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Amaya Arcelus (Master of Ceremonies)
Program Director, Aging in Place Challenge Program, National Research Council of Canada
Dr. Amaya Arcelus is the director of the NRC’s Aging in Place Challenge Program. The program aims to provide innovative solutions that empower older adults and caregivers to live safe, healthy, and socially-connected lives within their homes and communities of choice. Amaya's work in this field began during her PhD in electrical and computer engineering at Carleton University, where she earned the Senate Medal for her research into context-aware smart home monitoring. She spent 3 years as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Toronto and the University Health Network, developing and leading a program on autonomous physiology and activity monitoring to support older adults living with heart failure. Prior to joining the NRC, Amaya worked for Defence Research and Development Canada, where she began as a scientist and ultimately served as manager of the Cyber Operations Science & Technology Program.
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Éric Baril
Vice-President, Transportation and Manufacturing Division, National Research Council Canada
Dr. Éric Baril is Vice-President (Acting) of the Transportation and Manufacturing Division.
He earned a B.Ing in material sciences and a PhD in Metallurgy from Polytechnique Montréal, specializing in microstructural characterization of materials and steel processing. Dr. Baril is a graduate of the Institute on Governance Executive Leadership Program.
He occupied a research associate position at the Centre for Characterization and Microscopy of Materials at Polytechnique Montréal and then joined the Noranda Technology Centre, as a senior scientist, working on Zinc Product and Application Development and Magnesium Products Development.
He joined the NRC's Industrial Materials Institute in 2004 as a research scientist. He later held the positions of Team Leader and eventually Program Leader of Vehicle Propulsion Technologies Program.
He has co-authored over 170 scientific publications and presentations at conferences. Dr. Baril has played a key role in the development of new magnesium alloy for automotive engine blocks and the titanium powder forming for medical device applications. These R&D outcomes are enabling the NRC to offer leading edge technologies to numerous clients and partners.
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Alexander Segall (PhD)
Professor Emeritus, Research Affiliate, Centre on Aging, Senior Scholar, Department of Sociology and Criminology, University of Manitoba
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Suzanne Dupuis-Blanchard (PhD, RN)
Professor & Research Chair in Population Aging, School of Nursing, CNFS-Université de Moncton
Dr. Suzanne Dupuis-Blanchard is a registered nurse and full professor at the School of Nursing at the Université de Moncton where she holds a Research Chair in Population Aging from the Consortium national de formation en santé (CNFS) and is Director of the Centre on Aging. Her program of research focuses on the multiple dimensions of aging in place as well as on issues related to the health of French speaking older adults living in Official Language Minority Communities (OLMC). She completed a PhD in Nursing from the University of Alberta, a Master of Nursing from the University of New Brunswick and a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Université de Moncton. She is the current chairperson of the National Seniors Council and the immediate past president of the Canadian Association on Gerontology. She co-led the New Brunswick Council on Aging for the development of a provincial strategy on aging in 2017.
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Dr. Samir Sinha (MD, DPhil)
Director of Geriatrics, Mount Sinai Hospital, University Health Network
Dr. Samir Sinha is a passionate and respected advocate for the needs of older adults. Dr. Sinha currently serves as the Director of Geriatrics of the Sinai Health System and the University Health Network in Toronto, the Peter and Shelagh Godsoe Chair in Geriatrics at Mount Sinai Hospital, and the Director of Health Policy Research at the National Institute on Ageing at Ryerson University. He is also a Professor in the Departments of Medicine, Family and Community Medicine, and the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto and an Adjunct Professor of Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
A Rhodes Scholar, after completing his undergraduate medical studies at the University of Western Ontario, he obtained a Masters in Medical History and a Doctorate in Sociology at the University of Oxford’s Institute of Ageing. He has pursued his postgraduate training in Internal Medicine at the University of Toronto and in Geriatrics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Dr. Sinha's breadth of international training and expertise in health policy and the delivery of services related to the care of the elderly have made him a highly regarded expert in the care of older adults. In 2012 he was appointed by the Government of Ontario to serve as the expert lead of Ontario's Seniors Strategy and he is now working on the development of a National Seniors Strategy. In 2014, Canada’s Maclean’s Magazine proclaimed him to be one of Canada’s 50 most influential people and its most compelling voice for the elderly. Dr. Sinha was recently appointed to serve as a member of the Government of Canada’s National Seniors Council, and is also leading the development of new National Long-Term Care Standards for Canada.
Beyond Canada, Dr. Sinha is a Fellow of the American Geriatrics Society and a member of the American Red Cross Scientific Advisory Council. Dr. Sinha has further consulted and advised hospitals and health authorities in Britain, China, Iceland, Singapore, St. Kitts and Nevis, Taiwan and the United States on the implementation and administration of unique, integrated and innovative models of geriatric care that reduce disease burden, improve access and capacity and ultimately promote health.
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Taki Sarantakis
President, Canada School of Public Service
Taki Sarantakis has been President of the Canada School of Public Service since July 2018, having previously served as Associate Secretary of the Treasury Board at the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat. Mr. Sarantakis spent most of his career at Infrastructure Canada, including as Assistant Deputy Minister of Policy and Communications.
In 2011 Mr. Sarantakis was awarded Canada's Public Service Award of Excellence in Public Policy, and in 2013 he was a recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal.
Prior to joining the federal government, Mr. Sarantakis was a doctoral candidate at the University of Toronto. He holds a B.A. and an M.A. from York University in Toronto, as well as an Executive Certificate in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. He is a graduate of the Rotman School of Management's Institute of Corporate Directors Education Program, holding the ICD.D designation.
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Ron Beleno
Lived Experience Dementia Caregiver and Co-Chair with the Older Adult and Caregiver Advisory Committee, AGE-WELL
Ron was a proactive caregiver to his father who lived with Alzheimer's for 10+ years, where his dad aged and lived in place at home until his passing in January of 2018. Ron is known for utilizing technology, his local community, innovative strategies and other compassionate care team members to support his family's life to live well and as best as possible.
Ron advises and presents across Canada and internationally on various themes around dementia, innovation, healthcare, and related issues such as patient engagement, caregiver advocacy, aging and living well, with a variety of groups such as the Alzheimer's & Dementia Societies, educational institutions, healthcare organizations, innovators, and corporations.
One of Ron's numerous roles in the community is the co-chair with the Older Adult and Caregiver Advisory Committee with AGE-WELL, Canada's Technology and Aging Network where he received their 2020 Honorary Fellows Award.
He is a Coach with Health Care Excellence Canada (HEC) on numerous teams such as Re-Imagining Care for Older Adults, Paramedics Providing in Palliative Care, and the Virtual Care Together Collaborative
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David Rivest-Hènault
Research Officer, National Research Council Canada
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Manuela Kunz
Research Officer, Computer Vision and Graphics Team, Digital Technologies, National Research Council Canada
Manuela Kunz is a Senior Research Officer with the Digital Technologies Research Centre at the National Research Council Canada where she is doing research in the area of Computer Vision and Graphics. Before joining the NRC, she worked at Queen’s University in the Department of Surgery and the School of Computing. Dr. Kunz earned her MSc. in Computing Science at the University of Hildesheim, Germany and her PhD in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Berne in Switzerland.
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Pengcheng Xi
Senior Research Officer, Computer Vision and Graphics team, Digital Technologies, National Research Council Canada
Pengcheng Xi received a M.S. degree in Computer Science from the University of Ottawa, Canada, in 2007, and a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada, in 2020. He is currently a Senior Research Scientist with Digital Technologies Research Centre at National Research Council Canada (NRC). His research interests are in applied machine learning and deep learning, with applications to computer vision, computer graphics, image processing and signal analysis. Pengcheng has published more than 50 peer-reviewed journal papers, book chapters and conference papers. He serves as a program committee member for top conferences and as a reviewer for major journals. He has supervised more than ten student employees at the NRC. Since 2020, Pengcheng has been an Adjunct Professor with the Department of Systems Design Engineering, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
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Joel David Martin
Chief Digital Research Officer, National Research Council of Canada
Dr. Joel Martin is the Chief Digital Research Officer of the National Research Council of Canada (NRC), overseeing the Digital Technologies Research Centre. He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science, Machine Learning, from the Georgia Institute of Technology and completed post-doctoral studies at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Martin has received awards for exceptional leadership and for innovative approaches to technology transfer. He has published dozens of peer-reviewed research articles and taught Computer Science courses at both the University of Ottawa and Carleton University. Since joining the NRC in 1994, he has been a researcher and served in multiple leadership roles in the Digital Technologies Research Centre, including Director General, Senior Director, Director of Research and Development, Program Lead of the Multimedia Analytic Tools for Security program, Team Leader, and project lead.
His strategic leadership has resulted in an increase in the impact of digital technology research at the NRC and beyond, including advances and applications in data science and analytics, quantum computing, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, machine translation, computer vision and graphics, cybersecurity, human-computer interfaces, natural language processing, medical and bioinformatics, and the Internet of Things (IoT). For example, under his leadership, the Research Centre has been successful in introducing digital technologies to detect disease outbreaks, some of which are now used worldwide, and digital technologies that promote Indigenous languages in Canada.
In addition, Dr. Martin has established research and development programs drawing interest and collaboration from universities and other government departments. These initiatives include the NRC's Data Analytics Centre, the Multimedia Analytic Tools for Security program, and the AI for Design Challenge program. They have increased both scientific output and impact of the NRC's Digital Technologies Research Centre to Canada and Canadians.
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