Richard Béliveau has a phd in biochemistry and is the director of the Molecular Medicine Laboratory at UQAM, where he is also the scientific director of the Cancer Prevention and Treatment Chair. He has been a professor of surgery and physiology at Université de Montréal, an associate researcher affiliated with McGill's Cancer Prevention Center and a professor of biochemistry at UQAM. He was also chair-holder of neurosurgery at CHUM, part of Jewish General Hospital's Experimental Cancer Therapy Group and member of Coalition Priorité Cancer. He founded Angiochem, a company that develops new brain therapies. He has over 240 publications in international medical journals and is also a best-selling author. His books, Foods That Fight Cancer, Cooking With Foods That Fight Cancer, Eating Well, Living Well: An Everyday Guide for Optimum Health, La Mort and more recently, Prévenir le cancer, have been translated in 27 languages and distributed in 35 countries. He was awarded the Grand Prize at Salon du Livre de Montréal, and he was named Personality of the Year by l'Actualité and Quebec Personality by Au Quebec.
Dominique Caouette
Dominique Caouette is an associate professor of political science at Université de Montréal. He is also director of the Centre d'études de l'Asie de l'Est (CETASE) and coordinator of the Réseau d'études des dynamiques transnationales et de l'action collective (REDTAC) - scientific unit of the Centre d'études et de recherches internationales de l'Université de Montréal (CÉRIUM). After working for more than 7 years in international co-operation NGOs, Dominique Caouette joined the Department of Political Science in 2004. Today, his teaching focuses on transnational relations, Southeast Asia and development theories. In terms of research, he is interested in interactions between non-governmental players and multilateral processes in Asia, in different forms of collective action and resistance in rural areas, in particular in the Philippines, and lastly in international development issues and what is described as alterglobalism.
Hélène Delisle
Hélène Delisle recently retired from her university functions after being profressor of international nutrition at Département de nutrition of Faculté de médecine of Université de Montréal for almost 30 years. Before that, she worked as a consultant in international nutrition for several years. Prof. Delisle holds an M.Sc. in nutrition from McGill University and a Ph.D. in clinical sciences from Université de Montréal. Her complementary formation includes law and rural economy in France and international management in California. Her on-going research focusses on the phenomenon of nutritional transition in urban populations of various countries. She created the research groupTRANSNUT (for nutritional transition), a WHO Partner Center for transitional nutrition and development since 2003. Until recently, she was head of an ambitious project about the double burden of undernutrition and overnutrition in partnership with universities in Benin, Burkina Faso and Mali, a project financed by CIDA (2008-2014).
Murray Humphries
Murray Humphries is an associate professor of wildlife biology at McGill University, in the Department of Natural Resource Sciences. He was a NSERC Northern Research Chair between 2006 and 2013 and was recently named director ofthe Centre for Indigenous Peoples' Nutrition and Environment (CINE). The CINE, located on McGill University's Macdonald Campus in Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, is an independent, multi-disciplinary research and education center created by Canada's Aboriginal leaders for participatory research and education to address their concerns about the integrity of their traditional food systems. On top of his teaching activities, Murray Humphries conducts research both in the lab and in the field. His research focuses on mammal ecology and energetics (the process by which animals acquire, assimilate and allocate energy from the environment) across Canada’s North and on understanding the impacts of environmental change on northern wildlife. In collaboration with northern communities, Humphries and his team try to integrate traditional and scientific ecological knowledge to develop community-based wildlife monitoring programs that are closely connected to northern traditional food security.
Shelley-Rose Hyppolite
Shelley-Rose Hyppolite is a physician specialized in public health and preventive medicine. She works as an advisor with the Regional Direction of Public Health in the National Capital and she is an associate professor at the Faculty of Medicine at Université Laval. At Laval, she teaches classes about international health and she is involved in partnerships with the Faculty of Medicine at Haiti's State University. She is a board member ofMédecins du Monde Canada and she regularly takes part in emergency and development missions abroad as a volunteer. She also participates in emergency responses with the Canadian Red Cross and recently came back from a mission in Sierra Leone. Her areas of interest are social and health inequalities, community approaches and empowerment, international health and humanitarian health.
Timothy Johns
Dr. Timothy Johns is a nutritionist and ethnobotanist whose research interests focus on the traditional uses of plants for food and medicine in relation to issues of contemporary nutrition and health, the understanding of human adaptation in diverse environments and the evolutionary origins of diet and medicine. He has a phd in botany from the University of Michigan. He is now professor of human biology and director of McGill Canadian Field Studies in Africa (CFSIA). His work involves field studies with communities in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa and Canada in conjunction with laboratory analysis of chemical composition and medicinal properties of plants. One major perspective of his research is the importance of indigenous plant biodiversity to food security, nutrition and health; another is in relation to issues of environmental integrity and sustainable use.
Hugo Melgar-Quiñonez
Dr Melgar-Quiñonez is currently the Director of the Institute for Global Food Security. As the Margaret A. Gilliam Faculty Scholar in Food Security he holds an appointment in the School of Dietetics and Human Nutrition at McGill University in Montreal. A Guatemalan and a USA citizen, Dr Melgar-Quinonez moved to McGill University in September of 2012, after 9 years of work as a professor in the Department of Nutrition at the Ohio State University. Previous to his appointment in Ohio, he worked as a researcher in public health nutrition at the University of California in Davis and at the Mexican Institute of Public Health. Dr Melgar-Quiñonez holds a degree in Medicine from both the Friedrich Schiller University in Germany and the National University of San Carlos in Guatemala. He also received his doctoral degree in sciences from the Friedrich Schiller University in Germany. In addition to his academic appointments, Dr Melgar-Quinonez has worked as an advisor on food security in several countries in Latin America, and maintains strong collaborative relationships with the United Nations Food and agriculture Organization (FAO), among other international institutions and development agencies. His research program on the assessment of household food security includes over 20 countries around the globe.
Isabelle Michaud-Létourneau
Isabelle Michaud-Létourneau is a nutritionist who worked in clinical, community, public and international settings. She holds a master degree in public health from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and a phd in international nutrition from Cornell University in the United-States. A Rotary International Peace scholar from 2006 to 2008, she also pursued graduate studies in peace and conflict resolution, global health and international development at Duke University. Isabelle Michaud-Létourneau worked on international projects in Cuba, Bolivia, Senegal, Brazil and Mozambique. She is currently working on a large-scale research project in 7 Southeast Asian countries, Ethiopia and Burkina Faso aiming to reinforce practices and theories to better the diet of young children and to produce political changes (2015-2017). Locally, Isabelle is co-responsible of the Comité de formation du Mouvement allaitement du Québec, a committee mandated to supervise the formation of health professionals regarding breastfeeding in Quebec. She is also working on a post-doctorate in coordination and inter-professional collaboration at Université de Sherbrooke.
René Mongeau
René Mongeau, agr., has been president of the Ordre des agronomes du Québec since July 3, 2009. Mr Mongeau started his career as a coordinator at Financière agricole du Québec. Until August 2009, he was regional adviser about large cultures and agro-environment at the West-Montégérie Regional Direction of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. He was a founding member of the executive committee of Agri-rencontres du Haut Richelieu where he was involved for 15 years. Mr Mongeau acted as vice-president of the corn committee of the Centre de référence en agriculture et agroalimentaire du Québec (CRAAQ), de 2006 à 2009. Member of the executive committee of the Order since 2006, Mr Mongeau was also president of the committee on mentoring, as well as president of the conference in 2014. He is regularly called to give speeches on various topics related to agronomy, agro-environment, new technologies and agricultural zones protection. He is president of Agronomists Canada, a national organization bringing together 10 provincial organizations. He is also a member of the executive committee of the Conseil interprofessionnel du Québec, the collective voice of the 46 professional orders of Quebec.
François Reeves
Dr François Reeves is an interventional cardiologist and associate professor of medicine at Université de Montréal co-affiliated with the Département de santé environnementale. He was successively chief of cardiac catheterization at Hôpital Notre-Dame, CHUM and Cité de la santé, as well as a member of the executive committee of the Réseau québécois de cardiologie tertiaire. Acting as main researcher in 42 clinical research protocols in interventional cardiology, he authored and co-authored over 130 publications and scientific releases. Since 2010, in parallel to interventional cardiology, Dr Reeves dedicates part of his career to environmental cardiology. Author of « Prévenir l'infarctus ou y survivre » (MultiMondes, 2007), he published a second book in 2011, « Planète-Coeur » (MultiMondes, 2011), in which he introduces the concept of environmental cardiology, followed by an updated version in 2014 entitled « Planet Heart, How an Unhealthy Environment Leads to Heart Disease» (Greystone Books, 2014). He is currently working on the creation of a chair in environmental cardiology within the Département de santé environnementale, now part of the new École de santé publique at Université de Montréal.
Thibault Rehn
Thibault Rehn is an eco-activist striving to inspire the population to advocate for change. He worked for Greenpeace Quebec for seven years, occupying various positions, namely volunteer organizer in Montreal. He has been actively involved in the public debate regarding genetically modified organisms (GMOs) for over four years, first as secretary of Vigilance OGM, now as coordinator. Vigilance OGM is a nonprofit organization bringing together groups and individuals from different backgrounds: farmers, environmentalists, consumers, citizens, all of them preoccupied with what we put in our plates daily and with the way food production impacts human and environmental health. Vigilance OGM's goal is to assemble all opponents of GMOs in order to create a united network capable of working in synergy on various campaigns. The network facilitates the exchange of information and orchestrates actions for a future without GMOs.
Larissa Takser
Larissa Takser has a medical doctorate (1996) and a phd (2001) from Université Paris-XI in France. She was professor at the Département de l’Obstétrique-Gynécologie at Université de Sherbrooke until 2010, when she became an associate professor at the Département de pédiatrie of the Faculté de médecine at Université de Sherbrooke. She also received a career grant from the FRSQ (Fonds de Recherche en Santé du Québec) and from the IRSC (Instituts de Recherche en Santé du Canada), as well as the 2009 « Étoile montante en recherche périnatale » IRSC distinction. Her presentation is going to give an overview of chemical pollution and how it is currently regulated, address scientific evidence regarding contaminants, pesticides and their effects on the endocrine system, explain what we know and what we don't know about contaminants, and finally give practical advice relevant to the community.
Louise Vandelac
Professor at the Institut des sciences de l’environnement and at the Département de sociologie of Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), Louise Vandelac co-directs VertigO, the interdisciplinary scientific electronic review of environmental sciences. Researcher at CINBIOSE (eco-health), CRIIGEN (Centre de recherche et d’information indépendant sur le génie génétique), Pôle Risques de la MRSH de l’Université de Caen and at TITNT (The international Team on Nanosafety), her research focuses on the risks and effects of performing mutations on the living, namely GMOs, pesticides and their effects on health and agriculture. In 1999, she co-realized the first ONF movie about GMOs, "Main basse sur les gènes", which was translated in 4 languages and won several prizes. Louise Vandelac is also president of the Commission Sciences naturelles, humaines et sociales of the Commission canadienne for UNESCO.