Bioethics researcher Eric Meslin is the new president and CEO of the Council of Canadian Academies, effective Feb. 1. Dr. Meslin is the founding director of the Indiana University Center for Bioethics and associate dean of bioethics at the Indiana University School of Medicine. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Toronto, University of Oxford, University of Western Australia, and at Université de Toulouse, where he held the Pierre de Fermat Chaire d’Excellence. Before moving to Indiana, Dr. Meslin was a director of bioethics research at the U.S. National Human Genome Research Institute and executive director of the U.S. National Bioethics Advisory Commission. Dr. Meslin says he has followed the work of the CCA since its inception and “I look forward to returning to Canada to work with this well-respected and evidence-driven organization, its member academies and supporters. This is an exciting time for science.”
Economics professor Steven Renzetti is Brock University’s new associate vice-president, research, for humanities and social sciences. A faculty member at Brock since 1988, Dr. Renzetti specializes in environmental economics, specifically the economics of water resources. Among Dr. Renzetti’s accomplishments is a $2.3-million SSHRC Partnership research grant he won to establish the Water Economics, Policy and Governance Network. His appointment began Jan. 1.
Since Nov. 16, Brad Adams has been serving as associate vice-president, finance, at the University of Calgary. Prior to joining U of C, Mr. Adams was vice-president, finance and administration, at Prism Sulphur Corporation, and was executive vice-president and chief financial officer of Comac Food Group Inc. Mr. Adams is a chartered accountant and U of C alumnus.
John Semple, chief of surgery of Women’s College Hospital and a professor in the department of surgery at the University of Toronto, has been elected chair of the board of governors at OCAD University. His one-year term started Nov. 14. Dr. Semple has served as a member of the board since 2012 and is also an alumnus of the institution.
York University has tapped Samina Sami to become the institution’s first executive director of community safety. Ms. Sami’s appointment began Jan. 4. She joins York after 23 years in public and community service, most recently with the Ontario Women’s Directorate. Ms. Sami has worked on a broad range of justice initiatives including services for survivors, justice policy, human rights, gender-based violence and emergency measures. She has also worked as an instructor at the Ontario Police College.
Former Member of Parliament James Moore will be installed as chancellor of the University of Northern British Columbia on May 27. He graduated from UNBC in 2001. Mr. Moore served in the House of Commons for 15 years and held such posts as Minister of Industry, Regional Minister for British Columbia and Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages. Mr. Moore is now senior business advisor at the Vancouver law office of Dentons.
Barry Wright has been named interim dean of the Goodman School of Business at Brock University. Dr. Wright has been a member of the business faculty since 2003 and was interim associate dean of business from 2008 to 2010. His research focuses on leadership, organizational change and how small businesses can use information technology. The appointment began Dec. 1, 2015, and runs until June 2017.
At Memorial University, Mary Bluechardt was reappointed vice-president of Grenfell Campus for a second five-year term. Her appointment comes into effect July 1, 2016. In her four years at the campus, Dr. Bluechardt has bolstered Grenfell’s teaching and learning, research, internationalization, recruitment and public engagement activities. She joined Memorial from the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, where she had been dean of the faculty of health sciences.
Stuart Belkin has been elected chair of the board of governors at the University of British Columbia. Mr. Belkin is chair and CEO of Belkorp Industries, a Vancouver-based management holding company. He is also chair of Rogers Sugar Inc. Mr. Belkin is a former chair of the board of Mohawk Canada Ltd. and Canadian Hotel Income Properties. He begins the new post on Feb. 4.
At Queen’s University, Donald M. Raymond will become chair of the board of trustees, effective June 1. Dr. Raymond is managing partner and chief investment officer at Alignvest Management Corporation. He was previously chief investment strategist for the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. He was instrumental in the development of the United Nations’ Principles of Responsible Investing, and in their adoption by CPPIB in 2005. He has been a member of the board at Queen’s since 2008.
On Dec. 10, Arthur McDonald was formally awarded the Nobel Prize in physics at a ceremony in Stockholm. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has jointly recognized Dr. McDonald, professor emeritus at Queen’s University, and Takaaki Kajita of the University of Tokyo, for “their key contributions to the experiments which demonstrated that neutrinos change identities.” Dr. McDonald, who retired from the university in 2013, has previously won NSERC’s Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal for Science and Engineering, the Killam Prize in the Natural Sciences, the Henry Marshall Tory Medal from the Royal Society of Canada, and the European Physics Society HEP Division Giuseppe and Vanna Cocconi Prize for Particle Astrophysics.
Janet Werker (pictured), director of the Infant Studies Centre and holder of the Canada Research Chair in Psychology at the University of British Columbia, won the 2015 Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Gold Medal, which comes with $100,000 in research funding. Dr. Werker is a developmental psychologist whose research on language acquisition has found important linkages between early infancy, spoken language and fluency. She was presented the prize at the annual Impact Award gala in Ottawa. Four other award winners each receive $50,000 in research money: Jeremy Schmidt (previously of Dalhousie University, now Carleton University), recipient of the Talent Award for research on the social aspects of water management and governance; David Lyon (Queen’s University), who received the Insight Award for his study of life in a “surveillance society”; Stephen Gaetz (York University), recipient of the Connection Award for his research on homelessness; and Susan McGrath (York), who received the Partnership Award for her interdisciplinary and cross-sector partnerships researching refugees and forced migration.
As of Jan. 1, Hanny Hassan is the new chair of the board of governors at Western University. Mr. Hassan manages Alef Consulting Inc., an independent consulting engineering practice in London, Ontario. His community service efforts on interfaith and multifaith issues earned him membership to the Order of Canada in 2011. He’s been a member of the board since 2009 and vice-chair since 2014.