Gordon Asmundson,Professor of Psychology, University of Regina
Dr. Asmundson is a Registered Doctoral Psychologist and Professor at the UofR. He is Editor-in Chief of two leading journals and serves on numerous editorial boards. His pioneering work on fear-avoidance in chronic pain and his shared vulnerability model of co-occurring PTSD and chronic pain have led to significant advances in understanding and treating these prevalent, disabling, and costly conditions. He is a FRSC, a recipient of the SOM, and was awarded the Molson Prize for remarkable achievements in the social science. He is actively involved in clinical research/ supervision and has recently dedicated his efforts to understanding the mental health impacts of COVID-19.

Isabelle Aubert, Senior Scientist, Sunnybrook Research Institute; Professor, Canada Research Chair in Brain Repair and Regeneration, University of Toronto
Dr. Isabelle Aubert leads collaborative and interdisciplinary research programs. Her work aims to promote the capacity of aging brain cells to survive, adapt, regenerate, and function. Together with her team of students, post-doctoral fellows, research associates, technicians, and other scientists, Dr. Aubert discovered the regenerative potential of non-invasive, transcranial focused ultrasound for blood-brain barrier modulation. She is exploring brain health and repair using drug, cell and gene therapies. Her work is key to the development of clinical trials for patients with Alzheimer disease and other disorders of the central nervous system. She is an advocate of team science, equity, diversity, and inclusion.

Francesca Cicchetti, Professor, Faculty of Medicine, Université Laval
Professor Cicchetti’s research work aims to understand the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying the development of neurodegenerative diseases with the goal to identify novel therapeutic targets. Her interests combine fundamental and clinical research and as such, a number of her discoveries have led to patents and are now being considered for clinical trials. Aware of the societal impact of these disorders, Professor Cicchetti is actively involved in disseminating scientific breakthroughs to the general public via various media whom solicit her expertise, in organizing patient outreach activities or by participating to fundraising events.

Luda Diatchenko, Professor, McGill University
Dr. Diatchenko has made seminal contributions to the field of human pain genetics, identifying genetic markers for accurate diagnosis and potential therapeutic targets. She pioneered a reverse genetic approach in pain using human samples rather than animal models as a starting point for discoveries. These studies are helping us to understand how individuals develop chronic pain and respond to therapies based on their genetic background.

Paul Frankland, Senior Scientist, Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto; University of Toronto
Paul Frankland holds a Canada Research Chair in Memory Research. His research has addressed classical questions in the memory field: Why do we lose our earliest childhood memories? Are memories are broadly distributed or localized in the brain? How does the brain forget? Is it possible to implant memories? In addressing these questions, Frankland has combined an acute grasp of history with the early adoption of powerful new technologies in neuroscience. This has enabled his group to visualize and manipulate neural ensembles involved in memory encoding, consolidation and storage and, in doing so, shed new light on these classical questions.

Meredith Irwin, Chief of Paediatrics, Hospital for Sick Children; Chair Department of Paediatrics, University of Toronto
Meredith Irwin, MD was appointed Chief of Paediatrics (Hospital for Sick Children) and Chair of the Department of Paediatrics (University of Toronto) in 2020. She received her MD from Harvard Medical School and completed training at Boston Children’s Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. She joined Sick Kids as a Clinician-Scientist Oncologist in 2002. Her research focuses on genes and pathways involved in the childhood cancer neuroblastoma. As Chair of the Neuroblastoma Biology committee of the Children’s Oncology Group Dr. Irwin leads the identification of biomarkers and optimization of risk classification and precision medicine clinical trials for patients in North America.

Ruth Lanius, Professor of Psychiatry, Western University
Ruth A. Lanius, M.D., Ph.D. is a Psychiatry Professor and Harris-Woodman Chair at Western University, where she is the director of the Clinical Research Program for PTSD. Ruth has received numerous awards, including the Banting Award for Military Health Research. She has published over 150 research articles and book chapters focusing on brain adaptations to psychological trauma and novel adjunct treatments for PTSD. Ruth regularly lectures on the topic of psychological trauma both nationally and internationally. Ruth has co-authored three books: The Effects of Early Life Trauma on Health and Disease; Healing the Traumatized Self; and Overcoming Obstacles in Trauma Treatment.

Alain Lesage, Professeur titulaire, Université de Montréal; Institut national de santé publique du Québec
Psychiatre fermement engagé dans le mieux-être des patients et de la collectivité, Dr Alain Lesage met son savoir, ses compétences et ses connaissances au profit de la prévention du suicide et de l’amélioration de la qualité des soins. Chercheur reconnu ayant montré que la déficience à divers niveaux des services de santé mentale et dépendances sont des déterminants du suicide, il vise, par ses nombreuses collaborations multidisciplinaires, une prise en charge précoce et mieux adaptée des personnes à risque . Ses interventions s’étendent du patient aux décideurs. Auteur de près de 350 publications, il est membre émérite de l’Association des psychiatres du Canada.

Xin-Min Li, Associate Dean, International Relations, Professor of Psychiatry and AHS Chair in Mental Health Research, University of Alberta
Dr. Xin-Min Li is an academic psychiatrist and clinician scientist who has pioneered work on the protective function of antipsychotics on brain white matter changes observed in schizophrenia and depression and is exploring innovative use of cerebral low field magnetic stimulation and ultrasound for treatment resistant depression. As a former Academic Psychiatry Department Head and current Associate Dean (International) Dr. Li continues to provide leadership in academic health sciences, training of clinician scientists and allied research scientists and is currently leading international academic health program development and partnerships for the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry at the University of Alberta.

James MacKillop, Professor, McMaster University; St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton
Dr. James MacKillop is internationally recognized for his major contributions to the scientific study of addiction. In community and clinical populations, his work has elucidated the psychological determinants of addiction, including the roles of drug reinforcing value, self-regulatory capacity, alternative reinforcers, and social networks. Concurrent with his behavioural research, he has advanced the field by characterizing the underlying neural and genomic foundations of these processes. Critically, his work has pioneered the translation of insights and methods from basic research into real-world clinical innovations to advance patient care. These diverse contributions have made Dr. MacKillop a global leader in addiction research.

Sheila Singh, Professor, Neurosurgeon, Scientist, Director of Centre for Discovery in Cancer Research at McMaster University, Senior Canada Research Chair in Human Cancer Stem Cell Biology
Dr. Sheila Singh is professor of surgery and biochemistry, senior pediatric neurosurgeon at McMaster Children’s Hospital, Division Head of Neurosurgery at Hamilton Health Sciences, and director of the Centre for Discovery in Cancer Research (CDCR) at McMaster University. She holds a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Human Brain Cancer Stem Cell Biology, and is the founding Director of the McMaster Surgeon Scientist Program. Her PhD thesis described the first identification of a population of cancer stem cells that exclusively drive the formation of brain tumors. Dr. Singh’s lab applies a developmental neurobiology framework to the study of brain tumorigenesis.

Danica Stanimirovic, Director, Research and Development, National Research Council of Canada
Dr. Danica Stanimirovic is an international leader in research and innovation aimed at surmounting the Blood Brain Barrier (BBB) via the successful delivery of therapies to the human brain for the treatment of neurological diseases. Her scientific contributions are focussed on improving brain vascular health and developing antibody and gene therapies for Alzheimer’s and rare neurological diseases. She is a founding member of the International Brain Barriers Society and has led strategic NRC Programs and international R&D initiatives in this field. Her scientific discoveries and innovations significantly advanced translational research and helped establish Canada as a world centre for BBB technologies and neuro-therapeutics.

Valerie Wallace, Co-Director, Donald K. Johnson Eye Institute, Krembil Research Institute, University Health Network
Dr. Wallace is an internationally recognized leader in the fields of neural development, retina biology and regenerative medicine. Her research has advanced our understanding of the signalling pathways that are involved in brain and retinal development and identified therapeutic targets for restoring vision in individuals with retinal degeneration. She is the Co-Director of the Donald K. Johnson Eye Institute, which brings together multidisciplinary vision scientists and clinicians to improve treatments for vision loss. She serves on national and international scientific committees and advisory boards and is an advocate for the importance of basic science research and outreach.

Christine Chambers | Departments of Psychology & Neuroscience and Pediatrics | Dalhousie University | Academy of Social Sciences
Christine Chambers is an internationally recognized leader in children’s pain management. She spearheaded Solutions for Kids in Pain, a national network dedicated to putting research into practice, and champions research supporting the well-being of children as Scientific Director of CIHR’s Institute of Human Development, Child and Youth Health. Identified as one of Canada’s Most Powerful Women, she is passionate about research impact and patient and public engagement in health research.

Heidi McBride | Montreal Neurological Institute | McGill University | Academy of Science
Heidi McBride is an international leader in the field of mitochondrial dynamics and signaling. Awarded a Canada Research Chair in Mitochondrial Cell Biology, she is renowned for her discovery of mitochondria- derived vesicles, whose functions range from quality control to peroxisomal biogenesis and immune signaling. Her research has had a profound impact in areas of neurodegeneration, metabolic syndromes and rare diseases.

Steven Paul Miller| The Hospital for Sick Children | University of Toronto | Academy of Science
Steven Paul Miller, is a physician-scientist leader whose brain-imaging studies of critically-ill newborns identified the power of early-life intensive care unit experience to shape the trajectory of brain development through childhood. His findings led a paradigm shift from brain injury as a fixed-event to a focus on “everyday” interventions that he showed are modifiable to promote brain maturation across the life-course. Department of Pediatrics | The University of British Columbia | BC Children’s Hospital

Adrian M . Owen | Department of Physiology and Pharmacology | Western University | Academy of Science
Adrian M . Owen is Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience and Imaging at the University of Western Ontario, Canada and co-directs the CIFAR Brain, Mind, and Consciousness program. His research combines structural and functional neuroimaging with neuropsychological studies of brain-injured patients. Owen has published over 400 scientific articles and chapters and a best-selling popular science book ‘Into the Gray Zone’. He was awarded an OBE in 2019 for services to scientific research.

Doina Precup | Mila | DeepMind | McGill University | Academy of Science
Doina Precup is noted for her fundamental contributions to reinforcement learning specifically for her contributions to temporal abstraction through the concept of options, the invention of the option-critic architecture, her pioneering work on bisimulation metrics and off-policy learning, her many theoretical and practical contributions to the development of RL algorithms and her contributions to the use of machine learning in medicine that have made a difference in practice. School of Computer Science |

Stephen Scott | Department of Biomedical and Molecular Sciences | Queen’s University | Academy of Science
Stephen Scott from Queen’s University is a world leader in the computational, neural, mechanical and behavioural aspects of voluntary motor control. He invented Kinarm, interactive robotic technologies that provide unprecedented experimental control over arm motor function, which he has used to transform our understanding of the intimate link between cortical circuits and limb biomechanics. Kinarm robots are now widely used around the world to quantify brain function and dysfunction.

Nafissa Ismail | École de psychologie | Faculté des sciences sociales | University of Ottawa | RSC College
Nafissa Ismail is the holder the Research Chair in ‘Stress and Mental Health’ at the University of Ottawa. She is interested in women’s health and in the prevention of mental illnesses. She is known for her contributions to the identification of the biological pathways through which females become more sensitive to stress during adolescence and more vulnerable to psychological illnesses. Her work also demonstrates that the gut microbiota contributes to developing resilience to stress.

Melanie Noel | Faculty of Arts | University of Calgary | RSC College
Melanie Noel holds the Killam Memorial Emerging Leader Chair and is an internationally renowned expert on children’s acute and chronic pain. She applies a transdisciplinary, integrative approach to science that unifies methods across psychology, neuroscience, genomics, and medicine and is recognized for foundational research on children’s pain memories and co-occurring trauma and pediatric chronic pain. She received numerous career awards including from the International Association for the Study of Pain.

Patricia Pelufo Silveira | Department of Psychiatry | McGill University | RSC College
Patricia Pelufo Silveira is the scientific director of the Genomics and Epigenetics Pillar of the Ludmer Centre for Neuroinformatics & Mental Health, based at the Douglas Research Centre, and an associate professor at the Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at McGill University. She is a pediatrician specialized in Neonatal Follow Up and a neuroscientist.

Nathan Spreng | Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences | McGill University | RSC College
Nathan Spreng is a Professor of Neurology and Neurosurgery in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at McGill University and the Director of the Laboratory of Brain and Cognition at the Montreal Neurological Institute. Dr. Spreng’s research focuses on the organization of large-scale brain networks and how dynamic interactions among brain regions support cognitive and social functioning across the lifespan, both in normal human aging and neurodegenerative diseases.