Sharon Straus, Geriatrician and Clinical Epidemiologist, University of Toronto | Co-Chair
Sharon E. Straus is a geriatrician and clinical epidemiologist who trained at the University of Toronto and the University of Oxford. She is the Director of the Knowledge Translation Program; Executive Vice President, Clinical Programs and Chief Medical Officer, Unity Health Toronto; and Professor in Department of Medicine, University of Toronto. She authored more than 650 peer-reviewed publications and 3 textbooks in evidence-based medicine, knowledge translation and mentorship. Since 2015, she has consistently been in the top 1% of highly cited clinical researchers as per Clarivate and has an H-index of 126. She holds more than $80 million in peer-reviewed research grants as a principal investigator. She has received national awards for mentorship, research and education. She was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Medicine, from the University of Montreal, is a Fellow in the Royal Society of Canada and the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences and a Member of the Order of Canada.
Stephen Toope, President and CEO, Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) | Co-Chair
Stephen J Toope OC, FRSC, LLD is President and CEO of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR). Previously, he served as the 346th Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, the first non-UK national to hold the post. He was Director of the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, President of the University of British Columbia, founding President of Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, and Dean of Law at McGill University.
Toope’s public service includes Chairing the United Nations Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances, serving as Fact Finder for the Commission of Inquiry into the Actions of Canadian Government Officials in relation to Maher Arar, being a UN Election Observer the first Post-apartheid elections in South Africa, and sitting on the Boards of the Social Sciences Research Council of Canada and the International Development Research Centre of Canada.
Toope has written or co-authored four books on international law, published in global journals on human rights, international dispute resolution, international environmental law, the use of force, and international legal theory, and lectured at universities around the world.
Sophie D’Amours, Rector, Université Laval
Elected in 2017 and re-elected in 2022, Professor Sophie D’Amours is the first woman to serve as rector of the Université Laval, in Quebec City. Through collaboration, she seeks to increase the institution’s impact to better respond to societal challenges. Sophie D’Amours is a mechanical engineer who holds an MBA and a PhD in engineering mathematics. Throughout her career, she has made several significant contributions to research, particularly in the forestry sector. Her commitment to community involvement has led her to chair the Conseil de l'innovation du Québec and co-chair the Québec Capitale Climat initiative. Sophie D’Amours was made Officer of the Ordre du Québec, Officer of the Order of Canada, an Officer of the Ordre national du Mérite de la République française. She is also a member of the Académie des Grands Québécois (social division), the Canadian Academy of Engineering, and an international member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Forestry and Agriculture.
Stephen Lucas, CEO, Mitacs, and former Deputy Minister of Health Canada
Dr. Stephen Lucas is an accomplished public policy leader who retired in May 2024 after more than 35 years with the Government of Canada, including 10 years as a Deputy Minister. He served as Deputy Minister of Health Canada from 2019-2024 and was previously Deputy Minister of Environment and Climate Change and Deputy Secretary of Plans, Consultations and Intergovernmental Affairs at the Privy Council Office. In October 2024, Dr. Lucas was appointed as the CEO of Mitacs, a not-for-profit organization that connects Canadian businesses and researchers with talent to support research and innovation. He has a Bachelor of Science with Honours in Geological Engineering from Queen's University and a Ph.D. from Brown University, and was appointed as a Member of the Order of Canada in June 2025.
Barb Neis, Professor Emerita and John Lewis Paton Distinguished University Professor, Department of Sociology, Memorial University
Barbara Neis (Ph.D., F.R.S.C., C.M.) is the Past President of the RSC Academy of Social Sciences. Professor Neis is currently John Lewis Paton Distinguished University Professor and Honorary Research Professor in the Department of Sociology at Memorial University. A member of the Order of Canada, she received her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Toronto in 1988, is a former Trudeau Fellow, and has an Honorary Doctorate from York University (Toronto) and the University of Tromsø (Norway). Over the past forty years, her research has focused broadly on interactions between work, environment, health, mobility and communities in marine and coastal contexts. Specializing in multidisciplinary, community-engaged research, Professor Neis has led substantial programs of research in the areas of fishermen’s ecological knowledge, marine science and management, gender and fisheries, rebuilding collapsed fisheries, marine and coastal occupational health, and work-related mobility.
Deanna Reder, Professor, Simon Fraser University
Deanna Reder (Cree-Metis) is a Professor in the Departments of Indigenous Studies and English at Simon Fraser University. A founding member of the Indigenous Literary Studies Association (ILSA), established in 2013, and the Indigenous Editing Association (IEA), established in 2019, she has served as co-Chair of the Indigenous Voices Awards since 2018. She has co-edited four anthologies and two special journal issues, and her 2022 monograph, Autobiography as Indigenous Intellectual Tradition: Cree and Métis âcimisowina, received one international and two national awards, most recently the Canada Prize in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Also, she is co-author of Cold Case North: The Search for James Brady and Absolom Halkett (2020). She and her research team work on the neglected archive of Indigenous writing in lands claimed by Canada (see http://www.thepeopleandthetext.ca ). She has served as Chair of the Research board for the Collaboratory for Writing and Research on Culture (CWRC) since 2017.
Ian Sutherland, President & Vice-Chancellor, Mount Allison University
Ian Sutherland (he/they) serves as the 16th President & Vice-Chancellor of Mount Allison University. With a passion for education and its power to change lives, Dr. Sutherland has held faculty, leadership, and executive roles in universities, academic associations, and community organizations across Canada and Europe. He is an award-winning researcher, author, and teacher, and has shared his expertise as a speaker and consultant in over 40 countries. Identifying as queer, Dr. Sutherland believes Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion must be at the heart of leadership. He works hard to support 2SLGBTQIA+ people and all equity deserving folks, especially in leadership roles. An intense interdisciplinarian with degrees in music from Memorial University (Canada) and a PhD in Sociology and Philosophy from the University of Exeter (United Kingdom), Dr. Sutherland is deeply devoted to intellectual exploration, creativity, and the application of critical thinking to better our shared world.
Andrew Weaver, Professor, University of Victoria
Andrew J. Weaver is a Professor in the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences at the University of Victoria. He was also the Canada Research Chair in Climate Modelling and Analysis until he was elected as a BC Green Party MLA in the 2013 BC Provincial Election representing the riding of Oak Bay-Gordon Head. In 2015 Dr. Weaver assumed leadership of the BC Green Party, leading them to an historic election result in the 2017 provincial election with three elected MLAs holding the balance of power in an NDP minority government. He returned to UVic after completing two terms as an MLA.
Dr. Weaver is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, American Meteorological Society, American Geophysical Union and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Over the years he has received a number of awards including the NSERC-Steacie, Killam and Guggenheim Fellowships and the CMOS President’s Prize, the Royal Society of Canada Miroslaw Romanowski Medal and the A.G. Huntsman Award for Excellence in Marine Science. In 2008 he was appointed to the Order of British Columbia.
Martha White, Associate Professor, University of Alberta
Martha White is an Associate Professor of Computing Science at the University of Alberta and a Fellow of Amii, which is one of the top machine learning centres in the world. She holds a Canada CIFAR AI Chair, a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Reinforcement Learning, received IEEE’s “AIs 10 to Watch: The Future of AI” award in 2020 and was inducted into the College of New Scholars by the Royal Society of Canada in 2024. She has authored more than 80 papers in top journals and conferences. Martha is an associate editor for JMLR and TMLR, has served as co-program chair for ICLR and for RLC and regularly serves as an area chair for top AI conferences. Her research focus is on developing algorithms that learn to adapt continually, with a focus on more sustainable systems.