Donald Savoie holds the Canada Research Chair in Public Administration and Governance at the Université de Moncton. His research achievements are prodigious and his influence on Canadian public policy, Canadian public administration and Canadian society has been evident for years. Donald Savoie has won numerous prizes and awards, including: the 2015-2016 Donner Prize, the inaugural recipient of the 2016 Writers’ Federation of New Brunswick Book Award for Non-fiction for What Is Government Good...
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Dominique Massiot studied at the École normale supérieure in Paris, one of the most prestigious and competitive institutions in France. After completing his PhD in geochemistry, Massiot joined the Centre for Research on Materials at High Temperature (CRMHT) in Orléans, France, and the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), also in France. His research focuses on the study of disorder in organic or hybrid materials through nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy of materials in solid st...
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A member of the Gitxsan First Nation Cindy Blackstock is a Professor at the McGill School of Social Work and Executive Director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society. She has worked in Indigenous children’s rights for over 30 years and is honored to work with others to promote culturally based equity for First Nations children and their families using a combination of public education, engagement and, more recently, litigation. Although she is probably best known for her wo...
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Annette Verschuren is Chair and CEO of NRStor Inc., an energy storage development company. Formerly she was president of The Home Depot Canada and Asia, overseeing the company’s growth from 19 to 179 stores (1996-2011) and its entry into China, and president and co-owner of Michaels of Canada, the country’s largest chain of arts and crafts stores. Ms. Verschuren began her career with the Cape Breton Development Corporation, a coal mining operation in Nova Scotia. Ms. Verschuren holds board pos...
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Michèle Lamont is Professor of Sociology and of African and African American Studies and the Robert I. Goldman Professor of European Studies at Harvard University.  She obtained a BA and an MA in political science from the University of Ottawa in the late seventies before earning a doctorate in sociology at the Université de Paris. She went on to post-doctoral studies at Stanford University and then was appointed to her first faculty position at the University of Texas at Austin. Since 200...
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Paul Nurse is an English geneticist and cell biologist who has worked on how the eukaryotic cell cycle is controlled and how cell shape and cell dimensions are determined. His genetic research eventually identified a gene that controls the progress of the cell cycle, culminating in the discovery, with his colleagues Leland Hartwell and Tim Hunt, of two protein molecules that control cell division, for which they were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2001, the epitome of scie...
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Mitch Garber C.M., is a Canadian lawyer and former CEO of Optimal Payments/Paysafe (Nasdaq), PartyGaming Plc/PartyBwin (LSE), Caesars Acquisition Company /Playtika Ltd. (Nasdaq). He is the Chairman of Invest in Canada, the Canadian agency responsible for foreign investment in Canada. He is an active investor and co-invests with lead investors including; Apollo, TPG, David Bonderman/Wildcat, and Fosun, and sits on the boards of Rackspace Technology (Apollo), Shutterfly Inc. (Apollo), and Fosun ...
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Born in Haiti, Dany Laferrière spent his childhood with his grand-mother, Da, in Petit‑Goâve. He began his career in journalism by reporting for the weekly Le Petit Samedi soir and for Radio Haïti Inter. In 1976, following the assassination of his friend and fellow journalist Gasner Raymond, he fled the Duvalier dictatorship and settled in Quebec. After taking several different jobs in Montreal, he decided to try his hand at writing. In 1985, he published his first novel, How to Make Love to a ...
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Through his discoveries, Professor Liotta has helped to transform HIV/AIDS from a death sentence into a chronic infection, allowing patients to live active, near-normal lives.  It is estimated that over 90% of all HIV-infected individuals in the United States take (or have taken) one of the drugs he invented.  His contributions are not restricted to AIDS; over the past 25 years, his brilliant research has led to the discovery and development of novel antiviral, anticancer, and anti-in...
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Louise Otis is an active judge, arbitrator and mediator who specializes in administrative and commercial law. She is also an adjunct professor at the Faculty of Law of McGill University and a Distinguished Fellow of the International Academy of Mediators (IAM). She began her career as a lawyer in 1975, and practiced law until her appointment to the bench of the Quebec Superior Court in 1990. Three years later she was named to the bench of the Quebec Court of Appeal, one of the two largest appe...
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