Agricultural and Environmental Sciences
Alejandro Marangoni, BSc(Agr)’87, a professor and Canada Research Chair in Food, Health and Aging at the University of Guelph, was named an officer of the Order of Canada. His research focuses, in part, on breaking down the structure of fats, oils, and soft food materials with the goal of allowing for the removal of trans fats and the reduction of saturated fat and palm oil use.
Prosanta Chakrabarty, BSc(Agr)’00, was elected president of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists and his term began in January. He is a professor and curator at Louisiana State University, and has published Explaining Life Through Evolution with Penguin Random House India, with a North American edition set for release with MIT Press in the summer of 2023. He also recently co-edited the second edition of Methods for Fish Biology and is director of LSU’s Center for Collaborative Knowledge. He recently served as a Fulbright Canada Distinguished Chair at Carleton University in Ottawa.
Architecture
Ron Williams, BArch’64, was the 2022 recipient of the Governor General’s Medal in Landscape Architecture. The co-founder of the Montreal landscape architecture and urban design firm WAA (Williams, Asselin, Ackaoui and associates), he participated in many of its award-winning projects including the Montreal Beach Park on Île Notre-Dame and the Montreal Biodôme. The former director at the School of Landscape Architecture at the Université de Montréal, he is the author of Landscape Architecture of Canada, a book that chronicles the evolution of landscape architectural thought and practice in changing geographical, historical, and cultural contexts.
Alain Fournier, BSc(Arch)’74, BArch’75, a founding partner of EVOQ, a leading heritage architecture firm, is the recipient of the 2022 Prix Ernest-Cormier, awarded to Quebec architects and designers for lifetime achievements. He began his career by managing a number of international projects before shifting his focus to the Canadian Arctic, where he has collaborated with Indigenous communities on projects that promote and express their culture and traditions. These projects include the Canadian High Arctic Research Station, Puvirnituq Airport and Kenojuak Cultural Centre and Print Shop.
Charles-Henri Brunet, BSc(Arch)’82, BArch’84, is the founder and president of Espace Construction, where he works alongside Jean Saba, BSc(Arch)’83, BArch’84, the vice-president of development. The company combines construction experience and skills with design expertise, offering clients a single point of contact and responsibility for all phases of project development and construction.
Arts
Debora Resnick, BA’60, recently published her second book, The One of Their Relationship (Friesen Press), a lightly fictionalized account of her own family life and her experience of coming out as gay. She is a former teacher and education administrator and lives in Montreal.
Samuel Gewurz, BA’61, was named to the Order of Canada as a new member. He is the president of the Proment Corporation, a Montreal-based real-estate development company that has planned and built over 6,000 condos and homes, and six waterfront communities. Proment has been recognized seven times by the Provincial Association of Homeowners of Quebec (APCHQ) as Builder of the Year in acknowledgement of its creative achievements.
Harriet Stairs, BA’67, was appointed to the Order of Canada as a member. The former executive vice-president, human resources, at the Bank of Montreal, she was one of the first women in Canada to earn a senior corporate position in the banking industry. She served two terms as a member of McGill’s Board of Governors.
Judith Weisz Woodsworth, BA’68, PhD’77, received the 2022 Governor General’s Literary Award for Translation (French to English) for History of the Jews in Quebec, a translation of Histoire des Juifs du Québec by Pierre Anctil.
Helga Stephenson, BA’69, was named to the Order of Canada as an officer. She served for eight years as the director of what is now known as the Toronto International Film Festival and was the CEO of the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television from 2011 to 2016. She also cofounded the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival and currently serves as the chair of the Reykjavík International Film Festival.
Barbara Steinman, BA’71, a Montreal-based artist known for her multidisciplinary work, is the 2022 recipient of the Prix Paul-Émile-Borduas. The award, part of the Prix du Québec, recognizes outstanding contributions in the fields of visual arts, fine crafts or digital arts in Quebec. Her works have been presented in numerous biennials and exhibitions in Canada, Europe, Japan, and the U.S., including at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA), the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the National Gallery of Canada.
Stephen Morrissey, MA’76, recently published The Green Archetypal Field of Poetry: on poetry, poets, and psyche, a selection of essays and short statements on poetry. He has published nine books of poetry, several chapbooks, and a previous volume on poetry and poetics, A Poet’s Journey: on poetry and what it means to be a poet. In 1997 the Government of Quebec named an island in northern Quebec after a phrase from one of his poems, “la vingt-septième lettre.”
Jim West, BA’79, was appointed to the Order of Canada as a new member. He is the founder and current president of Justin Time Records, an independent Montreal-based jazz and blues record label. Artists whose albums have been released by Justin Time include Oliver Jones, Diana Krall, Ranee Lee, Chris de Burgh, and the Montreal Jubilation Gospel Choir.
Elizabeth Gillan Muir, BTh’80, PhD’90, recently published An Unrecognized Contribution: Women and Their Work in 19th-Century Toronto (Dundurn Press). The book, which draws on early street directories and city histories, personal diaries, and other historical works, explores the contributions that women made to the growing city of Toronto in the 19th century as business owners, musicians, painters, writers, nurses, doctors, religious workers, and activists. She references over 400 women, many of whom are discussed in detail, and describes the work they undertook during a period of great change for Toronto. She has written extensively about women in Upper Canada and has taught Canadian history at the University of Waterloo and the University of Toronto.
Ken Norris, PhD’80, a professor emeritus at the University of Maine, recently published his latest collection of poetry, Vishyun (Ekstasis Editions), which takes its title from bill bissett’s living with th vishyun (1974). Inspired by bissett’s poetry, poetics, and visual art, Vishyun is steeped in an atmosphere permeated by Buddhism and its poems ponder the phenomenological world, looking for the eternal and the changeless.
Marc Raboy, BSc’68, MA’81, PhD’86, a writer and emeritus professor in McGill’s Department of Art History and Communication Studies, received the 2022 Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-fiction from the Quebec Writers’ Federation for Looking for Alicia: The Unfinished Life of an Argentinian Rebel. The book explores the life of a young left-wing Argentinian journalist who disappeared after being ambushed by a right-wing death squad. It also examines the complexities of Argentinian politics in the 1970s and how they led to the events during the period of state terror in Argentina.
Mariam S. Pal, BA’82, MA’86, BCL/LLB’05, recently published her first book, Ballet Is Not For Muslim Girls. It is a memoir of growing up Polish-Pakistani in Victoria, BC in the 1960s and ’70s. It is published by Renaissance Press in Gatineau and available on Amazon and Indigo and in bookshops across the country.
Marie-Thérèse Chicha, PhD’84, a professor at the Université de Montréal’s École de relations industrielles, was the 2022 recipient of the Prix Marie-Andrée-Bertrand. Part of the Prix du Québec, the award recognizes exceptional work that has led to the development and implementation of social innovations that have contributed to the well-being of individuals and communities. Her research explores such themes as systemic discrimination in employment, pay equity policies, employment integration policies for immigrants, and the management of diversity. A guidebook she created for the International Labour Organization (ILO) has been used to help implement pay equity in many member countries of the ILO.
Francine Saillant, PhD’86, was appointed a knight of the Ordre national du Québec. An emeritus professor of anthropology at Université Laval, she is an internationally recognized expert in medical anthropology and human rights. Her books include Cancer et culture, Accoucher autrement and Au cœur de la baleine. She is also one of the co-founders of Anthropen, an encyclopedic online dictionary of anthropology.
Theo Argitis, BA’89, recently joined the Ottawa-based public affairs firm Compass Rose as its new managing director. He spent more than two decades at Bloomberg News, where he served as Ottawa bureau chief and head of Canadian economic and government news.
Derek Cook, BA’89, the director of the Canadian Poverty Institute at Ambrose University in Calgary, recently published The ART of Hope: Healing the Wounded City (Tyndale Academic Press, 2022). Taking a holistic view of poverty, the book challenges the prevailing myths of scarcity and autonomy to present a new model of community change based on the principles of abundance, resilience, and trust (ART). For more information and to order a copy visit art-of-hope.simplesite.com.
Peter T. Bergbusch, BA’90, formerly a partner at Miller Thomson LLP in Regina, was appointed a judge of His Majesty’s Court of King’s Bench for Saskatchewan in Regina. He was active in the legal community as a member of the CBA National Resolutions Committee and the board of governors of the Saskatchewan Trial Lawyers Association and as president of L’Association des juristes d’expression française de la Saskatchewan.
Enrico Forlini, BA’90, who had previously been appointed a judge of the Court of Quebec in Montreal in 2016, was appointed a judge of the Superior Court of Quebec for the district of Montreal. From 1996 to 2016, he articled and practised at Fasken Martineau DuMoulin. From 2012 to 2016, he was co-chair of the litigation department of Fasken Martineau’s Montreal office. His areas of practice included class action defence, product liability, consumer protection law, railway law, and construction claims.
Susan Mooney, MA’91, is the author of The Making and Mirroring of Masculine Subjectivities. The book focuses on how diverse, critical modern world narratives in prose fiction and film emphasize masculine subjectivities through affects and ethics. She is a professor of comparative literature at the University of South Florida.
Shana Rosenblatt Mauer, BA’91, a scholar of modern Jewish literature and a lecturer at the Schechter Institute, recently published Mordecai Richler’s Imperfect Search for Moral Values (McGill-Queen’s University Press), an exploration of the celebrated author’s novels and the conflicting reactions they provoked. Turning away from assumptions and generalizations, many informed by Richler’s non-fiction and on-record comments, the book focuses instead on the substance of the novels themselves, finding there a restless search for lasting moral value.
Cynthia Milton, BA’92, a professor of history and the associate vice-president research at the University of Victoria has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. An interdisciplinary historian, her work explores the legacies of political violence, particularly in Latin America, and who, in a society, has the power to tell stories about conflictual and contested pasts.
Brad Buchanan, BA’94, recently published Chimera, a book of poetry that chronicles the harrowing fallout of a stem cell transplant he underwent in 2016. The transplant entailed 129 days in the hospital, a significant though temporary loss of vision, and a lengthy recovery period at home. He lives in Sacramento, California and co-facilitates a writing workshop aimed at helping people dealing with issues of illness, disability and recovery. His poetry, fiction, and scholarly articles have appeared in nearly 200 journals, among them Canadian Literature, The Dalhousie Review, The Fiddlehead and Grain, and his third academic book, “Indict the Author of Affection”: Affectation and Catachresis in Hamlet, is forthcoming from McGill-Queen’s University Press.
Jill Perry, BA’94, was elected to serve as the president of the Federation of Law Societies of Canada for 2022-2023. She is the managing lawyer (family) with Nova Scotia Legal Aid in Sydney, where she has worked as a staff lawyer since 2001. Her current practice is concentrated in the area of child protection, and she is a past chair of Nova Scotia Legal Aid’s Children and Family Services Act Committee. The Federation of Law Societies of Canada is the national association of the 14 law societies mandated by the provinces and territories to regulate Canada’s legal profession in the public interest.
Charles C. Chang, BA’97, was appointed a judge of the Superior Court of Justice of Ontario in Milton. He was the principal of Chang Advocacy Professional Corporation, where he practiced commercial litigation with a focus on complex corporate and commercial disputes, construction, and employment matters. He volunteered with the Coach and Advisor Network and the Articling Mentorship Program, both of which are Law Society of Ontario programs designed to provide guidance and mentorship to articling students and lawyers. He was also the chair of Taekwondo Ontario’s discipline committee.
Erica Diamond, BA’97, recently published List Your Goals Journal: 100 Lists to Inspire and Motivate Your Growth, a guided goals journal that offers an encouraging path to making plans, identifying challenges, and building healthy habits. She is a certified life and career coach, a certified yoga and meditation instructor, a lifestyle and parenting correspondent on Global TV, and the host of the Erica Diamond Podcast.
Derek Steingarten, BA’97, has joined Morrison Foerster, a global law firm, as a partner in its corporate department and co-chair of the investment management group, based in New York. He brings more than two decades of experience representing fund sponsors and other institutional asset managers. His practice spans multiple areas of law, including corporate and securities laws. Earlier in his career, he worked for the Government of Canada, within both the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Department of Justice.
Chiara Laricchiuta, BA’01, GrCertTeachingESL’10, will be publishing Recollections of My Soul, her first collection of poetry, in July with AOS Publishing. The collection explores the healing power of art, along with how personal hardships can impact and shape who we become. She teaches English at Collège Ahuntsic.
Temi Akin-Aina, BA’03, recently became Western University’s new associate vice-president, alumni relations. She has worked in alumni relations at both McGill and Concordia, most recently as associate director at Concordia. In that role, she was instrumental in launching Concordia’s Black Alumni Network and a Black Student Career Development Series. She also led a subcommittee of the President’s Task Force for Anti-Black Racism, focused on fundraising and community engagement.
Sari Long, BA’03, was recently promoted to partner at Faegre Drinker, a legal and consulting firm with more than 1,200 attorneys, consultants and professionals in the United States, the United Kingdom, and China. She is a Colorado-based attorney with expertise in immigration issues, labour issues related to immigration, and refugee and asylum issues.
Parul Sehgal, BA’03, is a winner of the 2023 Silvers Prize for Literary Criticism. The award recognizes achievement in long-form literary criticism and the intellectual and cultural essay. She is a staff writer at The New Yorker and teaches in the graduate creative writing program at New York University.
Anca L. Szilágyi, BA’04, is the author of Dreams Under Glass, recently published by Lanternfish Press. A coming-of-age novel set in the midst of the 2008 Bernie Madoff scandal, the book follows recent art school graduate Binnie who walks an unsatisfying tightrope between financial stability and the life of a working artist after she takes a job as a paralegal to pay the bills. As her art projects languish on the back burner, she begins to obsessively imagine her daily grind expressed in unsettling and sometimes violent dioramas.
Victoria Lean, BA’08, is a documentary filmmaker who directed, produced and co-wrote The Climate Baby Dilemma. The film, available for viewing on CBC Gem, charts the growing number of young people either refusing to bring a child into an increasingly unstable world or struggling with the ethics of whether they should or not. She also directed, produced, and co-wrote We’re All Gonna Die (Even Jay Baruchel), a docuseries that explores some of the cataclysmic events (the climate crisis, nuclear destruction, asteroids) that could cause humanity’s demise, while also examining the solutions and technological innovations that might save us all. The series is available on Crave.
Eva Falk Pedersen, MA’13, recently became the new chair of the board of directors for YWCA Montreal. She is a director at TACT, a strategic consulting agency in the communications field. Her specialty is in public consultations and citizen participation. She has been on the board of YWCA Montreal since 2016 and she also chairs the board of directors for Nouveaux Voisins, an organization promoting biodiversity in cities.
Daniel Lombroso, BA’15, was named to the 2023 Forbes 30 Under 30 in the media category. He is a journalist and documentary filmmaker who works as a senior producer for video at The New Yorker. His latest short film, American Scar, received an Honorable Mention for a Grand Jury Prize at DocNYC. The annual 30 Under 30 list recognizes 600 of the brightest young entrepreneurs, leaders, and stars in a variety of fields.
Laëtitia Damonsing, BA’16, is the founder of Dodo Bazaar, an online shop that offers a selection of carefully curated vintage pieces, upcycled goods, and sustainable interior design services. Visit dodobazaar.com to find out more.
Kai Thomas, BA’16, recently published his debut novel In the Upper Country (Penguin Random House). The book, which earned starred reviews in both Publisher’s Weekly and Kirkus Reviews, follows Lensinda, a young woman who lives and works in a small town at the southern tip of Ontario that serves as a terminus of the Underground Railroad. Lensinda is tasked with interviewing a very old woman—a refugee from slavery who sits in the county jail awaiting trial for the murder of a slave-catcher.
Carlee Kawinehta Loft, BA’18, led a delegation of Mohawk youths from Kahnawà:ke that attended COP27, the UN’s World Climate Change Meetings. She is a youth engagement coordinator with Kahnawà:ke Collective Impact.
Tess Buckley, BA’21, recently completed a master’s degree in philosophy and artificial intelligence at Northeastern University London that explored some of the ethical and governance implications associated with AI technology. She was invited to talk about her experience as a Northeastern University London graduate student in a video produced by the school. She is now an AI ethics senior analyst with EthicsGrade in London, England, and co-edited a site that shares insights from some of the participants at the AI and Regulation Academic Colloquium organized by Goodenough College and Jesus College Oxford. Her interest in AI issues was inspired, in part, by an undergraduate course she took at McGill about philosophy and AI.
Education
Denis Brault, DipEd’77, MEd’80, CertSecLang’81, taught Latin and ancient Greek for 46 years. He recently published his first novel, The Latin Student, about a young classics professor with a surprising past.
Jamie Kompon, BEd’89, is in his first season as assistant coach of the NHL’s Florida Panthers. He served as an assistant coach under Paul Maurice (the current coach of the Panthers) with the Winnipeg Jets from 2016-17 to 2021-22. He previously spent two seasons (2012-13 to 2013-14) as an assistant coach with the Chicago Blackhawks and six seasons (2006-07 to 2011-12) as an assistant coach with the Los Angeles Kings, winning back-to-back Stanley Cups with Los Angeles in 2012 and Chicago in 2013. He also spent nine seasons (1997-98 to 2005-06) with the St. Louis Blues organization, serving in various hockey operations roles including video coach, strength & conditioning coach, assistant coach and scouting coordinator.
Rose Gibbs, PhD’03, recently published Island of Plantations: A Jamaican Reflection. A memoir, family history and historical reflection, the book explores the history of Jamaican villages and towns that are a part of her family’s past. The book also connects her experience in Jamaica with her work with high school students from minority groups in Ontario. Island of Plantations: A Jamaican Reflection is available on Amazon.
Shakib Nasrullah, MA’09, PhD’20, a Montreal-based psychologist, served as a representative for the Bahá’í Institute for Higher Education (BIHE) in accepting the 2022 LiberPress Award from LiberPress, a humanitarian and non-profit association that promotes a culture of solidarity based on respect for human rights. He is both a BIHE graduate and a former BIHE faculty member. The BIHE was founded in 1987 in response to the Iranian government’s continuing campaign to deny Iranian Bahá’ís access to higher education and its alumni have been accepted into more than 100 graduate programs outside Iran.
Carly Granovsky, BEd’10, is a casting director whose credits include the film Infinite Light and commercials for Toyota Canada, Big Brothers Big Sisters, and BMW Canada. In 2020, she founded Carly Granovsky Casting, a full-service casting company aiding clients across North America, casting union and non-union talent, and real people.
Charline Labonté, BEd’12, MA’15, a three-time Olympic gold medalist who helped lead the McGill women’s hockey team to three national championships, was inducted into the Quebec Sports Hall of Fame. The goaltender also won two IIHF world championships as a member of the Canadian women’s hockey team and set the U SPORTS all-time record for university goalies with 37 career shutouts in regular season play.
Engineering
Howard Rossman, BEng’61, had his second bar mitzvah celebration last July, 50 years after the first one. His wife Carol Rossman had her second bat mitzvah celebration, also 50 years after her first one. The couple took part in the ceremonies with support from their congregation at Anshe Emeth Memorial Temple in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
Roe-Hoan Yoon, MSc(Eng)’71, PhD’77, the director of the Center of Advanced Separation Technologies at Virginia Tech, has been named a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors in the U.S. He developed and patented the microbubble flotation process, which is used for separating fine particles, and has been marketed commercially under the name Microcel. The Nicholas T. Camicia Professor at Virginia Tech, he has published more than 440 technical papers and has more than 33 U.S. patents.
Rob Dewar, BEng’86, the senior vice president, customer satisfaction, services, and A220 product policy at Airbus Canada, was inducted as a “Living Legend of Aviation” during the 20th annual Living Legends of Aviation Awards. Among other things, the award recognizes his leadership skills in the definition, development, certification, and marketing of the A220 family of aircraft. He is now known as the “Father of the A220,” and to date, more than 60 million passengers have flown on this Canadian-born aircraft, which is designed and assembled in Mirabel, Quebec. Previous Living Legends of Aviation inductees include Buzz Aldrin, Richard Branson, Tom Cruise, Elon Musk and Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger.
David Sumner, BEng’92, PhD’99, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Saskatchewan, received the university’s Master Teacher Award during its spring convocation. It isn’t the first recognition he has received for his teaching. In 2021, he won the Saskatoon Engineering Society (SES) Educator of the Year Award, and he was the 2013 winner of the Provost’s Award for Outstanding Teaching at the University of Saskatchewan’s College of Engineering.
Peter Zandstra, BEng’92, the director of the Michael Smith Laboratories at the University of British Columbia, was appointed to the Order of Canada as a member. He is UBC’s Canada Research Chair in Stem Cell Bioengineering, and his work examines how individual cells form complex tissues and organs, how functional tissue forms from stem cells, and how this information can be applied to the design of novel therapeutic technologies based on living cells.
Jaspreet Singh, MEng’94, PhD’98, is the author of My Mother, My Translator, a memoir of his family that his mother had begun working on before her death in 2012. The book explores his and his family’s history, from the 1918 pandemic through the calamitous events of Partition, and from Singh’s childhood in Kashmir and with his grandparents in Indian Punjab to his arrival in Canada in 1990 for university studies. The book received the City of Calgary W.O. Mitchell Book Prize.
Xiangkun “Elvis” Cao, MEng’16, was selected to be a Schmidt Science Fellow, a postdoctoral fellowship awarded annually by Schmidt Futures in partnership with the Rhodes Trust. Working with scientists from MIT and Northwestern University, he will be focusing on the integration of upstream carbon capture and its downstream utilization processes. The Schmidt Science Fellows program supports accomplished young scientists and engineers and promotes interdisciplinary science.
Law
James O’Reilly, BCL’63, was named to the Ordre national du Québec as a knight. He has been a pioneering figure in the field of Indigenous law in Canada and was the principal lawyer for the Cree in the negotiations that led to the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement.
Philippe Lette, BCL’68, was named to the Order of Canada as a new member. A longtime attorney with Lette Lette & Partners, he founded Lette & Associés in Geneva, with a focus on international commercial arbitration, and is a member of the panel of arbitrators at the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris. He is a past president of the France-Canada Chamber of Commerce.
John A. Coleman, BA’75, BCL’80, LLB’80, is a special advisor for Novalex, a law firm that offers high-end legal services in many fields of practice. He is a former managing partner at Norton Rose Fulbright, one of Canada’s leading national law firms, and Quebec’s former agent-general in the United Kingdom. For every hour of paid legal services provided to a business client, Novalex gives back one hour of legal services on a pro bono basis to individuals or organizations in need.
François Crépeau, BCL’82, LLB’82, the Hans & Tamar Oppenheimer Chair in Public International Law at McGill’s Faculty of Law, was named an officer of the Ordre national du Québec. He was the director of the McGill Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism from 2015 to 2020 and served as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants from 2011 to 2017.
Renée Thériault, BCL’93, LLB’93, was appointed a puisne judge of the Superior Court of Quebec for the district of Montreal. She had been the executive legal officer at the Supreme Court of Canada where she acted as principal advisor to the chief justice regarding the administration of the Court, as well as the Canadian Judicial Council, the National Judicial Institute, and the Action Committee on Court Operations in Response to COVID-19. Previously, she practised litigation and international arbitration in Canada and abroad, including with the law firm of Shearman & Sterling in Paris and with Norton Rose Fulbright in Ottawa and Montreal.
Janet Michelin, BA’92, BCL’96, LLB’96, was appointed a puisne judge of the Superior Court of Quebec for the district of Montreal. She began her litigation practice at Colin Irving & Associates (now IMK LLP) in 1997 and became a partner there in 2005. Her practice focused on trust and estate litigation and employment law. She also regularly represented clients in general civil and commercial matters before the Superior Court and the Court of Appeal of Quebec. She was a co-lecturer in Trial Advocacy at the McGill Faculty of Law from 2016 to 2022.
Deborah Greenberg, BCL’99, LLB’99, the chief legal officer at Draganfly, a leader in the professional drone industry, has joined the national board of Arthritis Society Canada, an organization that advocates on behalf of the six million Canadians who live with arthritis. It is the country’s largest charitable funder of arthritis research.
Howard Liebman, BCom’95, BCL’99, LLB’99, was recently appointed vice president, government affairs, of Transat, a provider of holiday travel particularly as an airline under the Air Transat brand. He joined Transat in 2018 as its senior director, government and community affairs. He will continue to represent and pursue the interests of Air Transat in the governmental landscape while building and maintaining relationships across all levels of government. Prior to joining Transat, he served as chief of staff and executive assistant to Canada’s former minister of justice and attorney general and was senior advisor (international and intergovernmental relations) to the former mayor of Montreal.
David E. Roberge, BCL’01, LLB’01, was appointed a puisne judge of the Superior Court of Quebec for the district of Montreal. He had been a partner at McCarthy Tétrault LLP where his practice focused on professional liability, health law, disciplinary law, class actions and environmental law. In 2022, he was awarded the distinction Advocatus Emeritus (Ad. E) by the Barreau du Québec.
Aamna Afsar, BCL/LLB’04, was appointed a judicial justice by the Government of British Columbia, beginning in the new role last July. She has primarily practised law in BC, first as crown counsel with the BC Prosecution Service in Vancouver, where she practiced for 13 years. Since 2019, she has worked with the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB) as an adjudicator. She has managed the equality centre at the IRB and worked as a coordinator for a gender-related task force.
Caroline Kim, BSc’00, MSc’04, BCL/LLB’07, was recently appointed a judge of the Ontario Court of Justice by Ontario Attorney General Doug Downey and assigned to Halton. She had been a partner at Miller Thomson LLP in Waterloo, working in family law, before recently opening a sole practice. Earlier in her career, she worked as a staff lawyer at the Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic, providing legal advice and representation to survivors of intimate partner violence.
Claire Gowdy, BCL/LLB’13, recently joined Fasken as a partner in the corporate/commercial group at the firm’s Toronto office. Her practice focuses on private mergers and acquisitions, strategic investments, complex commercial transactions and general corporate matters. She advises domestic and foreign private equity investors and companies on their transactions in a broad range of industries including mining and natural resources, technology, industrials and healthcare.
Amar Khoday, LLM’08, DCL’14, is an associate professor at the University of Manitoba’s Faculty of Law. He is the 2021 recipient of the Terry G. Falconer Memorial Rh Institute Foundation Emerging Researcher Award in the Humanities category. In addition, his article, “Black Voices Matter Too: Counter-Narrating Smithers v The Queen” was published in the Osgoode Hall Law Journal in December 2021.
Catherine Piché, DCL’11, was appointed a puisne judge of the Superior Court of Quebec for the district of Montreal. She was a professor and the vice-dean of research and international affairs in the Université de Montréal’s Faculty of Law. During her academic career, she was scientific director of the Institut québécois de réforme du droit et de la justice. Previously, she was a commercial litigation lawyer with national law firms in New York and Montreal for several years.
Sasha Kiran Cragg-Gore, BA&Sc’09, BCL/LLB’14, has joined the Canadian Human Rights Commission as a full-time commissioner for a seven-year term. As part of the team of commissioners, he will render decisions on how to treat human rights complaints in federal jurisdiction. Prior to joining the commission, he worked as a coordinating board member at the Refugee Appeal Division of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada where he adjudicated refugee appeals and coordinated a team of fellow decision-makers. He also worked as a duty counsel lawyer in the Ontario court system with Legal Aid Ontario and as a staff lawyer at the Centre francophone du Grand Toronto, a francophone legal clinic that provides services to low-income populations.
Maria Manoli, LLM’16, DCL’22, has joined the University of Aberdeen’s School of Law as a lecturer in space law. She was an Erin J. C. Arsenault doctoral fellow in space governance at the Institute of Air and Space Law at McGill’s Faculty of Law. Her doctoral research explored the meaning of the notions of sovereignty and property within the borderless legal regime that surrounds the uses of outer space, with special focus on resource utilization.
Vicente Fullerton, BCL/LLB’17, is the co-founder of Who is Coffee, a direct trade coffee company based in Columbia that purchases its coffee directly from farmers while placing those farmers at the forefront of its brand through storytelling.
Management
Barb Amsden, MBA’85, was the project manager for the multimedia project Live Our Heritage/Vivre notre héritage, a two-year project to collect, preserve, and share the history of Métis-sur-Mer, a small town in Quebec’s Lower St. Lawrence region. Through a variety of events, workshops, and social media initiatives, community members shared their families’ stories of living in Métis-sur-Mer. The project received a Governor General of Canada’s History Award for Community Programming. One part of the project that she worked on with McGill student Katie Miller focused on the connections between McGill and Métis-sur-Mer.
Mirko Bibic, BCom’89, joined the board of directors for the Royal Bank of Canada and serves on its risk and governance committees. He is the president and CEO of BCE Inc. and Bell Canada, Canada’s largest communications and media company. In addition to serving on the board of BCE Inc. and Bell Canada, he is also a member of the boards of directors for Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment Ltd. and the Business Council of Canada.
Julie Champagne, BCom’94, received the 2022 Governor General’s Literary Award for Young People’s Literature – French Text. She won the award for Cancer ascendant Autruche. Marie-Hélène Jarry, BA’76, was also a finalist for the prize for Les carnets de novembre.
Cindy Blackstock, MMgmt’03, was awarded the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council’s (SSHRC) Gold Medal, the federal agency’s highest honour. The Gold Medal is awarded to an individual whose sustained leadership, dedication, and originality of thought have inspired students and colleagues alike. She was also recently named the inaugural chancellor for the Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM). A member of the Gitxsan, she is a professor of social work at McGill and the co-founder and executive director of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society.
Derek Prichett, MMgmt’04, senior vice president, corporate development at Novelis, recently joined the board of directors for CURE Childhood Cancer, an Atlanta-based non-profit that advances pediatric cancer research and provides patient and family support. His son Evan, now a healthy teen, was diagnosed with neuroblastoma as a one-year-old.
Clive Chang, BCom’07, BMus’07, is the new president of YoungArts, a U.S.-based national foundation that provides funding, mentorship, professional development and other forms of support to exceptional young artists. He comes to YoungArts from the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, where he most recently served as executive vice president, chief advancement & innovation officer.
Charlotte Piché, BCom’12, is the founder and creative director of Deux Lions Jewelry, a Montreal-based business specializing in original handcrafted jewelry. She and her brother and co-owner Alexandre are both trained in metalsmithing – she designs jewelry for women, while he designs jewelry for men. To book an appointment or to see their work online, visit deuxlionsjewelry.com.
Frantz Saintellemy, EMBA’20, was named to the Order of Canada as a new member. He is the president and chief operating officer of LeddarTech, a leader in automotive advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), automated driving systems (ADS), fusion, and perception software technologies. He also cofounded, and chairs the board of, the Groupe 3737 non-profit innovation hub, which helps entrepreneurs and tech companies. He is a founding member of Quebec’s Innovation Board, and the current chancellor of Université de Montréal.
Medicine and Health Sciences
Céleste Johnston, BN’70, DEd’79, a professor emerita in McGill’s Ingram School of Nursing, was named to the Order of Canada as an officer. Her foundational research on neonatal pain has influenced health care professionals’ practices related to pain management for infants. A past president of the Canadian Pain Society, she has received many awards for her work, including the Jeffrey Lawson Award for Advocacy for Pain Relief in Children from the American Pain Society.
Mary Ruth Brooks, BOccTher’71, was appointed to the Order of Canada as a member. She is a professor emerita at Dalhousie University and an internationally recognized scholar in the field of marine transportation performance and supply chain management. In 2001, she founded the Port Performance Research Network to understand how governance reform and benchmarking can add value to supply chains.
Helene Polatajko, BOccTher’71, was named to the Order of Canada as an officer. A professor emerita at the University of Toronto, her primary research interest is the role of cognition in motor-based performance. She has well over 300 publications, has done over 550 presentations in more than 20 countries, and has held over $10 million in grants.
Howard Eisenberg, BSc’67, MSc’71, MDCM’72, recently published Dream it To Do it: The Science & the Magic, a book he describes as a “deep dive into exploring the nature of reality.” As an executive coach in Toronto, he specializes in consulting and training services related to creative thinking, stress management, team building, and strategic planning. He is a former clinical associate professor of medicine at the University of Vermont.
Roderick McInnes, PhD’78, has been promoted to an officer of the Order of Canada (he was named a member in 2009). He is a professor in McGill’s Department of Biochemistry and served for 12 years as the director of the Lady Davis Institute of the Jewish General Hospital. As a researcher, he has made significant contributions to understanding the molecular basis of retinal and eye development, identifying genes and processes associated with retinal degeneration, and knowledge of synaptic proteins that modulate ion channels in the nervous system.
Pierre Gfeller, MDCM’80, the president and executive director of the McGill University Health Centre, was one of the two co-laureates of the Prix Hommage 2022 awarded by the Institut d’administration publique du Québec. The prize is presented to public sector administrators or academics recognized by their peers for the quality of their management or for the contribution they have made to public administration in Quebec.
Yves De Koninck, PhD’91, is the 2022 recipient of the Prix Wilder-Penfield. Part of the Prix du Québec, it is the province’s top award for outstanding accomplishments in biomedical research. He is the Canada Research Chair in Chronic Pain and Related Brain Disorders at Université Laval, the director of its Centre de neurophotonique, the scientific director of the Centre de recherche CERVO, and an adjunct professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at McGill. His research on synaptic transmission in the brain has led to new insights into chronic pain and decreased cognitive function in aging brains.
Goutham Rao, BSc’89, MDCM’93, was appointed to the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. He is the chief clinician experience officer for the University Hospitals Health System in Cleveland, Ohio, and the chair of its Department of Family Medicine and Community Health. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, an independent panel of national experts in the fields of preventive medicine and primary care, works to improve the health of people nationwide by making evidence-based recommendations about clinical preventive services such as screenings, behavioral counselling, and preventive medications.
Cara Tannenbaum, MDCM’94, MSc’03, was appointed to the Order of Canada as a member. She was named scientific director of the Institute of Gender and Health at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research in 2015 and currently serves as departmental science advisor for Health Canada. She is also a professor in the Faculties of Medicine and Pharmacy at the Université de Montréal.
Jean-François Côté, PhD’01, became the president and scientific director of the Institut de Recherches Cliniques de Montréal (IRCM) last August. He had been serving in those serving as interim president and scientific director since July 2021. He also holds a new Canada Research Chair in Cellular Signaling and Metastatic Cancer. For the past 17 years, he has led the Cytoskeletal Organization and Cell Migration research unit at the IRCM. He is a full research professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the Université de Montréal and an assistant professor in the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology at McGill.
Caroline Quach-Thanh, MSc’03, was named to the Ordre national du Québec as an officer. She is the Canada Research Chair in Infection Prevention and Control at the Université de Montréal and an adjunct professor in McGill’s Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics & Occupational Health. She is the physician in charge of infection prevention and control at CHU Sainte-Justine, the chair of the Comité sur l’immunisation du Québec and the former chair of Canada’s National Advisory Committee on Immunization.
Amynah Pradhan, BSc’97, PhD’05, is the new director of the Center for Clinical Pharmacology (CCP), a joint venture between Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and University of Health Sciences and Pharmacy in St. Louis (UHSP). She joined the CCP from the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where she has been faculty since 2013. At UIC, she also served as director of the Graduate Program in Neuroscience since 2019. Her current research is centered on the regulation of headache-related symptoms by delta opioid receptors and the maintenance of chronic pain states by cytoarchitectural dynamics.
David Saint-Jacques, Medical Resident’07, an astronaut with the Canadian Space Agency, was named to the Order of Canada as a new officer. On December 3, 2018, he flew to the International Space Station for a 204-day mission, the longest Canadian space mission to date. Prior to joining the Canadian Space Program, he was a medical doctor and the co-chief of medicine at Inuulitsivik Health Centre in Puvirnituq, Nunavik. He has been an adjunct professor of family medicine at McGill and a member of the Astrophysics group at Université de Montréal.
Shawn Maloney, MSc’08, PhD’11, is a co-founder of and product lead for REVAI, a Montreal-based company that is developing AI-powered vagus nerve stimulation systems for learning and wellness applications. Neha Bhutani, a former McGill postdoctoral researcher, is also a REVAI co-founder and the company’s chief technology officer.
Music
Minna Re Shin, BMus’89, MMus’91, PhD’00, is a pianist whose recent digital album Sonate Tableaux (which marked her debut as a producer), was released last June. Her music video Sonate Tableaux: Mouvement 1, directed by Carlos Ferrand, has received special recognition from several festivals and award programs, including a Silver Award at the 2022 Spotlight Short Film Awards, and a Jury Diamond Award for Best Short Music Video at the March 2022 edition of the Europe Film Festival U.K.
Kate Molleson, BMus’07, recently published Sound Within Sound (McClelland & Stewart), a history of 20th-century composers, shining light on pioneers whose work transformed musical history and who dared to challenge the conventional world of classical music. The book celebrates radical creativity rooted in ideas of protest, gender, race, ecology and resistance. A journalist and broadcaster, she presents BBC Radio 3’s New Music Show and Music Matters, and her articles have been published in the Guardian, New Statesman, BBC Music Magazine and elsewhere.
Nick Squire, MMus’08, the lead recording engineer at the Boston Symphony Orchestra, was nominated for a 2023 Grammy Award for his contributions to Williams: Violin Concerto No. 2 & Selected Film Themes, an album by Anne-Sophie Mutter, John Williams, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He has already received four Grammys for his work.
Dan Donnelly, MA’09, PhD’15, is the creator, producer and host of Comedy Game Showdown, a monthly live show at Toronto’s SoCap Comedy theatre in which two teams of comedians face off in a series of quizzes, games, and debates on a monthly pop-culture theme.
Efajemue Etoroma Jr., BMus’11, was nominated for a 2022 Juno Award. His album Aesthetics was a finalist for Jazz Album of the Year: Solo.
Charles Richard-Hamelin, BMus’11, is the 2022 recipient of the Prix Denise-Pelletier, Quebec’s highest distinction for contributions to the performing arts. The pianist has released more 10 albums, winning Félix and Juno awards for his recordings. He has performed with all of Canada’s top orchestras and around the world. He won second prize at the 2015 International Chopin Piano Competition, earning its Krystian-Zimerman Prize for best performance of a Chopin sonata.
Marika Fellegi, BMus’14, is a singer, songwriter, and violinist. She launched her EP All Strings Attached featuring six original songs last fall. As a half-Moroccan, half-Hungarian Montrealer born in Paris, her music reflects a wide range of influences. The EP can be found on Spotify and on Apple Music.
Karl Hirzer, MMus’15, the associate conductor of the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, received the $8,000 Heinz Unger Award last November. He has led orchestras across Canada and is a regular guest conductor with the contemporary group Land’s End Ensemble. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he combined his enthusiasm for film and learning by creating a video series, An Orchestra Adventure, introducing children to classical music and the instruments in an orchestra. It has since been broadcast by PBS and has received over 100,000 views on YouTube. The Heinz Unger Award, administered by the Ontario Arts Council, is presented biennially to Canada’s most promising emerging conductor.
Science
Louis J. Cabri, MSc(A)’61, PhD’65, recently published Canada to Cairo and Everything in Between, a personal history about his life in five countries on four continents. The book recounts his experiences including diamond exploration in Africa and a machete attack, and also covers his years as a graduate student at McGill, where he served as president of the Post-Graduate Students’ Society. A fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, he is a recently retired geologist specializing in mineralogy and the platinum elements.
Michel Chrétien, MSc’62, was the 2022 recipient of the Prix Armand-Frappier, an award that recognizes outstanding contributions to the development of a research institution and/or to administration or promotion of research. The award is part of the Prix du Québec, and he is a rare two-time winner – he also received the Prix Wilder-Penfield in 2015. He was also recently named to the Ordre national du Québec as a knight. His work in the field of neuroendocrinology has contributed to treatments for diabetes, obesity, cancer, atherosclerosis, opiate drugs, and Alzheimer’s disease. He served as the director of the Institut de recherches cliniques de Montréal from 1984 to 1994 and founded the Ottawa Institute of Systems Biology at the University of Ottawa.
John J. M. Bergeron, BSc’66, an emeritus professor in McGill’s Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, was named to the Order of Canada as a new member. His research in the field of proteomics resulted in highly cited studies of the proteins in human and animal organs, uncovering their functions in health and disease. In 2016, he received the McGill University Medal for Exceptional Academic Achievement, reserved for outstanding retired members of the academic staff.
David Zussman, BSc’68, PhD’75, was appointed to the Order of Canada as a new member. He has held a number of senior positions at universities and other institutions. He has served as the dean of the School of Management at the University of Ottawa and as the director of the U of O’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. He has also held several positions related to public affairs, including president of the Public Policy Forum, executive vice president and COO of the EKOS public opinion and public policy research firm, and assistant secretary to the Cabinet for Program Review and Machinery of Government in the Privy Council Office.
Pierre Legendre, MSc’69, was appointed to the Order of Canada as a new member. He is a professor of ecology at Université de Montréal, where he studies the processes that determine the composition of communities of living organisms. With his brother Louis, he helped popularize numerical ecology, the integration of several mathematical disciplines into a general scheme for analysing ecological data, writing the definitive textbook on the subject.
Adam Kahane, BSc’82, was appointed to the Order of Canada as a new member. He is a director of Reos Partners, an international social enterprise that helps businesses, governments, and civil society leaders to work together to address challenges, and has worked in more than 50 countries with executives and politicians, generals and guerrillas, civil servants and trade unionists, community activists and United Nations officials.
Aled Edwards, BSc’83, PhD’88, the founder and CEO of the Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC), was appointed to the Order of Canada as an officer. The SGC is a network of academic and industry scientists that catalyzes research in new areas of human biology and drug discovery by focusing explicitly on less well-studied areas of the human genome.
Patrick Louchouarn, BSc’89, became the new senior vice provost for faculty at Ohio State University last August. He had been the interim vice provost for faculty affairs and interdisciplinary initiatives at Texas A&M University.
Jayne Gardiner, BSc’01, an associate professor of biology at New College of Florida and the director of its Pritzker Marine Biology Research Center, was named a rotating program director for the Biological Oceanography Program of the National Science Foundation (NSF). She was appointed to her role at the NSF last June and will serve for one year, with opportunities to extend the position up to four years. NSF program directors facilitate merit review panels, recommend funding decisions for the agency, and help to support a diverse science community.
Vivianne Tawfik, BSc’02, is the recipient of the 2022 James E. Cottrell Presidential Scholar Award in recognition of her contributions to the fundamental understanding of pain mechanisms to treat patients with chronic and post-surgical pain. She is an associate professor and the associate vice-chair for basic science in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University and specializes in the research and treatment of complex chronic pain disorders including chronic postoperative pain, complex regional pain syndrome and peripheral nerve injury. The prize, awarded by the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA), is presented annually to ASA members who have dedicated their formative career to research.
Bertrand Routy, BSc’05, the scientific director of the Laboratoire d’immunothérapie / oncomicrobiome at the Centre de recherche du CHUM (Le Centre hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal), is the 2022 recipient of the Prix Relève scientifique, part of the Prix du Québec, the highest distinctions awarded by the Quebec government in the fields of science and culture. His research, some of which has probed the relationship between the bacteria in our intestines and the effectiveness of immunotherapy for cancer patients, has garnered more than 12,000 citations. The Prix Relève scientifique is given to exceptional scientists under the age of 40.
Nicole Hurtig, PhD’14, an assistant professor of geochemistry in New Mexico Tech’s Department of Earth and Environmental Science, recently received the 2022 Brian J. Skinner Award for an outstanding paper published in the journal Economic Geology. The prize recognizes the most innovative and original paper appearing in any of the eight issues of a single volume of the journal. Papers are judged on technical excellence, innovation, and impact on the science of economic geology. She received the prize as a co-author of “Are Vapor-Like Fluids Viable Ore Fluids for Cu-Au-Mo Porphyry Ore Formation?”
Chandra Breanne Curry, BSc’15, was recently appointed as the first LaserNetUS coordinator. She is a scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and works on laser experiments to produce novel sources of ions and neutrons for applications in areas such as medicine and industry. LaserNetUS is a scientific ecosystem established by the U.S. Department of Energy that provides access to high power laser facilities in the U.S. and Canada to researchers from around the world. The high-intensity lasers at these facilities have many scientific, medical and industrial applications.
Jean-Simon Labbé, BSc’17, received the Prix Relève from Archéo-Québec. Awarded to a young professional, the prize recognizes his contributions to the protection and enhancement of archaeological sites on the North Shore, and to the influence of the North Shore archaeological heritage. He is the coordinator of Archéo-Mamu Côte-Nord and collaborates closely with the communities of Essipit, Pessamit and Nutashkuan.
Sanchit Gupta, BSc’19, and Milton Calderon Donefer, BA’20, the co-founders of MealCare, were included on Corporate Knights magazine’s list of Canada’s top 30 under 30 sustainability leaders of 2022. MealCare, which was created at McGill while the pair were still students at the University, diverts edible surplus food from becoming waste, delivering it to food aid partners across Canada. It now operates in eight cities across Canada and has delivered more than 71,000 meals to serve food-insecure people in those communities.
Callum Mahoney, BSc’19, became the new salary cap and contract analyst for the NFL’s Cleveland Browns this season. In this role, he focuses on salary cap/player contracts issues and trends as well as providing support in player contract negotiations and long-term salary cap planning. He first joined the Browns in the fall of 2019 as an intern.