into the new year, we thank our outgoing directors for their service and welcome their successors, who will lead the selection of new Fellows for the Academy of Science:
- Applied Science and Engineering (ASE): Prof. Federico Rosei has completed his mandate, and Prof. Pierre Berini (University of Ottawa) is now the new director.
- Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences (EAOS): Prof. Keiko Hattori has completed her mandate, and Prof. Alfonso Mucci (McGill University) has stepped in as the new director.
- Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS): Prof. Cathleen Crudden has completed her mandate, with Prof. Jillian Buriak (University of Alberta) taking over.
- Medical Sciences (MEDS): Prof. V Wee Yong has completed his mandate, and Prof. Rui Wang (York University) is now the new director.
We extend our sincere gratitude to past and current directors and selection committee members for their dedication to the Academy of Science!
The selection of New Fellows process always brings challenges since some nominations overlap multiple divisions. For example, researchers working at the intersection of different domains, such as bio-engineering, health and environmental sciences, and others, also pose similar challenges. Unique fields like pure mathematics versus applied mathematics also pose challenges. We must continue adapting our selection process in different divisions to address these challenges better.
While the number of women nominated as Fellows has remained stagnant, the number of women successfully elected has been increasing slowly but steadily. Additionally, we must continue to promote nominations from Francophone and Indigenous communities while ensuring they meet the standards expected for election as an RSC Fellow. Other tasks are to fairly address nominations from the smaller universities, providing exceptional candidates first and foremost, but by seeking more nominations.
The Academy of Science, through its President, has the honour of being a member of the A.G. Huntsman Award for Excellence in the Marine Sciences, which recognizes exceptional contributions by a marine scientist from any nationality. Given annually, it would be necessary for our academy to suggest potential candidates. The nomination deadline is fast approaching on April 4, 2025.
As I enter the final seven months of my mandate, I am grateful for the opportunities this position has provided. While there is always more to achieve, the Academy’s leadership team is well-prepared to continue and expand the work initiated during this last term. Notably, with some medals now transitioning to the College, we should also increase special recognition from our divisions through our current awards and aim to seek additional exceptional prizes for each of our five divisions.
Additional work will join the efforts led by our RSC President Alain- G. Gagnon to strengthen ties with ACFAS, expand university partnerships, and foster collaboration with other Canadian scientific societies.
Finally, I cannot end this message without mentioning recent events with our neighbour to the south. As a new government in Washington has brought about the current political and unprecedented research situation, there are pressing concerns affecting academic scientific research pursuits in North America. These include a growing distrust in scientific credibility, which is partly fueled by social media and our neighbour’s governance with new research policies. Furthermore, the increasing challenges of AI and the application of quantum computing will change our society even more rapidly. Purely a scientific innovation at their core, AI and social media are now often misrepresenting and undermining the value of science itself. Other issues linked to this new administration may come from the free movement of scientists between our two nations. This has been vital to advancing multidisciplinary knowledge and training new generations of Canadian researchers for academia and the private sector. The Academy of Science must remain engaged in its mission to preserve and strengthen Canadian science through the remarkable memberships of our fellow members. The RSC, particularly the Academy of Science, will need to stand at the forefront of defending scientific endeavours, truthfulness and the need to use science to improve the lives of all Canadians.
We close this note by mentioning that the recent elections have resulted in the appointment of our new President-elect, Dr. Robert Boily. Dynamic and with a plethora of ideas, he will assume the presidency of the Academy of Science following COEE2025, which will be held in Montréal this coming fall. We are looking forward to seeing many of you on this occasion.
Yours truly,
Prof. Michel L. Tremblay Ph.D., FRSC, C.Q.
Distinguished James McGill Professor, McGill University
President, RSC Academy of Science
FACETS is the official journal of the Royal Society of Canada’s Academy of Science and is published by Canadian Science Publishing, Canada’s not for profit leader in mobilizing science.
FACETS is a multidisciplinary open access science journal that publishes and shares rigorously peer reviewed research from education and policy frameworks to interdisciplinary approaches.
Canadian Science Publishing, publisher of FACETS, is excited to share guidelines to help researchers report community-engaged research in manuscripts. Researchers can use these guidelines to help demonstrate how the community was involved throughout the research process and how the study benefits the community. View the new guidelines.