Chantal Hébert

Political Columnist & CBC "At Issue” Panelist

Chantal Hébert is a freelance political columnist whose work is featured on radio, television and in print in both French and English.  That includes a weekly participation on the political panel at Issue on the CBC’s The National as well as on Peter Mansbridge’s Good Talk podcast on Sirius XM.

Ms Hébert began her career in Toronto as a reporter for the regional newsroom of Radio-Canada in 1975 before moving on to Parliament Hill for Radio-Canada radio.  She has served as parliamentary bureau chief for Le Devoir and La Presse before moving on to become a political columnist for the Toronto Star.

Hébert is a graduate of Glendon College, York University. She is a Senior Fellow of Massey College at the University of Toronto and hold honorary degrees from a dozen Canadian universities.

She is a recipient of two Asia-Pacific media fellowship (Malaysia and Japan). She is the 2005 recipient of the APEX Public Service Award. In 2006, she received the Hy Solomon award for excellence in journalism and public policy as well as York University’s Pinnacle Achievement Bryden Alumni award.

In 2012, she was appointed to the Order of Canada. Her second book: The Morning After, dealing with the 1995 Quebec referendum, was published simultaneously in both official languages in 2015.  In 2019, her peers in the Parliamentary Press Gallery awarded her the Charles Lynch award for her longstanding coverage of national issues.  In 2024, she received the Michener-Baxter award for excellence in journalism. In 2025, she was appointed to the National Order of Quebec / l’Ordre national du Québec.

Dan Riskin

Biologist | Science Journalist | Author | Television Host

A renowned evolutionary biologist, award-winning television presenter, and bestselling author, Dan Riskin has been making science accessible, engaging, and fun for more than a decade. Whether he’s inspiring viewers as the co-host of Discovery Canada’s flagship science program, Daily Planet; terrifying them as the host of Animal Planet’s docu-horror show, Monsters Inside Me; or covering the latest news as CTV’s Science and Technology Specialist, Riskin’s passion and curiosity have made him an unparalleled source of science inspiration for all.

Riskin doesn’t just talk science – he lives it. A world-renowned expert on bat biomechanics, Riskin earned his PhD from Cornell University and conducted research at Brown University before stepping away from a faculty position to focus on science outreach. Today, Riskin appears on television and radio more than a dozen times each week, except when he’s leading wildlife tours in far-flung places like Borneo, the Amazon, or the Galapagos Islands. He’s often featured on CP24 and CTV National News, and has hosted documentaries for National Geographic, The Science Channel, CBC, W5, and more.

Renowned for his infectious humour and charismatic presence, Riskin has been interviewed about science by Anderson Cooper, Gayle King, Lisa LaFlamme, Don Lemon, Jay Leno, Charlie Rose, Peter Sagal, and many others. Craig Ferguson, who had Riskin as a guest on The Late Late Show eight times, once called him “my favourite scientist.” Riskin is also the author of two bestselling books, Mother Nature is Trying to Kill You and the beloved children’s book, Fiona the Fruit Bat. He also publishes a popular science newsletter, The Bat Signal.

David Almond

Associate VP Information Services and CIO | MacEwan University

Associate VP Information Services and CIO | MacEwan University

Sylvain Charbonneau

President and CEO | CFI

On October 1, 2024, Sylvain Charbonneau became the sixth President and CEO of the CFI. He is a former researcher, entrepreneur and leader in research administration.

Before joining the CFI, he held the role of Vice-President, Research and Innovation at the University of Ottawa. During his tenure at the university, he promoted interdisciplinary research across Canada and helped create a dynamic environment that attracted outstanding researchers and partners from the academic, public, hospital and private sectors. Most recently, he led the academic team in securing the largest capital investment in the university’s history — the Advanced Medical Research Centre — which will catalyze discoveries in healthcare treatment and support their commercialization.

Sylvain Charbonneau holds an MSc in physics from the University of Ottawa and a PhD in photonics and semiconductor physics from Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C. Before joining the University of Ottawa in 2013 as Associate Vice-President, Research, he worked at the Institute for Microstructural Sciences at the National Research Council (NRC) for more than 20 years.

During his time at NRC, he was an adjunct professor at six Canadian universities, trained several graduate students, published more than 180 papers and filed numerous patents. Along with three colleagues, he also co-founded a spin-off company — Optenia Inc. — that focused on novel optical communications technology.

Sandra Cutrona

President & CEO | CENGN

As President and CEO of CENGN, Sandra Cutrona provides leadership and strategic direction to the company, driving the delivery of CENGN’s mission by collaborating with Canada’s transformative technology stakeholders to enable the commercialization, growth, and global competitiveness of the country’s innovation economy.

With nearly 30 years of leadership in telecom and emerging technologies, Sandra brings a unique blend of operational excellence, strategic partnership growth, and people-focused leadership. She has held senior roles across sales, operations, engineering, and enterprise IT. Sandra’s leadership has consistently delivered business transformation and sustained revenue growth, supporting innovation in the technology sector.

Ann Doyle

Senior Program Manager for Higher Education Membership | Internet 2

Ann Doyle is a Senior Program Manager for Higher Education Membership at Internet2, assessing the needs of institutions and managing partnerships that enhance member value and inform Internet2’s mission and goals.  She founded Internet2’s cultural initiatives, working with U.S. and international partners utilizing advanced networks for collaborative live performances and master classes in the performing arts.  Ann has a Master’s degree in Higher Education Administration from the University of Michigan.

Gayleen Gray

Associate Vice President and Chief Technology Officer | McMaster University

Gayleen Gray is the Associate Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at McMaster University, overseeing the institution’s IT strategy and operations, including cyber security. She collaborates with university leadership and the IT community to support strategic research, teaching, and learning initiatives and is a co-chair of the McMaster AI Advisory Committee and is responsible for the IT Governance committee and its processes. As a champion of culture at the core of transformative technology, Gayleen has led numerous initiatives to create inclusive and innovative environments, such as the McMaster Women in Tech Series.

Gayleen is an experienced higher education leader representing McMaster across Canada. She is recent past Chair of the Board of Directors for CUCCIO, is a current member of the CanSSOC Research Intensive Group (RIG) of CIOs, a past participant of the CANARIE Cybersecurity Advisory Committee (CAC), and has served as a Board member of CANARIE, ORION, and EDUCAUSE. Gayleen’s leadership in IT professional development and IT security has earned her recognition, including the 2019 CUCCIO Community Award.

Pari Johnston

President and CEO | Colleges and Institutes Canada

Pari Johnston serves as the 8th President and CEO of Colleges and Institutes Canada. A dynamic senior executive with 25 years of experience driving the transformative impact of Canada’s skills, research, and innovation ecosystem for the benefit of Canadians, she is a recognized national postsecondary leader who builds strong and healthy organizational cultures while delivering results.

Prior to joining CICan in late 2023, Pari served as Vice-President of Policy and Public Affairs at Genome Canada, providing strategic leadership to its federal advocacy, ecosystem partnership and corporate development agenda. Known as a strategic alliance-builder in complex multistakeholder environments, she successfully promoted the organization’s mission and cross-sectoral impact among parliamentarians, senior officials, industry, community partners and the public, leading to new investments and a strong genomics future for Canada.

Pari’s professional journey includes a noteworthy two-decade tenure with Universities Canada, where she ascended to Vice-President, Policy and Public Affairs until 2019. Before that, as Director of Member Relations, she transformed the association into the premiere national forum for Canada’s university presidents. In earlier roles, Pari focused on advancing Canadian universities’ global mission at home and abroad.

A passionate community volunteer, Pari served on the Board of Trustees of the Royal – Ottawa’s only specialized mental health care, teaching and research hospital – for 4 years, including as Board Vice-Chair and head of the CEO search committee. Inspired by her family’s experience, she founded Housing Through an Autism Lens, a national solutions lab funded by the CMHC designed to create solutions to housing challenges faced by autistic young adults in Ottawa. She was also a founding board member of The Conversation Canada/La Conversation Canada, the national digital media organization for academic journalism.

Fluently bilingual, Pari has an MA in international affairs from Carleton University and a BA in French literature from the University of Regina.

Michael Schull

CEO | Digital Research Alliance

Michael Schull is a nationally recognized leader with a track record of driving digital transformation. As CEO of the Digital Research Alliance of Canada, Michael leverages his extensive experience in building national and international research and data partnerships, and organizational growth and sustainability to support the organization’s work to advance the establishment of a researcher focused, accountable, agile, strategic and sustainable digital research infrastructure (DRI) ecosystem in Canada.

Michael’s experience and deep knowledge of the research and health ecosystems have been shaped by his12 years as CEO and Senior Scientist at ICES, Canada’s leading health services research and data analytics institute, as a Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto and as a Senior Scientist at Sunnybrook Research Institute. He is also founding member of Health Data Research Network Canada (HDRN), a pan-Canadian network of health data and research centres seeking to facilitate and enable pan-Canadian research, and past co-director of the International Population Data Linkage network.

Throughout his career, Michael has led major initiatives to expand researcher access to new data types, create a virtual data platform for linked datasets, and launch a health AI data and analytics platform. He has also engaged the public and communities to ensure alignment with public values and strengthened relationships with Indigenous partners. His own research has focused on strengthening Ontario’s and Canada’s health research infrastructure for the analysis of large, routinely collected datasets, and on developing innovative data access models for research and health system evaluation.

Fluent in English and French, Michael was born in Montreal and raised in Québec before relocating to Ontario, where he earned a BA and MD from Queen’s University. He later completed an MSc in Epidemiology and Biostatistics at McGill University and a Harkness Fellowship with The Commonwealth Fund in the United States. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Canada and is currently based in Toronto.

Sonya Shorey

President & CEO | Invest Ottawa

Sonya Shorey is the President and CEO of Invest Ottawa, Co-Founder of SheBoot, Entrepreneur, Passionate Champion for Ottawa, Entrepreneurs & Companies Building Canada’s Innovation Economy; Director of Mission-Driven Boards; Community Leader and Collaborator; Eternal Learner

An award-winning executive and management consultant with 25+ years of leadership experience with private and public innovation-based organizations, Sonya has spearheaded more than $300+ million in public-private funding. These initiatives have catalyzed new opportunities and impact for founders and companies in Canada’s Capital, an inclusive global tech, innovation and business hub, across the country and partner countries worldwide.

Within her previous leadership role as Invest Ottawa’s Vice President of Strategy, Marketing, and Communications, Sonya played a pivotal role in developing:

• Invest Ottawa’s Women Founders and Owners Strategy, including Ladies Who Launch and International Women’s Month, now entering its eighth year

• The Pan-Ontario ScaleUp Platform, the first of its kind in Canada, which helps accelerate the growth of scaling firms on their path to $100M in annual revenue;
• Bayview Yards, Ottawa’s innovation hub and one-stop business acceleration shop; and
• Area X.O, the $54 million R&D complex for emerging next-gen technologies for diverse sectors, including defence, aerospace, smart mobility, security, smart farming, and more

She is also a co-founder of SheBoot, a national non-profit that tackles the funding gap facing women entrepreneurs in tech by preparing them to pitch their business, secure investment, scale and compete globally. It has helped to catalyze more than $50 million in follow-on investment for women entrepreneurs since 2021.

Prior to Invest Ottawa, Shorey founded a successful consulting firm that addressed the corporate strategy, operational, and investment needs of dozens of accelerators, innovation hubs, entrepreneurship and economic development organizations across Canada and their global partners. A proud Carleton University graduate, she has held previous leadership roles in the technology sector with Calian, Nortel Networks, and CMC Microsystems.

Her commitment to fostering an inclusive culture of belonging is at the heart of her governance and volunteer activities. This includes her service as a Director of the Board for SheBoot, the Royal Ottawa Institute of Mental Health Research, Women in Automotive Tech, Mindtrust Leadership for Youth, and Elevate International; and her role as a mentor with multiple organizations.

She has won 10 national and international awards for communications, three awards for entrepreneurial leadership, and three awards for women’s economic empowerment, including the Women in Cloud Innovative Partnership of the Year, the TiECon Canada Award for Outstanding Contribution to Entrepreneurship; and Canada’s Women of Inspiration Economic Empowerment award.

Mike Tremblay

President & CEO | CANARIE

Mike was appointed President & CEO of CANARIE in September 2025, where he champions the vision of building a trusted, globally connected digital research ecosystem. In this role, he also leads efforts to drive innovation, collaboration, and partnerships across government, academia, and industry – advancing CANARIE’s role as a vital national organization that enables world-class research and education to bolster Canada’s long-term competitiveness. 

Before joining CANARIE, he served as President of Calian’s IT & Cyber Solutions business, repositioning the unit toward AI enabled managed services and cybersecurity across North America. Previously, as President and CEO of Invest Ottawa and Bayview Yards, Mike launched AREA X.O and drove economic development throughout the National Capital Region. He has also held senior leadership positions at Microsoft, SAP, EDS, Fujitsu, JDS Uniphase, and Digital – earning a reputation for collaborative leadership that fuels innovation and growth. 

A lifelong learner, Mike has earned an MBA from Concordia University, a Computer Technology diploma from Algonquin College, and an ICD.D designation. Deeply committed to mentorship, diversity, and governance excellence, he currently serves as Chair of The Ottawa Hospital’s Board of Governors. 

Outside of his professional life, Mike is happily married and very proud of his two daughters and son. His daily fitness routine keeps him energized, curious, and ready to tackle each day. 

Nipun Vats

Assistant Deputy Minister | Research and Innovation Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED)

Assistant Deputy Minister | Research and Innovation Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED)

Domenico Vicinanza

Senior Research Engagement Manager, Arts and Humanities | GEANT

Dr Domenico Vicinanza is a Senior Research Engagement Manager and the Coordinator for Arts and Humanities at GÉANT. He is also an Associate Professosr of Intelligent Systems and Data Science at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge and a Chartered Journalist. He received his PhD in physics working at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN, Geneva) and he is a professional music composer and orchestrator.

He worked for more than a decade as a Scientific Associate at CERN, where he was a member of the Offline Board for the ALICE experiment and worked on research and development for particle physics detectors.

Within the GÉANT project Dr Vicinanza coordinates the Special Interest Groups on Time and Frequency Distribution and Quantum Technologies. He is also the founder of the DANCE (Digital Arts Networking, Community and Education) initiative and the co-organiser of the Network Performing Art Production Workshop (NPAPW) series.

He has an active collaboration with CERN on auditory display, and with NASA, writing music from data collected by the Voyager 1 and 2 space probes and Mars missions.

His research interests are on the applications of scientific data sonification in physics, neurobiology and motor control.

Sarah Watts-Rynard

CEO | Polytechnics Canada

Sarah Watts-Rynard assumed the role of Chief Executive Officer at Polytechnics Canada in July 2018.  Prior to this role, she served as Executive Director of the Canadian Apprenticeship Forum.

Polytechnics Canada is the voice of leading research-intensive, publicly funded polytechnics and institutes of technology.  The organization undertakes federal advocacy related to strategic workforce development and innovation policy, reflecting the strengths of its member institutions.

Polytechnics collaborate with industry to develop the highly skilled people essential to the Canadian economy.  Programs are career-focused across credentials that include Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees, diplomas, apprenticeships, post-graduate certificates and upskilling.  Experiential learning is an integral part of the polytechnic education model.

As leaders in industry-led applied research, polytechnics partner with more than 2,600 businesses each year to address barriers to productivity, develop prototypes and derisk technology adoption.

Sarah is Chair of the Canadian Welding Foundation and Vice-Chair of the Canadian Centre for Women in Science, Engineering, Trades and Technology (WinSETT Centre).

John Weigelt

Chief Technology Officer | Microsoft Canada

John Weigelt leads Microsoft Canada’s strategic policy and technology efforts. He helps individuals and organizations across Canada innovate with technology while avoiding the unintended consequences that might arise.

John has contributed to many technological efforts that established the foundation for the electronic services we take for granted today and he continues to lead efforts to evolve technology standards and policy. His extensive experience in technology, business and policy provides him with a unique perspective of our technology enabled economy.

When he’s not thinking about what’s next in technology, you’ll either find John tending his bees, boiling maple syrup or brewing cider at his home or travelling the globe in search of his next culinary adventure.

Rodney Wilson

Chief Technologist, Research Networks | Ciena

Rodney Wilson is employed by Ciena Corporation as Chief Technologist for Advanced Network Architectures & Collaborative Research. He is responsible for Ciena’s interaction and funded research activities with universities, leads government R&D programs and international research network initiatives, including Research and Education Networks across the globe.

Prior to Ciena, he held various roles at Nortel and Bell Northern Research including Director of Broadband Switching, leader for Optical Ethernet R&D and senior advisor to the Chief Technology Officer. Various other career adventures included design and operation of University of Toronto’s renowned international bibliographic service and Bell Canada’s national data communication services operations.

Mr. Wilson was originally trained in electrical engineering at Ryerson Polytechnic Institute in Toronto, Ontario. He is a graduate of the Executive Management School at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California.  A lifelong advocate for youth development, Mr. Wilson volunteers with Scouts Canada. He volunteers as Chair of the Board of Governors for Algonquin College, and with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). He received The Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Award, an honorary degree from Algonquin College in 2022, and numerous professional awards through his career. He holds an Advanced Amateur Radio operators license and works as a citizen scientist on several important topics.