Agricultural & Environmental Sciences
Josée Lavoie, BSc(FSc)’86, MA’93, became the inaugural dean of the College of Community and Global Health at the University of Manitoba’s Rady Faculty of Health Sciences in August. A professor of community health sciences at the University of Manitoba, she is the past director of Ongomiizwin – Research in the Institute of Indigenous Health and Healing. Her research focuses on improved access to primary health care for underserved and marginalized populations in rural, remote and inner-city environments and on shifting health policy.
Christina Saliba, BSc(AgEnvSc)’10, is the co-creator/producer of Lesbian Wilderness Retreat from Hell, a queer horror-comedy that explores the psychological toll of social media and cancel culture. Presented by Misfit Productions in association with Fierté Montréal Pride, it was performed at Cabaret Lion d’Or from July 31 to August 9. An interactive and immersive theatre piece, the production’s cast included Chrystal Zhang, BEd’21.
Stéphanie Naud, FMT’14, BSc(AgEnvSc)’17, was the top woman performer at the 2025 World Timber Sports Championships in Wisconsin in July. She placed first in the jack and jill and women’s single buck competitions and second in the jill and jill and women’s underhand chop competitions. She discovered competitive lumberjacking as a member of the Macdonald Campus woodsmen team.
Architecture
David Rifkind, MArch’97, became the new dean of the College of Architecture and Planning at the University of Colorado Denver in July. He had recently served as director of the School of Architecture and Ivan H. Smith Endowed Professor at the University of Florida from 2021 to 2024, where he oversaw a department with more than 500 students and seven degree programs across four campuses in Florida and Italy.
Henry Tsang, BSc(Arch)’00, MArch’02, became the new chair of the RAIC Centre for Architecture at Athabasca University in July. An associate professor at the RAIC Centre for Architecture, he is the founding principal of Henry Tsang Architect based in Calgary. His design, teaching and research work explores the intersections between sustainability, health, accessibility and culture in the built environment.
Arts
Robyn Sarah, BA’70, MA’74, recently published We’re Somewhere Else Now, a chronicle of the pandemic years and her first collection of new poetry in a decade. She is the author of 12 poetry collections, including My Shoes Are Killing Me, winner of the 2015 Governor General’s Literary Award for poetry.
Laurence Costa, BA’75, has been appointed to the California Commission on Aging. He was the executive director at the California Association of Area Agencies on Aging from 2021 to 2024. The commission is the principal advisory body to California’s governor, its state legislature, and state, federal and local departments and agencies on issues affecting older individuals in California.
Donna Nebenzahl, BA’75, recently published To Linger With You: A Memoir of Sunshine and Longing (Stonehewer Books), a book that deals with her complicated family history. Growing up in the 1950s in a close-knit Portuguese family in the colony of British Guiana, she didn’t know why her mother lived a continent away or why, as a devout young Catholic, she had a Jewish family name. After she had moved to Canada, she began to explore her complex background. A journalist, she had a long career at The Montreal Gazette as a section editor, columnist and feature writer.
Sharon London Liss, BA’76, is a 2025 recipient of the International Women’s Forum of Canada’s Luminary Award. She is a Toronto-based art dealer with extensive knowledge of 20th-century art, and her recent sales include works by Paul Emile Borduas, Alex Colville, Guido Molinari, Jean-Paul Riopelle and Andy Warhol. IWF Canada has a national membership of more than 750 of the country’s most successful women in business, the arts, philanthropy, and the public sector, and the Luminary Award recognizes IWF Canada members who best exemplify or have exemplified the spirit and soul of IWF Canada.
James B. Peloquin, BA’81, is a partner with Conn Kavanaugh. He and the firm’s construction practice group earned a ranking in the 2025 edition of the influential legal directory Chambers USA, which highlights top lawyers and law firms across the U.S. Peloquin has been a construction and trial lawyer for over 40 years, and for the past several years he has expanded his practice to serve as a neutral mediator/arbitrator.
Fernanda Helen Perrone, BA’84, MA’87, archivist and head of the exhibitions program at Rutgers University Libraries, was inducted as a fellow of the Society of American Archivists (SAA) in August. The distinction of fellow is the highest honor bestowed on individuals by SAA and is awarded for outstanding contributions to the archives profession. She has spent her decades-long career at Rutgers, and has served in her current role since 2003.
Brian Bronfman, BA’86, LLB’91, BCL’91, was appointed to the Order of Canada earlier this year as a new member. He is the president of the Brian Bronfman Family Foundation, and the president and co-founder of the Peace Network for Social Harmony. Both the foundation and the network share a focus on diversity, inclusion, violence prevention, equity and peace-building as the essential elements for achieving a more peaceful and inclusive society.
Jeffrey Lenkov, BA’87, is a Los Angeles-based sports and entertainment lawyer and one of the executive producers for the HBO TV series Charlie Hustle & the Matter of Pete Rose. The four-part series received a Sports Emmy nomination for Outstanding Documentary Series.
Lara G. Friedlander, BA’91, was appointed a judge of the Tax Court of Canada. She had practiced tax law at several law firms including, most recently, as a partner at Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP. She is also a former vice-president, tax planning & advisory at the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. She spent several years at the Canada Revenue Agency, including as an industry sector specialist in the Income Tax Rulings Directorate.
Mame Annan-Brown, BA’98, recently took on the newly created position of executive vice president and chief communications officer for the Gap Inc. As a member of the executive leadership team, she oversees communications for the company’s brands (Old Navy, Gap, Banana Republic and Athleta) as well as the Gap Foundation and global employee engagement and volunteerism programs. She recently served as executive vice president of global communications & public affairs at Kontoor Brands and as president of the Kontoor Brands Foundation.
Jeremy Kuzmarov, BA’01, MA’02, the managing editor of CovertAction Magazine, is the co-author of Syria: Anatomy of Regime Change, an account of the role that the U.S. played in the recent regime change in Syria, which the authors believe fits a long-standing U.S. regime-change playbook applied worldwide.
Kapwani Kiwanga, BA’02, a multidisciplinary Canadian and French artist living and working in Paris and Berlin, is the 2025 recipient of the Joan Miró Prize, an international award for an artist at a breakthrough stage in his/her career regardless of age, gender or cultural identity. Her work, influenced by her anthropological studies at McGill, explores power imbalances past and present. In 2024, she represented Canada in its pavilion at the Venice Biennale, where she presented her installation Trinket, a reflection on global trade and unequal exchange through the history of glass beads.
Caroline H.C. Magnan, BA’03, was appointed as a justice of the Court of King’s Bench of Alberta in Calgary. She had been the director of the University of Ottawa’s Certification de common law en français program, which offers students from several Canadian law faculties the opportunity to take common law courses in French. She also served as counsel at Juristes Power, where she worked on appellate litigation in complex constitutional and language rights matters, including several cases before the Supreme Court of Canada.
Jean-Pierre Primiani, BA’03, will become the new general director of the Opéra de Montréal in November. He has served as director of development at the Opéra de Montréal since 2017. Under his leadership, private fundraising revenues have multiplied and now exceed box office revenues. He serves on the advisory board of the Faculty of Music at the Université de Montréal and chairs the philanthropy jury of the Concours musical international de Montréal.
Elizabeth Sully, BA’08, became the Guttmacher Institute’s new director of international research last April. She has worked at the institute for more than 10 years, most recently as principal research scientist. The Guttmacher Institute is a research and policy organization committed to advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights worldwide.
Jordan Graham, BA’12, the head of solutions for PCA Global, was named to the British publication Management Today’s list of the top 35 women under 35 in the U.K. She has worked around the world with clients in the professional services, finance/fintech, pharmaceutical, energy, higher education, charity, and public sectors. PCA Global offers a broad suite of immersive learning experiences for organizations of all sizes.
D’Arcy Williams, BA’15, a global child health expert at UNICEF, is the new chief executive of Bite Back, a youth-led U.K.-based charity advocating for a healthier and more sustainable food system. He played a key role in shaping and scaling UNICEF’s global strategy to prevent childhood obesity, with a specific focus on transforming food systems to improve child nutrition.
Dental Medicine & Oral Health Sciences
Kelvin Afrashtehfar, MSc’16, is a prosthodontist in the United Arab Emirates. He is one of only two Canadian board-certified prosthodontists in the UAE and a fellow of the Royal College of Dentists of Canada. He was an assistant professor in the College of Dentistry at Ajman University until 2024 and was included on the World’s Top 2% Scientists ranking compiled with data sourced from Elsevier and Stanford University. He serves as an adjunct research professor at the University of Bern.
Education
Freda Browns, BA’59, DipEd’60, MEd’78, was named to the Order of Canada earlier this year as an officer. A philanthropist who has supported an array of cultural, health, education and art organizations in Montreal and beyond, she is renowned for the private art collection she established with her late husband, Irwin. Together, they have supported museums and institutions across Canada. They donated dozens of works to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, including prints by Rembrandt, Tissot, Toulouse-Lautrec, Chagall, Manet and others.
Paul Hindo, BEd’80, was appointed to the Order of Canada earlier this year as an officer. A business leader and philanthropist in Ottawa, he has served as vice chairman of Cancer Care Ontario and has played important roles with St. John’s Ambulance, Ottawa Regional Cancer Centre, the Royal Ottawa Health Care Group, and other organizations. A longtime supporter of the Canadian Armed Forces, he has been the honorary colonel of The Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa (Duke of Edinburgh’s Own) since 2009.
Alex McComber, MEd’96, an assistant professor in McGill’s Department of Family Medicine, is the 2025 recipient of the AFMC Indigenous Health Advocacy Lifetime Contribution Award, presented by the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada. A community health activist and researcher, he has been involved with the Kahnawake Schools Diabetes Prevention Project and with Indigenous-focused curriculum development for medical residents. He is also the director of the Quebec Indigenous Mentorship Network.
Marie-Christine Lapointe, BSc (Kinesiology)’14, BEd’17, is the new full-time head volleyball coach of the McGill Martlets. A two-time all-star as a volleyball player for McGill, she played in 38 beach volleyball competitions for the Canadian national team from 2016 to 2020. She had been serving as an assistant coach for McGill under Rachèle Béliveau, who retired earlier this year after coaching the team for 34 years.
Jade Downie-Landry, BA’20, BEd’23, joined the Montréal Victoire hockey team for the 2025-26 PWHL season. The forward spent the last two seasons playing for the New York Sirens. While studying at McGill, she played for the McGill Martlets for five seasons, helping the team reach the national championship final in 2019. She was named Player of the Year at the end of her final season at McGill
Engineering
Sorin Lerner, BEng’99, will begin a five-year appointment in November as the new dean of the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science at Cornell University. A professor and chair of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering in the Jacobs School of Engineering at the University of California, San Diego, his research involves AI, machine learning and large language models and focuses on providing programmers with tools to make software more reliable and secure.
Jonathan Brassard, PhD’24, was selected as a 2025 Schmidt Science Fellow. With support from the program, he has pivoted from biomedical engineering to developmental biology and is working with lab-grown mini-organs, or organoids, with an eye towards developing accurate models of diseases. The fellowships promote interdisciplinary advances by supporting talented postdoctoral scientists as they apply their expertise to a new discipline.
Information Studies
Marie Melfi, MLS’77, is an author, poet and playwright. Her most recent play, 7 Ways to Say, Ti Amo, is a romantic comedy/drama about a not-so-young couple who are experiencing the complexities involved in falling in love the second time around. The play was performed in Montreal in June at the Casa d’Italia.
Law
Peter A. Howlett, BCL’66, has been appointed a knight of the Ordre national du Québec. He founded Portage, a non-profit dedicated to helping people suffering from substance abuse-related problems, and led the organization for 53 years. Portage and its innovative programs have influenced non-profits outside Quebec. He also served as the founding president of Les Amis de la Montagne, an organization dedicated to the protection and enhancement of Mount Royal.
Fred Caron, LLB’75, received a King Charles III’s Coronation Medal earlier this year. A consultant on Indigenous and government issues, he is a former assistant deputy minister with what was then the federal Department of Aboriginal Affairs and served as Canada’s chief negotiator for talks about the Nunavut Lands and Resources Devolution Agreement, a landmark agreement to transfer control of Crown lands in Nunavut to the territory.
Norman Steinberg, BSc’71, BCL’75, has been appointed a knight of the Ordre national du Québec. He is the vice-chair of BFL Canada, one of the country’s largest risk management, insurance brokerage and benefits consulting firms. Over the years, he has played a major role in governance and fundraising for several organizations, including the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Canadian Cancer Society and Centraide. He chairs the board of governors for the McGill University Health Centre Foundation and is a past chair of the board of governors for the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal.
Christopher Cooter, BCL’86, LLB’86, is the new high commissioner for Canada in the Republic of India. He has 35 years of diplomatic experience, having served most recently as Canada’s chargé d’affaires to Israel and as Canada’s high commissioner to South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho, Mauritius and Madagascar. He served as first secretary in the Canadian High Commission to India, Nepal and Bhutan from 1998 to 2000.
Richard S. Fowler, LLB’94, was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court of British Columbia in Vancouver in March. He had been a partner at Fowler and Blok Criminal Defence Lawyers and appeared as counsel in hundreds of trials across British Columbia and Yukon. He was an adjunct professor at the Peter A. Allard School of Law.
Bruno Guillot-Hurtubise, BSc(Agr)’91, BCL’95, LLB’95, was appointed a judge of the Superior Court of Quebec for the district of Longueuil earlier this year. Prior to the appointment, he had been the coordinator for the Superior Court of Quebec’s Service de Recherche.
Rachel Elizabeth Young, BA’92, LLB’97, BCL’97, was appointed to the Ontario Court of Justice as a new judge. She had been serving in the Ministry of the Attorney General of Ontario as Crown counsel in the Complex Prosecutions Bureau’s Serious Fraud Office. Previously, she was a senior litigation counsel on the Joint Serious Offences Team at the Ontario Securities Commission for six years.
Nancy Karrels, BA’02, BCL/LLB’05, joined the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art last April as its new associate director of provenance and object histories. She is responsible for setting the strategic direction for the museum’s expanded Department of Provenance Research and Object Histories. She has worked on provenance initiatives at other institutions including the Krannert Art Museum and the Canadian Art Museum Directors’ Organization.
Airina Rodrigues, BA’04, BCL/LLB’08, became the co-chair of the intellectual property department for Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck in March 2025. Her work includes matters involving trademarks and trade dress (including global trademark portfolio management), copyrights, trade secrets, right of publicity and false advertising. Her clients include sports betting/online gaming providers, leading consumer and personal care brands, producers of outdoor recreation gear and apparel, fashion brands, media and entertainment companies, entertainment properties, cannabis brands and technology providers.
Stephanie Kyoko McKinnon, BCL/LLB’11, became the general counsel and acting chief legal officer of Paramount following its merger with the Skydance Corporation. She oversees all legal, regulatory, and compliance matters across Paramount’s global operations, providing strategic legal guidance on transactions, intellectual property, litigation, employment, and corporate matters.. She had previously been the general counsel at Skydance Media as well as its co-president of business operations.
Bethany Hastie, LLM’12, DCL’12, an associate professor at the University of British Columbia’s Peter A. Allard School of Law, was named the next director of Queen’s University’s Centre for Law in the Contemporary Workplace. She will begin in her new role on January 1, 2026. Her research explores some of the most pressing issues in contemporary labour and employment law, especially around technology, equity, and the regulation of work.
Management
David Harquail, MBA’81, was selected as one of the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame’s 2026 inductees. The chair of the board for Franco-Nevada, he was the founding CEO of the company and served in that role for more than 13 years. In 2007, he led Franco-Nevada in its initial public offering, raising $1.2 billion in what was the largest mining IPO in Canadian history. He was the chair of the World Gold Council from 2017 to 2020. His family foundation has made commitments of more than $30 million to charitable causes.
Barb Amsden, MBA’85, recently published How to Laugh at Death and Taxes: What Executors, Willmakers, Heirs and Beneficiaries Need to Know, a book that draws on her own experience as an executor who has co-managed three estates. The plain-language book uses humour to explore a decidedly serious subject. How to Laugh at Death and Taxes offers explanations, common-sense checklists, templates, and tips that will be useful for anyone dealing with the bureaucracy surrounding death.
Denise Andrea Campbell, MMgmt’02, was appointed deputy city manager, community development and social services by Toronto City Council in April. The service areas she leads include social development, senior services and long-term care, children’s services, the Indigenous Affairs Office, and Toronto Employment and Social Services. She had been serving as the city’s executive director, social development, finance and administration since 2019. She was awarded the 2023 Lieutenant Governor’s Medal of Distinction in Public Administration, Ontario’s highest honour for public service.
Agniola Ahouanmenou, BCom’10, became Benin’s new ambassador to the United States in February. She served as the deputy chief of staff to Benin’s foreign minister from 2023 to 2025.
Leon Mwotia, BA’07, MBA’13, has been appointed to the board of directors of Plan International USA. He is the head of partner marketing (alternative payments) at Apple. He previously held senior management positions at Uber and Airbnb. Plan International is an international development and humanitarian nonprofit that advances children’s rights and equality for girls.
Marie Pier Germain, MBA’16, was recently named the new co-president of Germain Hotels with Hugo Germain. Germain Hotels is a family-owned business with 19 hotels across Canada. The new co-presidents have both been with the company for over 20 years and have contributed to its growth across Canada. The new leadership team aims to continue expanding the hotel’s network across Canada and beyond.
Fabienne Colas, EMBA’21, an entrepreneur, filmmaker and actress, was named an officer of the Order of Montreal. She has launched and managed several cultural festivals, including the Montreal International Black Film Festival, the Toronto Black Film Festival and the Festival Haïti en Folie. The Order of Montreal is the city’s highest distinction and pays tribute to Montrealers who are involved in their community and who contribute in a remarkable way to the development and influence of the city.
Medicine & Health Sciences
Tomás A. Salerno, BSc’67, MDCM’71, MSc’75, the DeWitt Daughtry Endowed Chair in cardiothoracic surgery at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, received the 2024–25 James W. McLamore Outstanding Service Award from the University of Miami’s Faculty Senate. A member of 11 scientific journal editorial boards and chief editor of the Journal of Cardiac Surgery since 2019, he has written more than 12 books and 40 book chapters, penned more than 500 peer-reviewed articles, and given more than 280 national and international presentations.
Helene M. Langevin, MDCM’78, will be retiring in November from her position as director of the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) in the U.S. Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health, paid tribute to her, saying she had “spearheaded the concept of whole person health at NCCIH” and “led several trans-NIH initiatives that placed whole person health at the forefront of NIH’s emerging unified strategy to address the burden of chronic disease in the U.S.”
Meyer Balter, BSc’77, MDCM’81, a professor of medicine at the University of Toronto, was selected as a member of the Academy of Master Clinicians. The University of Toronto’s Department of Medicine established the Academy of Master Clinicians in 2019, honouring those clinicians who have demonstrated sustained clinical expertise and the highest standard of patient care.
Hamid Arabzadeh, DipOccHyg’87, MSc(A)’87, was recently named to a California state task force that will develop statewide smoke remediation standards to provide clear guidance after wildfire catastrophes. An adjunct professor of environmental health sciences at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, he is the founding principal of HRA Environmental Consultants Inc and has worked with governmental and corporate entities in several countries on environmental and worker protection efforts.
Patrizia Cavazzoni, MDCM’87, became the chief medical officer and executive vice president of Pfizer earlier this year. She had recently served as director of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, where she ensured the availability of safe and effective medicines and led the regulatory and policy decisions on prescription and over-the-counter medicines. Before joining CDER, she held several senior executive positions in the pharmaceutical industry for nearly two decades, including at Pfizer, Eli Lilly, and Sanofi.
Valerie Verge, PhD’90, a professor at the University of Saskatchewan’s Department of Anatomy, Physiology and Pharmacology, was recently named a distinguished professor, the institution’s top academic honour for career achievements. An expert on nerve injury and repair mechanisms, she helped to create the Cameco MS Neuroscience Research Centre at Saskatoon City Hospital in 1994 and has served as its director since 2006. Her work has been cited over 10,900 times.
John Antoniou, MDCM’91, PhD’99, a professor in McGill’s Division of Orthopaedic Surgery and an orthopaedic surgeon at the Jewish General Hospital, was awarded an honorary doctorate from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens on June 24 in recognition of his “contributions to orthopaedic research, international leadership in the field, and lifelong commitment to medical education.”
Karen Pinsky, MDCM’91, was appointed chief executive officer of Penn Medicine Chester County Hospital in April. She had been serving as interim CEO since July 2024. Before being named interim CEO, she had been chief medical officer at Chester County Hospital since 2019. She previously served 15 years as the medical director of newborn and pediatric services at the CHOP Care Network at Chester County Hospital.
Amit Bar-Or, MDCM’93, received the 2025 John Dystel Prize for Multiple Sclerosis Research, awarded jointly by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and the American Academy of Neurology. He was honored for advancing our knowledge of neuroimmunology, precision medicine, and biomarkers in MS. He holds the Melissa and Paul Anderson President’s Distinguished Chair at the University of Pennsylvania, where he serves as chief of the Division of MS and Related Disorders and director of the Center for Neuroinflammation and Experimental Therapeutics.
Laurent Duvernay-Tardif, MDCM’18, was named an officer of the Order of Montreal. A former professional football player, he won the Super Bowl in 2020 as a member of the Kansas City Chiefs. He is the co-founder of the Fondation Laurent Duvernay-Tardif, which supports art and sports programs for children in Quebec elementary schools.
Music
Michael McMahon, BMus’78, was appointed to the Order of Canada as an officer earlier this year. He is an associate professor in McGill’s Department of Music Performance, where he teaches in both the Voice and Piano areas. He has performed across Canada, Europe and the United States with such singers as Maureen Forrester, Catherine Robbin, Karina Gauvin, Gordon Bintner and Philippe Sly. His recordings have earned multiple Juno nominations and the Prix Opus.
Mike Rud, BMus’92, MMus’98, a Juno Award-winning jazz guitarist, vocalist, and composer, recently released his latest album The Paranormal Adventures. He describes it as “a travelogue of Canada—sort of. Filtered through monster movies, prairie dreams, and the heart’s truth of an 11-year-old boy in the ’70s.” Each song takes listeners into a fictionalized yet familiar Canada, from haunted manor houses in Streetsville, Ontario to UFO sightings at CFB Southport, Manitoba.
Mark Rau, BMus’16, BSc’16, recently joined MIT as an assistant professor in the Music and Theater Arts Section, with a shared appointment in the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing. He is involved in developing graduate programming focused on music technology. He is interested in the fields of musical acoustics, vibration and acoustic measurement, audio signal processing, and physical modeling synthesis, among other areas. As a lifelong musician, his research focuses on musical instruments and creative audio effects.
Simon Rivard, MMus’17, became the new music director of the Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra in June. He had recently served as the music director of the Edmonton Opera, and has conducted orchestras across North America and Europe, including the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, the Opéra de Montréal, the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra (Switzerland), and the Göteborgs Symfoniker (Sweden). From 2018 to 2022, he was the resident conductor of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.
Connor Young, BMus’18, is a Vermont-based jazz trumpeter, composer, songwriter, and educator. His new folk-inspired album From Me to You was described by the Vermont alt-weekly Seven Days as “a masterful mélange of late-night musings and early-morning affirmations” blending folk, early blues, and jazz. He was recently awarded a Creation Grant from the Vermont Arts Council to record another contemporary jazz album with his octet.
Leah Batstone, PhD’19, recently joined the John J. Cali School of Music at Montclair State University as an assistant professor of music history. Her research focuses on the intersections of art, music, politics and philosophy, with particular emphasis on Central and Eastern Europe. She is also the founder and creative director of the Ukrainian Contemporary Music Festival in New York City.
Science
Calvin Kalman, BSc’65, a professor of physics at Concordia University, recently published a memoir, My Lucky Life, which is available on Amazon. An award-winning teacher, he spent the first part of his career focused on theoretical high energy physics before shifting to science education research.
Brent Willock, BSc’67, a clinical psychologist, is the author of The Wrongful Conviction of Oscar Pistorius. The book reexamines the notorious case of Olympian Oscar Pistorius who was convicted of murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. The book, available on Amazon, concludes that the fatal shooting of Steenkamp might have occurred while Pistorius was in a state of paradoxical sleep, also known as parasomnia.
Josh Freed, BSc’70, a writer and filmmaker, was named an officer of the Order of Montreal. He has won two National Newspaper Awards for his weekly column in The Montreal Gazette. His books include The Anglo Guide to Survival in Québec.
Alan Wishnoff, BSc’76, a retired partner at the law firm Phillips Lytle LLP, recently published Holotrial, his first novel. The book follows a widowed Buffalo trial lawyer and law professor who takes on a case in a “Holotrial,” a trial that is pre-recorded as a hologram, then played for the jurors.
Alison Li, BSc’85, has been awarded the Jason A. Hannah Medal by the Royal Society of Canada for her book Wondrous Transformations: A Maverick Physician, the Science of Hormones, and the Birth of the Transgender Revolution (University of North Carolina Press). She is an historian of science and medicine who writes about medical research, hormones and the culture in which they are shaped. The Hannah Medal recognizes an important work in the history of medicine published in the preceding five years.
Yoshua Bengio, BEng’86, MSc’88, PhD’91, DSc’25, has been appointed an officer of the Ordre national du Québec. One of the world’s leading experts on artificial intelligence, the Université de Montréal professor is the founder and former scientific director of Mila – Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute and the president and scientific director of LoiZéro, a non-profit organization dedicated to the development of safe AI systems.
Elias Stengel-Eskin, BA&Sc’18, recently joined the College of Natural Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin as an assistant professor of computer science. His research spans artificial intelligence, natural language processing and computational linguistics, with a focus on developing AI agents that can intelligently communicate and collaborate with people and each other.
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