Ranil Sonnadara
President, Chief Research Officer and Chief Executive Officer
Ranil is a behavioural neuroscientist, composer, education scientist, and sound designer, with a special interest in how our experiences shape our sensory and motor systems. His research focuses on the science and creativity that underpins human performance in all its forms, and uses a variety of behavioural and modelling techniques. He holds academic appointments at McMaster University, the University of Toronto, and the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence. For more information about Ranil, please click here.
Cindy Munro
Chief Operating Officer & Chief Financial Officer
Cindy is currently on secondment to Compute Ontario from SHARCNET where she is the Director of Finance and Administration. She has been providing financial management and administrative leadership for over 25 years, primarily in the academic sector and in support of advanced research computing. She was instrumental in the creation of SHARCNET in 2001 through the CFI’s funding programs. She established many of the financial and administrative structures that still exist today in SHARCNET and in its interactions with Western, other Ontario universities, the CFI, and the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation. She has been a key financial and administrative resource in the creation of Compute Canada prior to 2012 and Compute Ontario in 2015.
Chris Loken
Chief Technology Officer
Chris brings more than two decades of experience in technology and specifically, within high performance computing. For the past 16 years, he has held progressively senior roles at the University of Toronto, most recently as the Chief Technical Officer at SciNet.
Prior to this role, Chris held visiting academic and research roles at New Mexico State University, University of Missouri and St. Mary’s University, Halifax. He obtained his PhD from Queen’s University in Physics and Astronomy.
Jeff Moon
Director of Data Strategy and Services
Jeff has worked with government information, data, and statistics his entire career. Prior to joining Compute Ontario, he was Director, Research Data Management at the Digital Research Alliance of Canada. He also worked as Data Librarian at Queen’s University Libraries in Kingston, Ontario, where he established the Research Data Management Service and served as Academic Director of the Research Data Centre. He taught graduate-level Government Information and Research Data Management courses at Western University from 2006 to 2018. Jeff has an Honours B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Biology from the University of Waterloo and an M.L.I.S. from McGill University.
Dan Sinai
Executive Project Lead
Dan Sinai is an accomplished innovation leader with a solid technology background and extensive experience in research management and business development. Currently, Dan works as a freelance innovation executive and consultant. He previously held senior leadership positions at IBM Canada, where he managed innovation initiatives nationwide, connected IBM technology to start-up and scale-up companies, and oversaw IBM incubators in Toronto, Hamilton, and Calgary. He was also the Associate Vice President of Research at Western University for over a decade.
Janet Crocker
Communications Lead
Janet is a communications professional with 25 years' experience in financial services, health care and government. She has recently returned to consulting after working as Communications Director for two years at MPAC (the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation). She has a life-long interest in music and the visual arts and currently serves as Board Secretary for the Tett Centre for Creativity and Learning in Kingston, Ontario.
Kestrel McNeill
Research Analyst
Kestrel is a Research Analyst for Compute Ontario and is assisting in the implementation, analysis, and coordination of various projects that help to fulfil CO’s mandate. She is currently completing a Master’s of Health Research Methodology at McMaster University and holds a Bachelor of Health Sciences from McMaster. Kestrel is interested in methodological issues in health research, specifically within health professions education, and is passionate about using mixed methods designs to produce high-quality evidence.
Amy Hackney
Research Analyst
Amy brings 11+ years of direct research experience as a project lead and published author of peer-reviewed articles and public reports. Amy has 6+ years providing writing and editing services for universities, colleges and research consortiums. She has extensive experience with provincial and federal granting agencies and spent 5 years working within the advanced computing ecosystem. Amy has held positions at The Canadian Institute for Safety, Wellness and Performance, SOSCIP, and has launched a freelance writing business. She obtained her PhD from University of Waterloo in Kinesiology (Neuroscience).
Ann Allan
Training Coordinator
Ann is a recent graduate of the Master’s of Library and Information Science program at Western University. She also holds a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Lakehead University. Ann has also completed a year in the Faculty of Education program at Lakehead University where she learned teaching pedagogy and gained experience developing hands- on learning programs. She has had experience in the Academic sector working as a Library Intern at the Queen’s University Health Sciences Library, where she provided resources and support to help health professionals develop greater information literacy.
Jocelynn Vieira
Executive Assistant
Jocelynn is an administrative professional with experience working at academic institutions, not-for-profit organizations and in Canadian federal politics. She has held roles at McMaster and Trent University where her focus was committee governance and policy. Before that she worked for several years in Ottawa as a political staffer which saw her travel across the country to work on election campaigns. With a keen interest in the fibre arts, she serves on the Board of the Ontario Handweavers and Spinners and is herself a weaver.