2025 Award Winners:
CSPC 2025
Lifetime Achievement Award Winner
CSPC 2025
Trailblazer Award Winner
CSPC 2025
Trailblazer Award Winner
CSPC 2025
Youth Award Winner
The Lifetime Achievement Award by the Canadian Science Policy Centre (CSPC) recognizes exceptional individuals who have demonstrated sustained excellence and leadership in advancing science and innovation policy in Canada. This award honours individuals whose careers have had a significant, lasting, and meaningful impact on the Canadian science policy landscape, and who have consistently championed and inspired the science and innovation policy community over many years. Each individual may receive the Science Policy Lifetime Achievement Award only once.
Recipients of the Lifetime Achievement Award are nominated and selected by the CSPC Board of Directors.
CSPC welcomes recommendations from individuals and organizations wishing to bring forward the names of candidates whose professional achievements and contributions merit consideration for this distinction. The CSPC is firmly committed to the principles of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, and encourages the nomination of individuals from all backgrounds, sectors, and communities.
Check out previous recipients of the Science Policy Life Time Achievement Awards here.
All received recommendations will be reviewed and considered by the CSPC Board of Directors. To recommend an individual for consideration, please contact in [email protected].
2025
Lifetime Achievement Award Winner
Dr. Rémi Quirion
Chief Scientist of Québec, President of INGSA
Dr. Rémi Quirion has been selected as the recipient of the CSPC 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of his extraordinary and long-term contributions to science, innovation, and public policy in Quebec, Canada and internationally.
As Québec’s first Chief Scientist, Dr. Quirion has been a tireless advocate for interdisciplinary research, international collaboration, and public engagement with science. He has elevated Québec’s standing as a global leader in science and innovation and become one of Canada’s foremost champions of science diplomacy, fostering strong ties with the Francophonie, the Global South, and other partners worldwide.
2022 – Lifetime Achievement Award Winner:
Sheila Watt-Cloutier
Citizen Advocate on Environmental, Cultural and Human Rights
Sheila Watt-Cloutier has been selected as a result of so many years of exceptional contribution and leadership over the course of her career in bringing Indigenous perspectives and knowledge to national and international policymaking, in particular on environmental health, sustainability and preservation.
She has raised awareness of the threat of climate change in the Arctic and its relationship to human rights and Indigenous rights in Canada, and globally, She has been clearly articulating the interconnectedness of Inuit culture, the environment, the economy, foreign policy, global health, and sustainability. Her work with the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment integrated traditional and western knowledge and evidence, bringing a human face to climate change in the Arctic. She has inspired the science policy community across Canada with her insights, courage, and voice.
The CSPC Trailblazer Awards recognize individuals who have demonstrated novelty and creativity through leadership, vision, courage, and commitment and have positively and significantly impacted Science, Technology, Innovation and Society in Canada. These individuals have been instrumental in boldly spearheading change via one or more transformative initiatives while blazing a trail and inspiring others to follow.
CSPC 2025 will present four Trailblazer Awards, one in each of the categories of Policy for Science, Science for Policy, Innovation Policy, and Science & Society.
CSPC encourages nominations from all disciplines of policy and science (natural sciences, engineering and technology, health and life sciences, social sciences, arts and humanities) and from all sectors (governments at all levels, academia, private and nonprofit sectors, media and others).
Please note that this award does not consider technological or scientific discoveries, inventions, or innovations.
2025
Trailblazer Award Winner
Dr. Judy Illes
Professor, University of British Columbia
Dr. Illes’ work has brought a new lens to the way that neuroscientists do their work today, not only by guiding the way that they attend to the possible unexpected clinical consequences of their work, but to the importance of integrating multicultural considerations into study design, analysis, and delivery of results that mitigates biases and ensures meaningful and just outcomes. Her trailblazing work has had a major impact on policy making in Canada and around the world. In 2025, Dr. Illes represented Canada as members of UNESCO gathered to negotiate the recommendations on the ethics of neurotechnology – expected to be adopted in the form of soft law at the UN General Assembly.
2025
Trailblazer Award Winner
Dr. Shohini Ghose
Professor, Wilfrid Laurier University
From quantum computing to the first national survey of EDI in the physics community to TED talks in science communication, Dr. Sohini Ghose is a trailblazer and leader in STEM. Her 2023 book: Her Space, Her Time, won the 2023 Science Writers and Communicators of Canada Award.
2025
Trailblazer Award Winner
Dr. Sandra Lapointe
Professor, McMaster University
Dr. Sandra Lapointe is an innovator, a convenor, and a capacity-builder. Through transformative initiatives like the Canadian Forum for Social Innovation (CFSI), La/The Collaborative and Canadian Collaborative for Society, Innovation, and Policy (CCSIP), Dr. Lapointe is a champion to those traditionally left out of the “innovation” discussion. She has forged interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral collaborations from social science, humanities and arts research that focus on innovation beyond its conventional associations with commercialization. Her impact is felt nation-wide.
2025
Trailblazer Award Winner
Dr. Eugenia Addy
CEO, Visions of Science
Dr. Eugenia Addy is a scientist, communicator, and social entrepreneur whose leadership has transformed STEM access and opportunity for thousands of youth in Ontario. As CEO of Visions of Science (VOS), she has grown the organization from serving 6 communities on a $20,000 budget to now reaching over 50 communities in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area with a budget surpassing $2 million. Under her direction, VOS has created a suite of programs that guide youth from elementary school through post-secondary and early career stages, making their journey into STEM intentional rather than serendipitous.
2024
Trailblazer Award Winner
Dr. Maydianne Andrade
Biologist and Professor, University of Toronto Co-founder and Inaugural President of the Canadian Black Scientists Network
2024
Trailblazer Award Winner
Dr. Evan Fraser
Director of Arrell Food Institute and Professor in the Department of Geography, Environment and Geomatics, University of Guelph
2024
Trailblazer Award Winner
Dr. Marc Nantel
Vice President, Research, Innovation & Strategic Enterprises Niagara College
2024
Trailblazer Award Winner
Dr. Bonnie Schmidt
President and Founder of Let’s Talk Science
2023 – Trailblazer Award Winner
Category: Innovation Policy
Dr. Catherine Beaudry
Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Industrial Engineering at Polytechnique Montréal
2023 – Trailblazer Award Winner
Category: Science for Policy
Dr. David Hammond
Professor and University Research Chair in the School of Public Health Sciences at the University of Waterloo
2023 – Trailblazer Award Winner
Category: Policy for Science
Hon. Kirsty Duncan
Deputy House Leader Member of Parliament
2022 – Trailblazer Award Winner
Category: Innovation Policy
Dr. Elicia Maine
Associate Vice-President, Knowledge Mobilization and Innovation, Simon Fraser University
2022 – Trailblazer Award Winner
Category: Science for Policy
Dr. Gregory J. Smallwood
Principal Research Officer, National Research Council of Canada
2022 – Trailblazer Award Winner
Category: Policy for Science
Dr. Imogen Coe
Professor, Toronto Metropolitan University
2021 – Trailblazer Award Winner
Category: Innovation Policy
Josephine Etowa
Professor, University of Ottawa
Senior Investigator, Centre for Research on Health and Nursing
2021 – Trailblazer Award Winner
Category: Science Policy
Yann Joly
Research Director, Centre of Genomics and Policy
This award recognizes a young individual (student, postdoctoral fellow, researcher, entrepreneur, etc.) under the age of 35 who proposes an innovative and compelling evidence-based policy that will make a positive difference to Canadians. This award is designed not only to highlight innovative, evidence-driven policy ideas by policy students and young professionals, but also to encourage young people not currently studying, or working on, public policy to share their policy ideas.
Eligible recipients include all young Canadian residents under 35, regardless of their field of study or work.
2025
Youth Award Winner
Dr. Burhan Hussein
Program Director
University of Toronto
Burhan Hussein is a research chemist, educator, and innovation enthusiast with expertise in sustainable technologies, materials science, and science policy. Burhan’s career spans academic research, industry collaboration, and commercialization, with work ranging from carbon capture materials to new cancer therapies.
Featured Applicants:
2021 – Winner: Shaarika Sarasija
Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Ottawa
Topic: Step up: Finding respite care for persons living with dementia among students of Canadian health professions
Runners up:
- Taylor Reidlinger – A Call to Modernize Canadian Fisheries Policy: for Better Community Well-being, Food Security, Climate Resilience, and Economic Prosperity
- Hannah Rahim – The need for community-driven phenomenological research to address the suicide crisis among Indigenous peoples in Canada
Runners up:
- Taylor Reidlinger – A Call to Modernize Canadian Fisheries Policy: for Better Community Well-being, Food Security, Climate Resilience, and Economic Prosperity
- Hannah Rahim – The need for community-driven phenomenological research to address the suicide crisis among Indigenous peoples in Canada
2020 – Winner: Hannah Harrison
Postdoctoral Scholar, Department of Geography, Environment & Geomatics, University of Guelph
Topic: Improving seafood direct-marketing for Canadian economic resilience and food security
This award recognizes a young individual (student, postdoctoral fellow, researcher, entrepreneur, etc.) under the age of 35 who proposes an innovative and compelling evidence-based policy that will make a positive difference to Canadians. This award is designed not only to highlight innovative, evidence-driven policy ideas by policy students and young professionals, but also to encourage young people not currently studying, or working on, public policy to share their policy ideas.
Eligible recipients include all young Canadian residents under 35, regardless of their field of study or work.
2021 – Winner: Shaarika Sarasija
Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Ottawa
Topic: Step up: Finding respite care for persons living with dementia among students of Canadian health professions
Runners up:
- Taylor Reidlinger – A Call to Modernize Canadian Fisheries Policy: for Better Community Well-being, Food Security, Climate Resilience, and Economic Prosperity
- Hannah Rahim – The need for community-driven phenomenological research to address the suicide crisis among Indigenous peoples in Canada
