The Board of Directors is comprised of twelve volunteer members (nine elected, and three appointed), drawn from the CRKN membership. Details on Board composition, powers and operation may be found in the CRKN By-laws.
Member
With degrees in law from Université de Montréal and Harvard University, Daniel Jutras has been UdeM’s rector since June 1, 2020. A specialist in civil and comparative law, his expertise is internationally recognized, the result of a long career devoted to the study of contract law and civil liability, class actions and judicial institutions. As a seasoned teacher and an early player in the integration of a comparative and pluralist perspective in the teaching of law, Mr. Jutras has played a leading role in the transformation of legal education programs in Quebec and elsewhere in the world.
In addition to his academic activities, Daniel Jutras has contributed to Canadian public and political life as an ethics consultant to the Canadian Judicial Council, as a member of the independent advisory committee on Senate appointments and as a member of the independent advisory committee on the appointment of the Governor General of Canada. The Supreme Court of Canada has appointed him as amicus curiae in two of the most important constitutional cases of the last decade. Between 2002 and 2004, Daniel Jutras was also senior counsel to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, the Rt. Hon. Beverley McLachlin.
Today, he is a member of numerous boards of directors in the university sphere and in civil society organizations such as the Centre hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal, the Montreal Clinical Research Institute, the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal, the Canadian Research Knowledge Network, the Interuniversity Cooperation Office and the U7+ international university network.
At the time of his appointment as UdeM rector, Daniel Jutras held the Wainwright Chair in Civil Law of McGill University’s faculty of law. At the same faculty, between 1985 and 2020, he was in turn vice-dean, director of the Institute of Comparative Law and finally dean, from 2009 to 2016.
His contributions to academic life, Canadian political life and educational innovation have been recognized by his appointment as an officer of the Order of Canada. As a McGill professor, he received an award for excellence in teaching. He was also awarded the Médaille du Barreau du Québec in 1983, the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2013, the distinction of Advocatus emeritus of the Quebec Bar in 2014 and the Mérite du Barreau du Québec in 2016. In 1982, upon completion of his studies at the UdeM, Daniel Jutras proudly received the Academic Medal of the Governor General of Canada.
Melissa is responsible for the strategic direction and general operations of the University Library, ensuring its continued contribution to the university’s goals, mission, vision, and values. She leads a team of 150 faculty and staff in seven libraries, University Archives & Special Collections, and Student Learning Services.
Melissa joined the Library as Dean on February 1, 2017. She previously served as associate vice-president for information services, and director of New Brunswick Libraries, at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J, and held a variety of leadership roles in academic health sciences libraries in California. She earned an EdD from the University of Southern California, a master’s degree in library and information science from the University of Texas, and a BA in psychobiology from the University of California, Riverside.
She represents the University of Saskatchewan as a member of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL), and the Council of Prairie and Pacific Libraries (COPPUL).
Dr. Dale Askey currently serves as Vice Provost (Library & Museums) and Chief Librarian at the University of Alberta. Previously, Dale was the Associate University Librarian for Library & Learning Technologies at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, where he also occupied the role of Administrative Director of the Lewis & Ruth Sherman Centre for Digital Scholarship. He has filled a wide range of roles in libraries, primarily in collection development, public services, Web services, and information technology management. After starting out in libraries and IT at Washington University in St. Louis, he embarked on his professional library career at the University of Utah, with subsequent stays at Yale University and Kansas State University before joining McMaster. In 2009-2010, he was a visiting professor in electronic publishing and multimedia at the University of Applied Sciences in Leipzig, Germany, teaching in their library science, publishing, and museum studies programs.
His ongoing research project documents the cultural manifestations of the German-speaking minority that remained in the Czech and Slovak Republics after the post-WWII expulsions. This work formed the basis of the doctorate he completed in 2018 at the Humboldt University in Berlin. He earned his MLIS from the University of Missouri in 1998, and holds a BA from Colorado College and an MA from Washington University in St. Louis in German language and literature.
Bernard Bizimana holds an MSc in computer science and an MSc in library and information science. He first came to HEC Montréal in May 2005, and has been the director of the Library since May 2016. He is responsible for advancing the organizational vision and the strategic orientation of the Library and for aligning them with the teaching and the research goals of the School. During the last two years, his most important challenge has been to develop and implement a new business model for the Library. HEC Montréal is a Canadian business school that offers a comprehensive set of study programs, including a BBA, many MSc specializations, an MBA, an EMBA, and a PhD. With approximately 9,000 full-time students and 300 faculty members, HEC Montréal is one of the largest business schools in the world.
Susan Brown is Canada Research Chair in Collaborative Digital Scholarship and Professor of English at the University of Guelph. She engages from an intersectional feminist perspective with critical infrastructure studies and the use of semantic technologies for cultural scholarship through the Orlando Project in women’s literary history. Her work explores how online systems for creating, enhancing, and sharing cultural knowledge can support priorities such as collaborative knowledge production, diversity and inclusivity, respectful data creation and dissemination, sustainable access to cultural scholarship, and best practices in research data management and preservation. She directs the multi-institutional Canadian Writing Research Collaboratory platform and the Linked Infrastructure for Networked Cultural Scholarship cyberinfrastructure project. At Guelph, she runs with colleagues an interdisciplinary major in Culture and Technology Studies and The Humanities Interdisciplinary Collaboration (THINC) Lab. She is the President (2022-23) of the governing board of the international Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations.
Camille Callison, Tahltan Nation member, is the University Librarian at the University of the Fraser Valley (UFV) and a passionate cultural activist pursuing a PhD in Anthropology at the University of Manitoba. Her research critically examines the relationship between cultural memory institutions and the continued survival and activation of Indigenous knowledges, languages, and cultures. As part of her current professional contributions, Camille serves as the Chair of the National Indigenous Knowledge and Language Alliance (NIKLA) and IFLA Professional Division H, as well as on the Board of Directors of the Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN), and as a member of IEEE P2890™ Recommended Practice for Provenance of Indigenous Peoples’ Data, OCLC Reimagine Descriptive Workflows Advisory Group, NISO Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion subcommittee and the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission Taskforce on Archives. She is committed to being part of creating meaningful change related to equity, diversity, and inclusivity in the library, archival and cultural memory professions.
Biography coming soon
Concordia’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Denis Cossette has more 20 years of experience working in the higher education sector. He began his five-year term on August 1, 2016.
Prior to joining Concordia, Cossette served as associate vice-president of Financial Resources at the University of Ottawa. He also held the role of director of the university’s Financial Services from 2005 to 2010 and served as interim VP of Resources for a one-year period.
From 1990 to 2005, he was the director of Financial Resources and vice-president of Administration and Finance for La Cité, a French-language college of applied arts and technology that has its principal campus in Ottawa.
A graduate of Université Laval (licence in accounting science, bachelor of business administration) and the Université du Québec en Outaouais (certificate in administrative data processing), Cossette is also a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Ontario and of the l’Ordre des comptables professionnels agréés du Québec.
Ken Hernden BA (Hons.), MLIS (Western University) is University Archivist and Associate University Librarian at Queen’s University with direct responsibility for the Queen’s University Archives and the W. D. Jordan Rare Books and Special Collections and shared accountability as a member of the Vice-Provost and University Librarian’s senior team for the academic mission, strategic directions, and administration of the Queen’s University Library. Before coming to Queen’s, Ken served for thirteen years as University Librarian and University Archivist at Algoma University, where he established the Engracia de Jesus Matias Archives and Special Collections. He was also founding co-director of the Shingwauk Indian Residential Schools Centre. He has worked at Rush University (Chicago), York University (Toronto), and the North Bay Public Library.
Biography coming soon
Biography coming soon
Mark Robertson is currently University Librarian at Brock University where he has been since 2016. In July 2023, Mark will be joining Toronto Metropolitan University as Chief Librarian.
As a member of Brock’s senior administrative council, Mark has developed a new strategic plan and master space plan for the library, saw the opening of a new technology rich spaces, provided leadership for the establishment of an open access policy, strengthened the library acquisitions budget, and implemented a significant restructuring of the library.
Prior to Brock, Mark spent 17 years at York University, including eight years as associate university librarian for information services.
Mark earned his bachelor of arts from the University of Toronto, followed by a master of arts in philosophy from McMaster University, and a master of information studies from the University of Toronto. He attended the Harvard Leadership Institute for Academic Librarians in 2009 before participating in the Association of Research Libraries Leadership Fellows Program in 2013-15. His professional interests include library space design, library impact frameworks, the institutional strategic alignment of libraries and leadership development.