Tim Lougheed
President

Currently President of the Canadian Science Writers' Association, he has worked with communications staff and researchers on projects at Queen's University, Carleton University and the University of Ottawa, as well as various government agencies and private organizations.

A former general assignment reporter for the Sault Star and the Windsor Star, he has been freelancing full-time in the Ottawa area since 1991.

Kathryn O'Hara
Vice-President

Kathryn O'Hara joined the faculty of the School of Journalism and Communication in 2001 and became the first person to hold the School's CTV Chair in Science Broadcast Journalism the first such chair of its kind in anglophone Canada.

O'Hara is a long-standing broadcast journalist, the former consumer columnist with CBC's Midday, the former anchor of CBC's Newsday in Ottawa, and the former host of Later the Same Day, CBC Radio Toronto's "drive-home" program. She holds an M.Sc. in Science Communication from The Queen's University of Belfast, and for the three years before coming to the School was an independent producer for outlets such as RTE and CBC.

Her recent work was aired on the CBC's Quirks and Quarks and Ideas programs. Kathryn sits on the Science and Tecnology Advisory Committees of Health Canada and Environment Canada.

Véronique Morin
Past-President

Véronique Morin is a news anchor and believes strongly that Science should have an important place in a daily newscast.

She has 20 years experience as a journalist. She was science reporter and co-host of Panorama on Ontario's public network and has filed more than one hundred current affairs reports on Science, the environment and technologies for television. Her documentary on Hubert Reeves was nominated at the "Festival international des films scientifiques" in 1994.

Véronique Morin was elected president of the Canadian Science Writers' Association (CSWA) in 2001 and re-elected in 2003 for a second two-year term, which ended in June of 2005. She was elected the first president of the World Federation of Science Journalists (WFSJ) at its' founding meeting Brazil in November 2002. She also served as a judge for Industry Canada's Science Culture Canada programme between 1993-95.

Peter Calamai
Board Member

Peter Calamai is national science reporter for The Toronto Star and is based in Ottawa. A founding member of the Canadian Science Writers Association, Calamai was a correspondent for the Southam newspapers for more than two decades with postings in Europe. Africa and the U.S.

He is a three time winner of the National Newspaper Award and an adjunct research professor in Carleton University's School of Journalism and Communication.

Dr. Alex Bielak is an award-winning conservationist, scientist, science manager and author of many popular and scientific publications. He heads a new Science Liaison Branch at Canada's largest freshwater research facility, the National Water Research Institute, where his group's mission includes "communicating science knowledge to internal and external audiences."

Active in Environment Canada's national Science and Technology Management Community, he spearheaded the development of a pilot Communications Training Workshop for scientists that provided the baseline for the development - by a group of federal science departments - of training courses being offered today. (This work was featured during an international conference on "Best Practices for Communication of Science and Technology to the Public" held last year in the United States.)

A passionate bi-lingual communicator Alex has continued a personal involvement in training science communicators, and has been actively involved in four of a continuing series of professional development workshops for students of Journalism, Public Relations, Technical Communications, Electronic Publishing and Science.

A recipient of the Ted Williams Conservation Award for Journalistic Excellence in 1995, he was selected as a member of the Hamilton Spectator Community Editorial Board in 2003.

Bob McDonald
Board Member

Bob McDonald is the host of Quirks & Quarks on CBC Radio One. One of Canada's best known science journalists, Bob has been presenting the program since 1992. His extensive background in science broadcasting includes numerous science documentaries for CBC Radio's Ideas series and location stories and investigative reports for CBC's As It Happens and Morningside. Bob McDonald has also produced, written, and hosted over one hundred educational videos, written for the Globe and Mail, and before joining Quirks & Quarks was the host of CBC televison's children's science program Wonderstruck. He is also the author of two books based on the program, Wonderstruck I and Wonderstruck II.

Fall 2000 saw the release of Bob's latest book, Measuring the Earth with a Stick: Science as I've seen it. The book, which was short-listed for the Canadian Science Writers Association Book Award, is a collection of essays reflecting on his 25 years as a science journalist. Bob has shared in the dozens of prizes and awards bestowed upon Quirks & Quarks. But he was also personally honoured for his contributions to the public awareness of science with the 2001 Michael Smith Award for Science Promotion, from NSERC; and the 2002 Sandford Fleming Medal from The Royal Canadian Institute. Bob is also a weekly science commentator on Newsworld Morning, and science correspondent for CBC TV's The National. In February 2003, Bob was awarded an honourary Doctorate of Letters from the University of Guelph.

Kathryn Warden
Board Member

Kathryn Warden has been the Research Communications Officer for the University of Saskatchewan since 1998. Her responsibilities include strategic planning focused on communicating U of S research stories to the public, both regionally and nationally. A particular focus is the Canadian Light Source synchrotron due to open on campus in spring 2004. She is the mentor for students writing for the U of S SPARK (Students Promoting Awareness of Research Knowledge) program.

Kathryn has 25 years of experience in journalism. She held a variety of posts at the Calgary Herald, Toronto Star and Saskatoon StarPhoenix, including reporter, columnist and editorial writer. In 1982-83, she attended the University of Toronto on a Southam Fellowship. Awards include a 1980 League for Human Rights of B'nai B'rith Canada national press award and a 1993 feature writing nomination for a National Newspaper Award. She has served as a judge for a number of journalism competitions.

Currently serving on the NSERC Standing Committee on Communications, she has a keen interest in science communication.

Eve Savory
Board Member

Eve Savory is a Vancouver-based reporter for CBC Television's "The National".

She has covered science, medicine and the environment off and on but mostly on, since 1983 and proudly holds several awards from the CSWA, of which she has been a member for some twenty years.

Gord Leathers
Board Member

Gord Leathers is a longtime freelance science and agriculture journalist based out of Winnipeg, Manitoba. In addition to serving as a CSWA representative from the prairies, Gord is also an accomplished musician, whose folk and rock stylings grace festivals across Canada.

From Gord's web site: "In my time I've worked with park interpreters, railroad section men, hospital orderlies and nurses, geologists, diamond drillers, musicians, actors, dancers, corporate communications specialists, and I've even watched politicians up close."

"One of the great tragedies of the western world is the intellectual schism that exists between the arts and the sciences. One of the perks of the University of Winnipeg was the place was small enough that we were all forced to mingle so arts and science students ate in the same cafeterias, took the same credit courses and went to the same dances. This worked out well for me when I met, courted and married a girl with a B.A. in Classics and Anthropology. It also provided me with a very good general background in basic natural sciences which I brought with me to journalism school a few years later."

Anie Perrault
Board Member

Anie Perrault provides strategic communications and public relations services to science and research organizations through her newly formed company, Communications Anie Perrault.

From 1997 to 1999, Mrs. Perrault served as Attachée de presse and Senior Advisor to the Right Honourable Joe Clark, P.C., M.P. She also worked as Special Advisor to the Hon. Jean J. Charest (1989-1991; 1995 referendum; 1996-1997). From 1993 to 1996, Mrs. Perrault practiced law in Montreal at the law firm Davis, Ward, Phillips & Vineberg.

Mrs. Perrault is a member of the Youth Science Foundation Canada Board and Canadian Gene Cure Foundation Board.

Brian Hoyle
Board Member

Brian Hoyle is a freelance science writer and editor who owns and operates Square Rainbow Limited Science Wordsmithing. He has been a full-time science writer for six years, during which time he has written numerous articles for a variety of trade journals, popular publications, peer-reviewed scientific journals, and encyclopedias.

Originally trained as a microbiologist, his writing now covers anything scientific-diversity being a better means of keeping the deposit ledger of a bank account active. As well, Brian is a science/medical editor, working with the Canada's National Research Council and with a Taiwan-based company to assist authors with manuscript preparation.

His background includes undergraduate and graduate degrees in microbiology, research experience at the graduate and postdoctoral levels, and the supervision of a provincial government laboratory. These experiences were useful in convincing Brian that his calling in science lay in the telling of the science tale rather than at the bench.

Originally from Toronto, Brian has staked his claim as a Bluenoser, and lives within sight of Halifax, Nova Scotia and the sea.

Janet Weichel McKenzie
Board Member

Janet Weichel McKenzie has more than 12 years of strategic communications and media relations experience focusing on health, science and research issues.

Prior to starting her own practice as a consultant, Janet was the Media Specialist for over four years with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) corporate office in Ottawa. She is the recipient of a CIHR President Award (2004) in recognition of her valuable contribution and dedication in the SARS crisis.

Janet also worked for eight years at Carleton University (Ottawa) in the Department of Public Affairs and Marketing.

In addition to being a current CSWA board member, Janet is a past board member, director, and treasurer of CKCU Radio and past member of the board of directors of the Volunteer Centre of Ottawa-Carleton.

Janet has a Bachelor Arts degree from Carleton University.

Mario Masson
Board Member

Mario Masson travaille pour Découverte, l'émission scientifique de la Société Radio-Canada, depuis 1990. Il est le lauréat de plusieurs prix de journalisme tant au niveau national qu'international. En 1996, il a écrit un livre sur l'autoroute de l'information qui faisait le point sur cette révolution numérique. De sa formation universitaire en histoire et en philosophie, il a gardé le désir, tout pédagogique, de prendre ce qui est compliqué et le rendre limpide. En tant que journaliste, il se voit donc comme une courroie de transmission entre le public et les détenteurs de connaissance, que sont les chercheurs et les scientifiques.

Peter McMahon
Science Link Editor


Peter McMahon is an award-winning online producer/presenter for Discovery Channel Canada in Toronto and founder of North Star Productions - a new media and consulting company that offers science popularizing and media production, as well as training and planning for children's science programming.

An avid backyard astronomer, Peter has written, produced and spoken on topics from summer stargazing, to do-it-yourself science experiments, to grass-roots aerospace missions.

Since 2003, he has been the editor of the CSWA's newsletter, Science Link, as well as the editor for the newsletter of the Ontario Camping Association.

Kristina Bergen
Executive Director


Kristina Bergen is a rascal, a swashbuckler, and an artist. She first tried her hand at science writing while finishing her University of Saskatchewan masters thesis on the real-life stories of warrior women in ancient Iceland. While at the U of S, she also started a career in communications, working as a writer for the Office of the Vice President of Research.

She’s tended bar and managed a restaurant along the Dempster Highway in the Yukon, taught quilting and karate, delivered ‘extreme history’ programming for kids, and started a second job as a videographer and producer for her own wee production company.

Kristina started as CSWA Administrative Director in October and looks forward to getting to know members from coast to coast. Most recently, she spearheaded the 2005 CSWA Annual Conference in Jasper, Alberta.