[Ottawa, ON]

CANARIE, a vital component of Canada’s digital research infrastructure supporting research, education and innovation, today announced changes to its Board of Directors.

Dr. Catherine Middleton (who served as Past Chair, Chair and Vice-Chair) and Dr. Jonathan Schaeffer are departing the CANARIE Board. CANARIE is grateful for the tremendous energy, insight, and commitment both departing members demonstrated during their tenure, and wish them all the best in their future endeavours.

Two new Board members were elected at the CANARIE Annual General Meeting held on September 17, 2019: Dr. Charmaine Dean of the University of Waterloo and Dr. Deb Verhoeven of the University of Alberta. Dr. Eddy Campbell has been appointed Chair of the Board of Directors, and Ms. Sylvie LaPerrière has been appointed Vice-Chair.

• Dr. Charmaine Dean is Vice-President, Research and International at the University of Waterloo. In this role, she is focused on building upon foundational strengths to heighten the emphasis on collaborations, and link related external portfolios in a systematic approach to industrial partners and entrepreneurship. Dr. Dean is also a member of the Board of Compute Ontario, the Southern Ontario Smart Computing Innovation Platform, the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence, and the Institute for Cybersecurity and Privacy.
• Dr. Deb Verhoeven is a Canada 150 Research Chair in Gender and Cultural Informatics at the University of Alberta. Before this she was Associate Dean of Engagement and Innovation at the University of Technology in Sydney. Dr. Verhoeven was the Project Director of the Humanities Networked Infrastructure project, a virtual laboratory interoperating data from Australia’s major cultural collections. She has served on the boards of the Victorian eResearch Strategic Initiative (VeRSI) and the Tasmanian government’s Digital Futures Advisory Council.

“The CANARIE Board plays a key role in shepherding the evolution of digital research infrastructure to accelerate the creation of new knowledge and meet evolving community needs,” said Dr. Eddy Campbell, Chair of the Board of Directors. “I welcome our two Directors and also extend the deepest appreciation of CANARIE and the Board to Catherine Middleton and Jonathan Schaeffer for their service to the community.”

CANARIE’s Board of Directors is comprised of an equal number of individuals from industry and academia. Directors bring a variety of skills and experience to the Board, and their backgrounds in the academic, institutional, private and public sectors ensure CANARIE’s programs and services anticipate and effectively address the evolving needs of its stakeholder communities. Directors are elected for one-year renewable terms, and all Directors serve on at least one standing committee of the Board.

More information on CANARIE’s Board of Directors.

For more information, please contact:

Ela Yazdani
Director, Communications
CANARIE Inc.
(613) 943-5432
ela.yazdani@canarie.ca

About CANARIE

CANARIE strengthens Canadian leadership in science and technology by delivering digital infrastructure to support world-class research that directly benefits all Canadians.

CANARIE and its twelve provincial and territorial partners form Canada’s National Research and Education Network. This ultra-high-speed network connects Canada’s researchers, educators and innovators to each other and to global data, technology, and colleagues.

Beyond the network, CANARIE funds and promotes reusable research software tools and national research data management initiatives to accelerate discovery, provides identity management services to the academic community, and offers advanced networking and cloud resources to boost commercialization in Canada’s technology sector.

Established in 1993, CANARIE is a non-profit corporation, with the majority of its funding provided by the Government of Canada.