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
Chief AI Officer, Professor, Western University
Mark Daley was appointed to the newly created position of Chief AI Officer at Western University in 2023. He is also 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, as well as Vice-President of Research at CIFAR.
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.
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 innovative 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.
Anila Dumont, Director
Senior Legal Counsel
Anila Dumont, JD, MPP, BSc (Hons.), has extensive legal experience working in regulated industries advising in complex, evolving and fluid areas of law. She holds a Juris Doctor from Osgoode Hall Law School, a Masters in Public Policy & Governance and an Honours Bachelor of Science from the University of Toronto.
Ms. Dumont is currently working as a senior lawyer for a major bank where she provides her clients with strategic and pragmatic legal advice in the areas of technology, innovation, artificial intelligence, partnerships, commercial agreements, digital transformation, anti-money laundering matters, data governance and privacy.
Ms. Dumont also has experience in the energy sector, where she led a high-performing team of lawyers and consultants in advancing electricity infrastructure outcomes for residents of Toronto, including via advocacy at the Ontario Energy Board. She has worked for the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General, advising on high priority matters such as tribunal clustering and the dissolution of the Financial Services Commission of Ontario and enactment of the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario.
Andrea England, Director
Vice Provost, Research, Sheridan College
Andrea is passionate about advancing research and innovation to help cultivate highly-skilled graduates and create economic and social impact in our communities. She came to Sheridan as Dean, Undergraduate Research in 2018 and became Vice Provost, Research in 2019. Andrea provides leadership to Generator at Sheridan, overseeing research, innovation and entrepreneurship across Sheridan’s three campuses.
With more than twenty years of experience in higher education, Andrea has worked at York University, Brock University and City, University of London with roles in research administration, knowledge mobilization, advancement and student support. Andrea holds a Master of Arts (Book History) from the University of Toronto.
Jennifer MacLean, Director
Partnerships Lead, Horizon3 AI Lab, Unilever
Jennifer MacLean, PhD, is a thought leader with over 15 years of experience working in the Canadian innovation ecosystem. Jennifer has extensive experience in fostering impactful and collaborative partnerships across industry, academia and community partners in Ontario and Canada.
At Unilever, she connects Canadian researchers, students, start-ups, small and large firms into Unilever’s global ecosystem to drive sustainable growth for Unilever and its Canadian partners. Before joining Unilever, Jennifer served as Assistant Vice President- Innovation and Research Partnerships at York University, and developed York’s innovation strategy and built key partnerships resulting in over $15M in government and industrial research investment at the university.
Prior to joining York, Jennifer served as the Vice-President, Research and Innovation for Aspire Food Group, a Canadian scale-up that develops low-cost, high-density ethical automated food-grade protein production systems. Jennifer has also served as Executive Director of SOSCIP, an industry-academic research consortium, and has worked at NGen, the Advanced Manufacturing Supercluster. Jennifer received her PhD in Medical Biophysics from Western University, London, Ontario.
Atefeh (Atty) Mashatan, Director
Founder & Director, Cybersecurity Research Lab at Toronto Metropolitan University
Dr. Atefeh (Atty) Mashatan is the Founder and Director of the Cybersecurity Research Lab at Toronto Metropolitan 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 (now Toronto Metropolitan) 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
Dean of the Faculty of Business, IT at Ontario Tech University.
Professor Carolyn McGregor AM is Dean of the Faculty of Business and IT at Ontario Tech University, a two time Canada Research Chair, and founding co-Director of the Joint Research Centre in AI for Health and Wellness between Ontario Tech University and the University of Technology Sydney, Australia. She leads pioneering research in Big Data analytics, AI, edge computing and data mesh infrastructures. She applies this leading-edge research in her international award-winning Artemis and Athena AI platforms for health, wellness, resilience and adaptation in critical care, astronaut health, firefighter training and tactical officer resilience assessment and development. She has over 200 refereed publications, and 3 patents in multiple jurisdictions. Dean McGregor is a member of the Order of Australia for her significant service to science and innovation through health care information systems. She has deployed her Artemis platform in hospitals in Ontario and leads Canadian DND research contracts for new pre-deployment acclimation skill and resilience training. In 2022, she led a research study on the Axiom Ax-1 first all-private astronaut mission and she leads the Space Health study, supported by the Canadian Space Agency, on the International Space Station.
Susan Ursel, LLB, Director
Senior Partner, Ursel Phillips Fellows Hopkinson LLP
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.