NINT Council

Indira V. Samarasekera, Chair
Dr. Samarasekera is the 12th President of the University of Alberta. Over a professional career spanning three decades, she has distinguished herself as one of Canada’s leading metallurgical engineers. As a Fulbright-Hays Scholar, she earned an MSc from the University of California in 1976, and, in 1980, she was granted a PhD in metallurgical engineering from the University of British Columbia.  Dr. Samarasekera received the E.W. R. Steacie Memorial fellowship in 1991, awarded by NSERC to the top four researchers in Canada under 40. She was awarded the Order of Canada in 2002 in recognition of outstanding contributions to steel process engineering. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (CIMM). 

Norman Augustine
Mr.  Augustine has held positions in government, industry, academia, and the nonprofit sector, including American Under-Secretary and Acting Secretary of the Army, and Chairman and CEO of Martin Marietta Corporation, and Chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin Corporation.  He has also been a professor at Princeton University.  He has been chairman of the National Academy of Engineering, the Defense Science Board, the American Red Cross, and the Aerospace Industries Association, and was a 16-year member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.  He is a Regent of the University System of Maryland, a former trustee of MIT and Princeton University, a trustee emeritus of Johns Hopkins and holds 24 honorary degrees.  His honors include the National Medal of Technology and the Vannevar Bush Award, and he is a five-time recipient of the Defense Department’s Distinguished Service Medal.  He graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University, where he earned Bachelor's and Master's degrees in aeronautical engineering.

Margaret L. Blohm
Dr. Blohm is Manager of Nanotechnology Research and Development Program at GE Global Research. She attended Russell Sage College and graduated with a B.S. Degree in Chemistry in 1981 and received her PhD in Inorganic Chemistry from the University of Minnesota in 1985. After a Post-Doctoral fellowship at the Colorado State University, she joined GE Global Research in Niskayuna in 1987.

Renée Elio
Dr. Elio is Associate Vice-President (Research) and Professor of Computing Science at the University of Alberta (U of A). Previously, she was a research scientist at Bell Laboratories and the Alberta Research Council (ARC), where she led that organization’s first expert system design and implementation in the field of severe storm forecasting. Dr Elio then joined the Department of Computing Science at the U of A and has served as Acting Chair of Computing Science and as Associate Dean (Research) of the Faculty of Science. She served on the Board of Directors for the ARC and for the former Alberta Information and Communication Technologies Institute.  She received her PhD from Carnegie-Mellon University (Pittsburgh, USA).

John R. McDougall
Mr. McDougall is the President of the National Research Council. Previously, he served as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Alberta Research Council for 12 years. His career began as a petroleum engineer, and evolved into the ownership and management of an international engineering consulting firm. He was a member of the NRC-Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC-IRAP) Advisory Board from 2002 to 2006 and also contributed to the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), and the AUTO21 Network of Centres of Excellence.  A fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineers and Engineers Canada, Mr. McDougall has a Bachelor of Science Degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Alberta, with a number of postgraduate courses in Environmental Engineering. From 1991 to 1997, he served as the first Poole Chair in Management for Engineers, a leadership position within the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Alberta. 

Annette Trimbee
Dr. Trimbee is the Deputy Minister of Alberta Advanced Education and Technology, where she guides the department's strategic leadership in the development of a knowledge-based economy in Alberta through the provision of accessible, affordable and quality learning opportunities for all Albertans and support for a dynamic and integrated innovation system. Previously, she served for five years as the Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Directions Division, of Alberta Health and Wellness, and as Executive Director of the Policy Secretariat and Director of Environmental Assessment and Strategy for Alberta Environment.  Ms. Trimbee has a Ph.D in Ecology from McMaster University, a M.Sc. in Botany from the University of Manitoba and a B.Sc. in Biology from the University of Winnipeg.

Luc Vinet
Dr. Vinet is Rector, Université de Montréal. Previously, he was Vice-Principal (Academic) and Provost of McGill University. Dr. Vinet sits or has sat on the boards of many organizations, including HEC Montréal, l’École Polytechnique, le Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf, the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal, Montréal International, l’Institut de recherches cliniques de Montréal, and the Fulbright Foundation. A world-renowned theoretical physicist, his research areas include gauge field theories, supersymmetry, quantum algebras, integrable systems and combinatorics. He holds a doctorate from the Université Pierre et Marie Curie and a PhD from the Université de Montréal, both in theoretical physics. After two years as Research Associate at MIT, he was appointed in the early 1980’s as faculty member in the Physics Department at the Université de Montréal.

Dan Wayner
Dr. Wayner is the NRC's Vice-President, Physical Sciences. His current portfolio includes seven NRC research institutes in the fields of astrophysics, chemical process and environmental technology, information technology, microstructural sciences, molecular sciences, national measurement standards and nanotechnology. He served as Director General of the NRC Steacie Institute for Molecular Sciences and as acting Director General of the National Institute for Nanotechnology. Dr. Wayner is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a Fellow of the Chemical Institute of Canada. He has served on the editorial advisory boards of the Journal of the American Chemical Society and Surface Science. In 1999, the Royal Society of Canada recognized his contributions by awarding him the Rutherford Medal – Chemistry. He received a BSc from McMaster University in 1980 and a PhD with distinction from Dalhousie University in 1984.