Warren Keith Helland, Chair
Vice President, DataFix
Warren earned a degree in Information Technology from Swinburne University in Melbourne, Australia and has more than 17 years in the digital industry in Canada and Australia. His experience has included the establishment and management of innovation, strategic prioritization, cost-reduction, operational excellence, and IT transformation strategies. Warren has worked with amazing organizations that include:
Digital Echidna in London delivering essential digital services and large-scale content management
TD Bank as part of a technology strategy team in TD Canada Trust
Autodata Solutions delivering marketing and sales solutions for the automotive industry
Currently, Warren is part of a team responsible for the optimization and ongoing leadership at DataFix – a Toronto based organization delivering election management tools and services to the Canadian Election landscape.
Mark Daley, Past Chair
Vice-President Research, CIFAR, Professor, Western University
Mark Daley is the Vice-President, Research at CIFAR and a Professor in the Departments of Computer Science, Statistics & Actuarial Science, Electrical & Computer Engineering, Applied Mathematics, Epidemiology & Biostatistics, and Biology at Western University. Mark has served as Associate Vice-President (Research) and Special Advisor to the President on Data Strategy at Western.
Mark’s research focuses on natural computing, computational and mathematical modelling of biological systems, artificial intelligence, and theoretical computer science. He is a faculty affiliate of the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence and an Associate Scientist at the Lawson Health Research Institute. In 2013 he was named a University of Toronto Science Leadership Fellow and a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts (UK). Mark has served in a number of governance roles including serving on the boards of ICES and TRIUMF. He is a founding leader of the CanCOVID platform, serving on both the management and governance committees. In the past five years, Mark holds funding from NSERC, SSHRC, and CIHR, has published over 100 research articles, and has been awarded multiple U.S., European, and Chinese patents.
Sylvain Charbonneau, Secretary
Vice-President, Research, University of Ottawa
Sylvain Charbonneau received the Ph.D. degree in semiconductor physics from Simon Fraser University, British Columbia, Canada in 1988. He joined the Institute for Microstructural Sciences of the National Research Council (NRC) in October 1988. For a period of 10 years, he became involved in a number of research activities within the institute and led such programs as wavelength routing and switching and more exploratory research efforts like the nano-optics project.
From 1998 to January 2000, Dr. Charbonneau took on the responsibility of Director of Components Technologies for the Institute for Microstructural Sciences. His responsibilities included components related research and development programs for the Institute as well as the initial development phase of the Canadian Photonic Fabrication Center (CPFC), the first pure-play photonics foundry in North America.
Eric Broda, Director
IT Consultant
Eric earned a Bachelor of Science, Mechanical Engineering, from University of Toronto in 1985. He has over 35 years of experience establishing technology strategies, defining enterprise architectures, and managing complex technology initiatives in large enterprises.
Eric’s experience spans executive, consulting, and hands-on technology roles including:
President and founder of Broda Group Software, a boutique technology consulting firm, that helps global financial services firms accelerate their adoption of innovate data management techniques
VP and Chief architect for North American Retail and Commercial Banking at TD Bank
Executive at Deloitte and Accenture managing technology practices
Recently, Eric has led consulting engagements at global Canadian banks, insurers, and technology firms. He also volunteers as a Technology Architect at OS-Climate, a non-profit enterprise sponsored by leading global banks, insurers, asset managers, and technology firms, with a mission to make climate data easier to find, consume, share, and trust.
Leah Cowen, Director
Vice-President, Research & Innovation, and Strategic Initiatives, University of Toronto
Leah Cowen is the Canada Research Chair in Microbial Genomics & Infectious Disease, co-Director of the CIFAR Fungal Kingdom: Threats & Opportunities program, and former Chair of the Department of Molecular Genetics at the University of Toronto. Until December 2021 she served as the University of Toronto’s first Associate Vice-President, Research. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of British Columbia, a PhD from the University of Toronto, and pursued postdoctoral studies at the Whitehead Institute. Her laboratory takes an interdisciplinary approach to understand what allows some microbes to exploit the host and cause disease, and to develop new strategies to treat life-threatening infectious disease.
Professor Cowen has an outstanding track record of excellence in research, scholarship, and education. She has been recognized with a myriad of awards, including a Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award, Grand Challenges Canada Star in Global Health Award, Merck Irving S. Sigal Memorial Award, E.W.R. Steacie Award, and Canada Research Chair in Microbial Genomics & Infectious Disease (Tier I and Tier II). She has been elected as Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She is advancing knowledge translation as co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Bright Angel Therapeutics, a company that leverages state-of-the-art technologies for development of novel antifungal therapeutics.
Charmaine Dean, Director
Vice-President Research and International, University of Waterloo
Charmaine Dean is Vice-President, Research and International at the University of Waterloo. In her role as Vice-President Research and International, Dr. Dean’s focus is 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 also provides leadership in the identification of strategic internationalization efforts, enhancing government connections and efforts toward Canadian priorities, and strengthening synergy in research across undergraduate and graduate training. From 2011 to 2017, Charmaine Dean served as Dean of Science at Western University. Prior to her service at Western, she played a major role in establishing the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University in her capacity of Associate Dean of that Faculty. Previously, she was the founding Chair of the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science at Simon Fraser University.
Dr. Dean’s work in space-time analytics for health and for forestry has been recognized through a variety of awards: in 2003, Dr. Dean was awarded the CRM-SSC prize in recognition of outstanding contributions to the discipline during the recipient’s first 15 years after earning a doctorate; in 2007 she was named Fellow of the American Statistical Association; in 2007 awarded the University of Waterloo Mathematics Alumni Achievement Medal; in 2010 named Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; in 2012 awarded a Trinidad & Tobago Canadian High Commission Award, and in 2016 elected to the International Statistical Institute.
Dr. Atefeh (Atty) Mashatan, Director
Founder & Director, Cybersecurity Research Lab at Ryerson University
Dr. Atefeh (Atty) Mashatan is the Founder and Director of the Cybersecurity Research Lab at Ryerson University. SC Magazine recognized her as one of the top five Women of Influence in Security globally in 2019. She joined the School of Information Technology Management of Ryerson University in 2016 focusing on Information Systems Security, Cryptography, and Combinatorics. Prior to joining Ryerson, Dr. Mashatan was a Senior Information Security Consultant and Solutions Architect at CIBC (Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce) with a focus on cryptography and enterprise architecture, evaluating proposed and existing security systems. Prior to that Dr. Mashatan was a Scientific Collaborator at the Security and Cryptography Laboratory of School of Computer and Communication Sciences, EPFL (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne), where she conducted research into cryptographic protocols. She is a Certified Service Oriented Architect (SOA) with Honours and holds a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) certification from the International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium (ISC2).
Carolyn McGregor AM, Director
Canada Research Chair in Health Informatics, based at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology; Chair Industry Committee, Compute Ontario
Professor Carolyn McGregor AM is the Canada Research Chair in Health Informatics based at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology. With degrees in Computer Science (B.A.Sc., Ph.D.) from the University of Technology Sydney, Dr. McGregor has led pioneering research in Big Data analytics, real-time stream processing, temporal data mining, patient journey modelling and cloud computing. She now progresses this research within the context of critical care medicine, mental health, astronaut health and military and civilian tactical training. She has received many awards for her research and in 2014 she was awarded membership in the Order of Australia for her significant service to science and innovation through health care information systems. In 2017 she was featured in the 150 Stories series commissioned by the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario and the Government of Canada to commemorate the 150th year anniversary of Ontario.
Susan Ursel, LLB, Director
Senior Partner, Ursel Phillips Fellows Hopkinson LLP
e Toronto law firm Ursel Phillips Fellows Hopkinson LLP. She is a Director on the board of Compute Ontario. Ms. Ursel graduated with a Bachelor of Arts with High Honours from the University of Toronto in 1979, obtained her LLB from Osgoode Hall Law School in 1984 and was subsequently called to the Bar in Ontario in 1986.
She has been recognized for a variety of career achievements in the fields of labour, human rights and pension law. In 2016, Ms. Ursel was named to the Independent Advisory Board for Supreme Court of Canada Justices, tasked with recommending qualified, functionally bilingual candidates who reflect a diversity of backgrounds and experiences for appointment to the Supreme Court of Canada. Ms. Ursel was recognized for her work on access to justice in the spring of 2016 when she was honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award from Pro Bono Ontario. This prestigious award recognizes her early and continuing efforts to provide access to justice for all Ontarians, among other outstanding achievements.