Board of Directors 2026-27

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Mark Giesbrecht, Chair, completed his term as Dean of Mathematics at the University of Waterloo on June 30, 2025 and is a Professor in the Cheriton School of Computer Science. Mark's research is in computational algebra and symbolic and matematical computation more generally. Prior to becoming Dean, Mark was the Director of the David R. Cheriiton School of Computer Science. He has been the program chair of the largest conference in computer algebra (ISSAC) and elected Chair of the AMC Special Interest Group in Symbolic and Algebraic Manipulation. He was an editor of the Journal of Symbolic and Computation from 2003-2020. Mark served as co-chair of the recent Fields Director Search Committee.

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Maria DeRosa, Vice Chair, is a Full Professor in the Department of Chemistry at Carleton University and Dean of Science. Her research examines a family of synthetic nucleic acids known as aptamers that can fold into 3D nanoscale structures capable of binding tightly to a specific molecular target. Her group is focused on developing a better understanding of how these systems work and using this information to design useful nanotechnology, such as biosensors, components for nanomedicine, or smart delivery devices. Prof DeRosa received the John Charles Polanyi Research Award for new researchers in 2006, an Ontario Early Researcher Award in 2010, and a Capital Educators Award in 2015. 

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Deirdre Haskell was born in Philadelphia, PA, USA in 1963. She moved to England in 1974, where she went to school and university, completing her BA at Oxford University in 1984. She moved back across the Atlantic to pursue a PhD at Stanford University, awarded in 1990, and back once more for a postdoctoral fellowship at Queen Mary College of the University of London.  A final transatlantic move took her to the College of the Holy Cross in her first tenure-track position. Another country then beckoned, and she moved to McMaster University in Canada in 2000, where she was promoted to full professor and served several terms as associate chair (undergraduate) of the Mathematics and Statistics department. Dr Haskell’s research in model-theoretic algebra has been supported by grants from the NSF and NSERC. During her career, she has organised many international conferences, including some at the Fields Institute. She has served on committees of the Association for Symbolic Logic, on the editorial board of the Bulletin of Symbolic Logic, and is currently a managing editor of Math Logic Quarterly. When not doing mathematics, she enjoys skiing, sailing, and hiking in the Sierra Nevada mountains in California.

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Patchen Barss is a Toronto-based science journalist and author, most recently of the Roger Penrose biography The Impossible Man. He has written for theBBC, Scientific American, and Nautilus and is a former Director ofCommunications at the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. He works in the university, museum, and cultural sectors as a writer, communications strategist, and trainer, developing initiatives to connect the public with emerging ideas in science and the humanities.

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Stewart Beck is one of Canada's leading experts on Asia, with over four decades of experience in diplomacy, international trade, and public policy. He currently serves as Executive Lead of the LINC Asia Micro-credential Program at the Jack Austin Centre for Asia Pacific Business Studies, Beedie School of Business, Simon Fraser University, supporting education and outreach initiatives focused on Canada-Asia relations. As former President and CEO of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, he built networks connecting key stakeholders throughout the region. His diplomatic career includes serving as Canada's High Commissioner to India, with concurrent accreditation to the Kingdom of Bhutan and Nepal, and as Consul General in Shanghai and San Francisco.

Mr. Beck's governance experience includes serving as former Chair of the Digital Global Innovation Cluster, where his understanding of innovative cultures like Silicon Valley and Taiwan, and rapidly evolving technology economies in China and India, enabled him to provide critical governance advice on technology development, including the role of clusters in fostering innovation ecosystems. Having lived and worked extensively in China and India, he brings unique insights into operating in advanced technology environments in these key markets, complemented by his strong relationships with decision-makers across Canada.

His expertise in international science and technology partnerships was further demonstrated through his membership on a Council of Canadian Academies panel on International Science and Technology Partnerships, which contributed to "Navigating Collaborative Futures," a report presenting an evidence-based framework for evaluating international science, technology, innovation and knowledge partnership opportunities for Canada.

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Manjul Bhargava, a professor of Mathematics at Princeton University, was born in Hamilton Ontario and, in 2014, became the first Canadian-born Fields Medalist. A world-leading expert in the field of number theory, he has made several fundamental breakthroughs, particularly in the field of arithmetic statistics. Bhargava also holds strong interests in music, education and outreach and served as the first Distinguished Chair for the Public Dissemination of Mathematics at the National Museum of Mathematics in New York and was recently appointed its first President. Bhargava is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Royal Society of London, and the Indian National Science Academy. He is the recipent of numerous awards, including the Frank and Brennie Morgan Prize, the Merten Hasse Prize, the SASTRA Ramanujan Prize, the Clay Research Award, the AMS Cole Prize, the Fermat Prize, the Infosys Prize and the Fields Medal. He has visited the Fields Institute on numberous occasions for mathematical programmes.

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Rustum Choksi Professor and Chair of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at McGill University. Choksi's research spans applied analysis, partial differential equations, calculus of variations, optimization, and scientific computation and his work focuses on variational problems arising in the physical and data sciences. Choksi received his BSC from the University of Toronto and his PhD from Brown University. He is a member of the editorial board for the Journal of Nonlinear Science and the SIAM Journal on Applied Mathematics. Choksi is also widely recognized for his teaching and mentorship, receiving McGill's highest teaching award - the Principal's Prize for Excellence in Teaching for the category of full professor. 

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Franca Gucciardi is Chief Strategy & Operations Officer at CIFAR. Gucciardi is an entrepreneurial leader who has built innovative programs in Canada and globally. She founded various international initiatives that nurture the next generation of entrepreneurial leaders and has recruited and engaged hundreds of volunteers and donors across Canada and around the world. Gucciardi is a global expert on contextual-based assessment systems and youth leadership programs. She has served as CEO of the McCall MacBain Foundation, Founding CEO of the McCall MacBain Scholarships at McGill, CEO of the Loran Scholars Foundation and as a board director or an advisory member to many non-profits and universities, including Enactus Canada, Volunteer Canada, McGill Institute for the Study of Canada, the Arrell Food Institute at University of Guelph, the Ivey Business School Leadership Council and University of Waterloo’s campaign planning cabinet. She is the published co-author of You’re It! Shared Wisdom for Successfully Leading Organizations alongside Alan Broadbent and is often asked to speak on leadership, civic engagement, merit scholarships and fellowships, talent development and higher education.

Guccardi holds an M.A in International Relations from the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University, and a B.A. from the University of Waterloo as a Loran Scholar. She has completed executive programs at the Harvard School of Business and INSEAD, and has the C.Dir. Designation from Directors’ College. She is an  International Women’s Forum Fellow, a global recognition program for women leaders.

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Juna Kollmeier uses a combination of cosmological hydrodynamic simulations and good old-fashioned analytic theory to figure out how the tiny fluctuations in density that were present when the universe was only 300 thousand years old, become the galaxies and black holes that we see after 14 billion years of cosmic evolution. She is the Founding Director of Carnegie's theoretical astrophysics program and built the theory program at the Observatories. She is also currently leading the SDSS-V, the world’s first all-sky robotic spectroscopic survey in the optical and the infrared.Kollmeier was the Director of the Canadian Institute for TheoreticalAstrophysics, another DIS-funded research Institute based at University of Toronto.

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Donna Kotsopoulos is the Dean and a professor at the Faculty of Education, Western University. She is an extremely proud alum of this Faculty where she earned her doctorate in educational studies in 2007 and was the Governor General Gold Medalist. She is an Ontario Certified Teacher and has experience teaching and conducting research in both elementary and secondary schools. Her research explores mathematics learning across the lifespan as well as postsecondary education – particularly strategic resource allocation, leadership and university governance. She has been funded by SSHRC, NSERC and various other agencies. She is the co-founder of LittleCounters©, a community-based program that supports the development of early numeracy. Her service, research and teaching has been recognized with several awards, including the John and Gail MacNaughton Prize for Excellence in Teaching (2020), an OCUFA teaching award (2014), the Fields Institute Fellow (2017).

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Alistair Mitchell is a venture capitalist and successful entrepreneur, corporate executive, and software services innovator. Co-Founder and Partner, Generation Ventures, and former Investment Director at the MaRS Investment Accelerator Fund, my prior experience was as both a start-up founder and large enterprise executive. At Blackberry, I managed business strategy, product marketing, software engineering, and business development in consecutive VP responsibilities for multimedia, instant messaging (BBM), and portfolio consumer services. Before Blackberry, I was Co-Founder and CEO of Puretracks, a pioneering digital music service that exited to Bell Canada. Early career experience included public radio and corporate communications. I hold an MBA (Bregman's Scholar) from the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management, and a Bachelor of Music (Rosenthal Award) McGIll University. 

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Daniel Moore is a former colleague of Michael Zerbs at Scotiabank, Daniel was Group Head and Chief Risk Officer and lead transformation in areas such as AI,AML, Cybersecurity/IT and ESG risk management. He is now a board member of Deutsche Bank US and EDC, a Governor of Branksome Hall School in Toronto and Advisor to the Global Risk Institute, and remains an active investor through Riverrun Ventures. Daniel holds a BSc from Queen’s and a D. Phil. in Theoretical Physics from Oxford University and knows the Fields Institute quite well. 

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 Nilima Nigam is a Professor of Mathematics at Simon Fraser University and a Fellow of the Canadian Mathematical Society. Nigam’s research spans computational spectral geometry, high-order finite element methods, boundary integral methods, and structure-preserving discretizations, with highly interdisciplinary contributions to mathematical modeling in physiology and the physical sciences. Nigam received the CAIMS-Fields Industrial Mathematics Prize in recognition of her broad-ranging contributions to industrial mathematics. She held a Tier II Canada Research Chair in Applied Mathematics and served as Associate Scientific Director of MITACS NCE, where she helped restructure Canada's mathematics-industry internship program. Her service to the mathematical community includes as past president of the SIAM Pacific Northwest Section, co-moderator of arXiv/math.na, membership on various editorial boards and serving on the Canadian Mathematical Society board.

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Forrest Parlee was appointed Chief of Government Relations at the University of Toronto in April 2026. As a member of the University's senior leadership team, Forrest works closely with the President to guide the University's government relations strategy, shape its policy agenda, and build external relationships that support U of T's academic, research and insitutional priorities. Forrest has over 20 years of experience in government relations, public policy, and partnerships. He has built a strong record of success across the public, private and post-secondary sectors. Previously, Forrest was Vice President, National Partnerships at Mitacs. His earlier career includes senior public affairs and political advisory roles, where he developed deep insight into the policy and decision-making processes at all levels of government. Forrest holds a BA and MA from Simon Fraser University.

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 A.J. Preece, former Assistant Deputy Minister, has been recognized federally for strength of transformation strategy development with service results due to collaborative industry implementation. With 18 years of private sector experience and a more than 30-year career in Federal public sector, Preece is an expert in HR org design and organizational governance, information technology change management, project management, business process redesign, capital commitments, risk modelling and application, performance measurement, finance and treasury compliance, and regulated digital service delivery. She is a highly successful small business owner with a high client retention and highly-rated customer service.

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Prof. Ulrike Tillmann has worked broadly in topology, K-theory, and non-commutative geometry. Her work on the moduli spaces of Riemann surfaces and manifolds of higher dimensions has been inspired by problems in quantum physics and string theory, while new challenges in data science have motivated some of her recent work. 

After finishing school in Germany, Tillmann went to Brandeis University as a Wien International Scholar and studied for her PhD under Ralph Cohen at Stanford University. She then worked with Graeme Segal at Cambridge University before taking a position in Oxford where she has been a professor since 2000. Since 2021 she is the Director of the Isaac Newton Institute in Cambridge.

Tillmann was awarded the Whitehead Prize by the London Mathematical Society in 2004 and the Bessel-Humboldt Forschungs Preis in 2008. She was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 2008, an inaugural fellow of the American Mathematical Society in 2012, a member of the Leopoldina in 2017 and a member of EurASc 2022. She has served on many scientific boards of international institutions, including the Oberwolfach Research Institute for Mathematics, the Austrian Science Foundation (FWF), the Turing Institute, and the Einstein Foundation. She was a member of Council of the Royal Society where she also served as (interim) Vice-President and is now chair of its Education Committee. She just finished her term as President of the London Mathematical Society and is a Vice-president of the International Mathematical Union.

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Heather Woermke is a financial executive and Chartered Professional Accountant, currently serving as the Associate Vice-Principal (Finance and Administration) at Queen’s University. Her career at Queen’s has encompassed various leadership roles, including Associate Vice-Principal (Finance), Interim Associate Vice-Principal (Human Resources), and Executive Director of Finance and Operations for the Faculty of Arts and Science. In recognition of her collaborative and innovative contributions to the post-secondary financial sector, she has received the Distinguished Leadership Award from the Council of Ontario Finance Officers, and the Emerging Leader Award from the Canadian Association of University Business Officers. Beyond her administrative duties, Heather is the past Chair of the Council of Ontario Finance Officers and serves on the Boards of the McDonald Institute (a national hub for astroparticle physics research), SNOLAB (Canada’s deep underground research laboratory), and the McGill-Queen’s University Press (a scholarly publisher). Before joining Queen’s University in 2010, Heather built a robust career in national public sector and not-for-profit organizations, including the Bank of Canada, NAV CANADA, and the Medical Council of Canada.

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