Dr. Ryan Wiley is President of Shift Health, where he has successfully worked with industry, governments, academic institutions and non-profit organizations around the world. He has facilitated and managed effective, innovative partnerships that have opened new markets and leveraged hundreds of millions of dollars in investment, and he has worked seamlessly with the public and private sectors on economic development, health research, capacity-building and commercialization initiatives in Canada, the US, Latin America, Europe, Southeast Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East.

Tina Gruosso, PhD

Dr. Tina Gruosso completed her PhD at the Institut Curie in Paris and her postdoctoral fellowship at McGill University in Montreal in oncology and tumor microenvironment. She is now a scientist in translational research at Forbius, a clinical stage biotech company. She is an advocate for evidence-based policymaking, innovation, science diplomacy, science communication as well as equity, diversity and inclusion. She represents early career scientists as president of the student-led non-profit organization Science & Policy Exchange devoted to engaging the next generation in the interplay between science and society including science policy, and is also a member of the Global Young Academy, the Montreal chapter of Women In Bio and the redaction committee of the ACFAS magazine.

Joseph Sparling, PhD

Dr. Joseph Sparling is the Past Chair of the Canadian Association of Postdoctoral Scholars (CAPS/ACSP), a recognized authority on postdoctoral labour and training in Canada, and an outspoken advocate for evidence-based policy reform. He played a significant role in convincing the Alberta government to grant all postdocs employment status in 2017 and has authored a variety of reports to government regarding postdoctoral policy as well as opinion pieces for iPolitics and The Black Hole Blog.

Jennifer Polk, PhD

Dr. Jennifer Polk is co-founder of Beyond the Professoriate (beyondprof.com), a mission-driven organization that works in partnership with institutions and individuals to help PhDs launch meaningful careers. She also speaks and writes on issues related to graduate education and career outcomes for doctoral-degree holders. Her University Affairs blog, originally named From PhD to Life, is a three-time gold winner from the Canadian Online Publishing Awards. She earned her PhD in history from the University of Toronto.

Shawn McGuirk, PhD
PhD Biochemistry McGill University
Mitacs Canadian Science Policy Fellow, NSERC

Dr. Shawn McGuirk is a Mitacs Canadian Science Policy Fellow at NSERC and PhD in Biochemistry at the Goodman Cancer Research Centre (McGill University). His research centers on the role of metabolism in breast cancer progression. During this degree, he launched a biomedical start-up through the inaugural USA Breast Cancer Start-up Challenge. Shawn also represents the next generation of researchers on the boards of directors of Acfas and of the student-led non-profit Science & Policy Exchange.

Taylor Morriseau, B.Sc.
PhD Student, Children’s Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba
Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, University of Manitoba

Ms. Taylor Morriseau is a member of Peguis First Nation and a PhD student at the Children’s Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba. Using a pre-clinical mouse model, she investigates the interplay between genes and environment in youth-onset type 2 diabetes (T2D). In 2018, she was awarded a CIHR Vanier Scholarship to elucidate how a prominent genetic variant in Anishininiiwuk (Oji-Cree) youth influences T2D onset and how traditional diets may prevent or delay diabetes development.