Dr. Monica Gattinger
Principal Investigator
Energy Cluster
Lead
Director, ISSP
University of Ottawa
Monica Gattinger is Director of the Institute for Science, Society and Policy, Full Professor at the School of Political Studies and Founder/Chair of Positive Energy at the University of Ottawa.
Dr. Gattinger is an award-winning researcher and highly sought-after speaker, adviser and media commentator in the energy and arts/cultural policy sectors. Her innovative research programme convenes business, government, Indigenous, civil society and academic leaders to address complex policy, regulatory and governance challenges. She has published widely in the energy and arts/cultural policy fields, with a focus on strengthening decision-making in the context of fast-past technological change and markets, changing social values, and lower levels of trust in governments, industry, science and expertise.
Gattinger is Fellow at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, board member of the Clean Resource Innovation Network, and serves on advisory boards for the Institute on Governance, the National Research Council Canada, the Nuclear Waste Management Organization, Pollution Probe and the University of Calgary. She Chairs the Editorial Board of the University of Ottawa Press and is a columnist for JWN Energy’s Daily Oil Bulletin. Monica received the 2020 Clean50 Award for her thought leadership in the energy sector. She holds a Ph.D. in public policy from Carleton University.
Dr. Patricia Larkin
Project Manager
Senior Research Associate, ISSP
University of Ottawa
Dr. Patricia Larkin began a postdoctoral fellowship at ISSP in June 2017. She is the project manager for @Risk and is completing complimentary research under ISSP’s NSERC CREATE grant on the incorporation of public values and risk perception in decision-making for carbon capture and storage (CCS). With a focus on the integration of health and environmental risk management in non-health sector policy and regulatory-based decision-making, Patricia completed her PhD Population Health at the University of Ottawa. Her thesis research resulted in the development of an integrated risk management framework for CCS in the Canadian context. Other research interests include health and environmental protection in hydraulic fracturing and best practice in CCS risk communication and public engagement as foundations of public acceptability. With respect to climate change adaptation, Patricia managed successful stakeholder engagement during a project with Agriculture and Agri-food Canada that resulted in a range of useful climate, agricultural, environmental, infrastructure, and health indicators to be used in a scenario-based risk assessment decision support tool for policy makers in agricultural and rural areas.
Dr. Duane Bratt
Energy Cluster
Case Lead - Nuclear Waste Disposal
Professor and Chair, Department of Economics, Justice, and Policy Studies
Mount Royal University (Calgary, Alberta)
Duane Bratt is a political science Professor and Chair in the Department of Economics, Justice, and Policy Studies at Mount Royal University (Calgary, Alberta). He was educated at the Universities of Windsor (BA 1991, MA 1992) and Alberta (Ph.D 1996). He teaches in the area of international relations and Canadian public policy. His primary research interest is in the area of Canadian nuclear policy. Recent publications include: co-editor, Orange Chinook: Politics in the New Alberta (University of Calgary Press, 2019), co-editor, Readings in Canadian Foreign Policy: Classic Debates and New Ideas 3rd edition (Oxford University Press, 2015) and author of Canada, the Provinces, and the Global Nuclear Revival (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2012). Current projects include the risk assessment of Canada’s nuclear waste site selection process. Duane is also a regular commentator on political events.
Dr. Erick Lachapelle
Energy Cluster
Case Lead - Hydraulic Fracturing
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science
Université de Montréal
Erick Lachapelle joined the faculty at the Université de Montréal in August 2011 after receiving his doctorate from the University of Toronto. Erick is the Principal Investigator for the Canadian Surveys on Energy and the Environment and EcoAnalytics. He has served as expert reviewer for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 5th Assessment Report (Working Group III) as well as for the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility in Australia. Erick’s research examines the comparative politics of climate change, environmental public opinion, and political communication around climate policy and the transition toward a clean economy. Erick’s recent research has appeared in Global Environmental Politics, Climate Policy, Energy Policy, and the Oxford Encyclopedia of Climate Science, among others.
Dr. Stuart Nicholls
Genomics Cluster
Lead
Case Lead - Newborn Screening
Senior Clinical Research Associate
Ottawa Hospital Research Institute
Stuart’s research broadly considers socio-ethical issues in public health and health service delivery, with a particular interest in population screening. He has published widely on a range of health services and public health ethics topics, including consent to newborn bloodspot screening, ethical issues in population genomics, child obesity, ‘big data’, and currently works to explore ethical issues in the context of pragmatic clinical trials. He has expertise in mixed methods approaches and has worked both in the UK (Manchester, Lancaster) and Canada
Dr. Jennifer Kuzma
Genomics Cluster
Case Lead - Gene-Edited Foods
Former Fulbright Research Chair, ISSP
Goodnight-NCGSK Foundation Distinguished Professor in the School of Public and International Affairs, North Carolina State University
Dr. Jennifer Kuzma is also the co-director of the Genetic Engineering and Society Center at North Carolina State University Prior to this, she was associate professor of science and technology policy at the University of Minnesota (2003-2013); study director at the U.S. National Academies of Science (NAS) (1999-2003); and an AAAS Risk Policy Fellow at the USDA (1997-1999). She has over 100 scholarly publications on emerging technologies and governance and has been studying this area for over 25 years. She as held several other leadership positions, including a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences Committee on Preparing for Future Biotechnology, Society for Risk Analysis (SRA) Council Member and Secretary, Chair of the Gordon Conference on Science & Technology Policy, Member of the US FDA Blood Products Advisory Committee, and a Member of the UN WHO-FAO Expert Group for Nanotechnologies in Food and Agriculture. In 2014, she received the SRA Sigma Xi Distinguished Lecturer Award for recognition of her outstanding contributions to the field of risk analysis. She is cited and interviewed frequently in the media for her expertise in biotechnology policy, including the New York Times, Science, Nature, NPR, Washington Post, Scientific American, The Boston Globe, PBS Nova, Wired, and ABC & NBC News.
Dr. Kieran O'Doherty
Public Health Cluster
Lead
Case lead - Vaccine hesitancy
Associate professor, Applied Social Psychology
University of Guelph
Kieran C. O’Doherty directs the Discourse, Science, Publics research Group at the University of Guelph. His research focuses on the social and ethical implications of science and technology. In this context, he has published on such topics as vaccines, human tissue biobanks, the human microbiome, salmon genomics, and genetic testing. Kieran’s research also emphasizes public engagement on science and technology. In this regard, he has designed and implemented public deliberations in which members of the public engage in in-depth discussion about ethical aspects of science and technology and collectively develop recommendations for policy. Kieran’s research has been funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, the Ontario Ministry of Research & Innovation, Genome Canada and Genome British Columbia. He is currently the editor of the journal Theory & Psychology.
Dr. Michelle Driedger
Public Health Cluster
Case Lead - Cancer Screening
Professor and Graduate Program Director, Department of Community Health Sciences
University of Manitoba
Dr. Drieger is a former Tier II Canada Research Chair in Environment and Health Risk Communication. She is also a member of the Social Sciences and Humanities Network with the Canadian Immunization Research network. Her program of research examines harms and benefit communication in primary care and public health, with a specific focus on vaccination decisions.
Dr. Marisa Beck
Energy Cluster
Collaborator
Research Director, ISSP
University of Ottawa
Dr. Beck joined the ISSP in March 2017 as a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Positive Energy research project. Marisa completed her PhD in Global Governance at the Balsillie School of International Affairs (University of Waterloo), where she held a Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship.
In 2014-15, she was a Visiting Researcher at the Integrative Research Institute on Transformations of Human-Environment Systems (IRI THESys) at the Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany. Marisa's research focuses on the politics and processes of evidence-based decision-making in climate and energy policy, and she is particularly interested in understanding the drivers of policymakers’ demands for and use of evidence in decision-making.
She holds an MSc in Environmental Policy and Regulation from the London School of Economics, and a graduate degree in Business Administration from the University of Mannheim in Germany. Before coming to Canada in 2012 for her PhD, Marisa worked as an analyst for global carbon markets with a leading research and information provider for carbon and clean energy markets in London, UK.
Dr. Heather Douglas
Genomics Cluster
Collaborator
Senior Fellow, ISSP
Associate Professor,Michigan State University
Heather Douglas is a philosopher of science with a longstanding interest in science policy. Trained in the History and Philosophy of Science Department at the University of Pittsburgh, her work on science policy began in graduate school, where her dissertation on dioxin science explored the value judgments that prevented easy agreement among scientists doing work of central relevance to policy-making.
Her research concerns the moral responsibilities of scientists, the place of science in democratic societies, the nature of scientific objectivity and integrity, methods for weighing complex evidence, and the roles for values in scientific reasoning. Her book,Science, Policy, and the Value-Free Ideal (University of Pittsburgh Press 2009), argues that the value-free ideal is inadequate for policy-relevant science and offers an alternative ideal. She has argued that recognition of the importance of values in science, for both shaping research agendas and for setting sufficiency standards for evidential warrant, leads to the need for increased citizen participation in the policy process, alongside scientists, in carefully structured ways.
She has held previous appointments at the University of Puget Sound, the University of Tennessee, and the University of Waterloo. She was named a AAAS fellow in 2016.
Dr. Gregor Wolbring
Genomics Cluster
Collaborator
Senior Fellow, ISSP
Associate professor, Faculty of Medicine, University of Calgary
Gregor Wolbring is a tenured Associate Professor at the University of Calgary (Canada), Cumming School of Medicine, Community Health Sciences, Community Rehabilitation and Disability Studies.). He is presently a member of the Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS), Karlsruhe, Germany, and a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Science, Policy and Society, University of Ottawa, Canada. He is Past-President of the Canadian Disability Studies Association and he is also a former member of the executive committee of the Canadian Commission for UNESCO.
Some of his areas of engagement are: ability studies including governance of ability expectations, disability studies, governance of emerging and existing sciences and technologies (e.g. genetics, robotics, brain machine interfaces, artificial intelligence and machine learning, sensors), the governance of bodily enhancement, sustainability issues, EcoHealth, resilience, ethics issues, health policy issues, human rights and sport.
Some of his awards are: one of three finalist for the 2020 Sustainability Award University of Calgary category, Faculty Sustainability Research, Tanis Doe Award of the Canadian Disability Studies Association (2017) and the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medial awarded by the government of Canada in recognition of the benefit of his academic work to the greater community (2013). As to teaching awards he received the Bachelor of Health Sciences Research Mentor Award in recognition of making undergraduate students succeed in research (2014, 2016 and 2018), the Faculty of Graduate Studies, “My SupervisorSkills, GREAT Supervisor Award!” (2015) and the Faculty of Medicine McLeod award for excellence in teaching (2011) and Council of Canadians with Disabilities, National Award (1998)
Gregor holds a diploma in Biochemistry from the University Tubingen, Germany and performed his diploma work at University College London, UK. He holds a PhD in biochemistry from University of Frankfurt, Max Planck Institute for Biophysics.
Dr. Rukhsana Ahmed
Public Health Cluster
Collaborator
Faculty Affiliate, ISSP
Associate Professor, Department of Communication, University at Albany, State University of New York
Associate Professor, Department of Communication, Faculty of Arts, University of Ottawa
Rukhsana Ahmed has an interdisciplinary background with B.A. and M.A. Degrees in International Relations (University of Dhaka); an M.A. Degrees in International Development Studies and in Communication Studies; and a Ph.D. in Health Communication (Ohio University). Her research specialization is in health communication, with a focus on interpersonal, intercultural, and organizational, mass mediated, and technological contexts, and her projects have been funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council; Canadian Institute of Health Research; the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences and the Canadian International Development Agency Collaborative Program; and the Ohio Division of the American Cancer Society Partnership. She has co-authored Health literacy in Canada: A primer for students (2014); co-edited Culture, migration, and health communication in a global context (2017); and Medical communication in clinical contexts (2012; Distinguished Edited Book Award by the Applied Communication Division [ACD], National Communication Association [NCA]). She has been recognized with Top Paper Awards from international, national, and regional conventions for her co-authored papers at the intersection of health communication, service quality, culture, and media. She is Associate Editor of Health Communication, specialty section of Frontiers in Communication, present Chair of the ACD of NCA, and past Chair of the Health Communication Interest Group of ECA.
Dr. Simon Kiss
Public Health Cluster
Collaborator
Assistant Professor, Digital Media and Journalism
Wilfrid Laurier University
Dr. Kiss became interested in the role of the news media in the political process after working for a political party at the Legislative Assembly. His dissertation argued that changes in the provincial economy, the political party system, individual leadership style and the political economy of the media drove important changes in the government's communication and marketing bureaucracy. This has had deleterious effects in the capacity for citizens to hold their elected officials to account via their representatives. Parallel changes are evident in other jurisdictions in Canada and at the federal level. Today, he continues to write on the role of the media in the political and policy process in Canada.
Dr. Loleen Berdahl
Collaborator
Professor and Chair, Political Studies
University of Saskatchewan
Loleen Berdahl is Professor and Head of Political Studies at the University of Saskatchewan. After completing her PhD at the University of Calgary, she worked for ten years in the nonprofit sector, returning to academia in 2008. Her research examines how institutional, cultural, and political factors shape individual attitudes and collaborative decision-making practices. Her recent research includes consideration of science and expertise in policy making. She has served on the Canadian Political Science Association’s board of directors (2014-17) and she is the recipient of numerous University of Saskatchewan teaching awards.
Dr. C. Scott Findlay
Collaborator
Core member, ISSP
Associate Professor, Department of Biology and Director of Graduate Studies, Institute of Environment, University of Ottawa
Scott Findlay is Associate Professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Ottawa and Director of Graduate Studies at the Institute of Environment. His main research interests concern human impacts on ecosystems, evidence-informed decision-making, integration of traditional and western scientific knowledge, and the role of Darwinian evolution in cancer progression and cancer therapy. In April 2005, he was appointed to the Science Advisory Board of the International Joint Commission, and in 2008 to the federal Challenge Advisory Panel to advise on the federal government’s Chemical Management Plan. In September 2009, he was appointed to the Expert Advisory Panel to the Commissioner of Environment and Sustainable Development. In 2011, he was commissioned by the National Judicial Institute of Canada to produce a manual for Canada’s judiciary on the interpretation of scientific evidence in the courtroom. In May 2012, he was awarded the inaugural University Chair in Teaching from the University of Ottawa, and in 2013 co-founded Evidence for Democracy, a national non-partisan organization that advocates for evidence-informed decision-making by governments.
Dr. Eric Montpetit
Collaborator
Full Professor, Department of Political Science
Université de Montréal
For over 10 years now, Dr. Montpetit has been conducting research on public policy in Canada, but also in the United States and Europe. The study of public policy is particularly important since it is the most tangible result of government activities. Both elected and unelected political stakeholders are involved in creating this policy, and standards and institutions come into play. In short, public policy analysis is a window on the workings of democracy. Unlike the writings of political pundits and journalists, his analysis underscore the successes of North American and European democracies.
His recent work shows that disagreements among players in policy development do not have the negative effects ascribed to them by the media. Such conflicts do not lead to the blockages and suboptimal decisions predicted by political commentators and theoreticians. In fact the opposite is true, in that such disagreements sometimes lead to the development of innovative and more legitimate policies. His current research is also aimed at demystifying the role of science in conflicts in developing public policy.
Dr. Daniel Paré
Collaborator
Core member, ISSP
Associate Professor, Department of Communication, Faculty of Arts, University of Ottawa
President, Canadian Communication Association
Professor's Paré research relates with the SSHRC Partnership Grant project, How the geospatial web 2.0 is reshaping government-citizen interactions, lead by Prof. Renee Sieber at McGill University. Part of his work investigates the extent to which claims of an open government data mediated transformation in government-citizen relations stand up to empirical scrutiny. The emerging findings directly confront the historical amnesia about expectations for the democratic, economic, political, and social virtues of previous information and communication technologies that seemingly inform much fanfare associated with narratives of the supposed progressive and emancipatory powers of geospatial media and participatory social networking tools.
Dr. Andrea Perrella
Collaborator
Associate Professor
Wilfred Laurier University
Andrea’s area of research is mainly in political behaviour, public opinion and elections. More recently, his work looks at the public opinion dynamics of public health policy, particularly as it relates to water fluoridation. He has published research in a variety of journals, including Canadian Journal of Public Health, Canadian Journal of Political Science.
Dr. Robert Walker
Collaborator
Senior Fellow, ISSP
Formerly President and Chief Executive Officer, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited and Canadian Nuclear Laboratories
Dr. Robert Walker has had a distinguished career in public service in various domestic and international leadership roles. From 2010 until his retirement in 2015, Dr. Walker worked for Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, a federal Crown Corporation, first as Senior Vice President Nuclear Laboratories and later as President and CEO. From 2014, he was concurrently the first President and CEO of Canadian Nuclear Laboratories. Before joining AECL, Dr. Walker had a career of 33 years as scientist, manager and executive in research and development at the Department of National Defence, including as Assistant Deputy Minister and CEO for Defence R&D Canada. He holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from McMaster University.
Keith Dewar
Partner
Director of Regulatory Research and Program Evaluation
Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission
Graduate of the Royal Military College (Fuels and Materials Engineering, 1983) Keith Dewar also has a Master’s degree in Nuclear Engineering. Keith spent 32 years in the Royal Canadian Navy as a marine engineer in various sea going positions, as well as postings ashore in environmental and diving/submarine engineering management. After that, he became the Director-General Nuclear Safety at the DND/CF. Currently, Keith is the director of Regulatory Research and Program Evaluation for the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.
Adrienne Ethier
Partner
Senior Nuclear Analyst
Calian Group Ltd.
Dr. Ethier is a Senior Nuclear Analyst at Calian Group Ltd. where she manages projects for clients within the government and nuclear industry (fuel fabrication, reactor operation and uranium mines) from facility commissioning to decommissioning, regulatory licensing process, environmental impact statements, human and ecological risk assessments, contaminant fate and transport modelling, stakeholder consultations, development of long-term monitoring program for reactor decommissioning and institutional control periods (up to 400 years), probabilistic bounding safety cases, and nuclear emergency preparedness field sampling protocols. Previously, with Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, Dr. Ethierworked extensively with the on-site nuclear facilities, provided direct input into environmental assessment and risk management decisions, assisted with radiological waste characterization, participated in nuclear emergency response exercise planning and execution, managed the site environmental risk assessment, and provided guidance on monitoring program design.
Renee Silke
Partner
Environmental Toxicologist
Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL)
Renee Silke graduated from the University of Guelph with an Honours B.Sc. specializing in Environmental Toxicology in 1999. After spending a few years traveling and working around the world, she settled into a career with Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL). During the past 13 years, her work has centered on environmental compliance, remediation and ecological risk assessment. Risk management, particularly risk communication to the public, can be challenging in the nuclear industry and has been a focus for her. She is excited for this opportunity to use her experience to strengthening Canada’s risk management capacity.
Frank Welsh
Partner
Director of Policy
Canadian Public Health Association (CPHA)
Frank Welsh is the Director of Policy for the Canadian Public Health Association (CPHA) where he is responsible for developing policy alternatives and supporting advocacy on public health issues, with our current topics ranging from children’s play to the effect of health system renewal on public health. Prior to joining CPHA, Frank held several Director-level positions with the Federal government, and worked in science-based regulatory and policy development, business and strategic planning, emergency preparedness and response, and management of science policy-based organizations. He began his career as a research scientist. Frank holds a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture from the University of Manitoba, Masters and Doctoral degrees from Cornell University, and a Diploma in Business Administration from the University of Ottawa.
