This spring, nine visionary leaders will be awarded honorary doctorates from the University of Ottawa at virtual convocation ceremonies that will run from June 14 to June 16, 2021.
Honorary doctorates are awarded to individuals who have made substantial contributions to their alma matter, to their profession, or to society at large. They are inspiring members of the community who lead by example and have demonstrated the power of hard work.
Faculty of Arts: Kevin Loring
An accomplished Canadian playwright, actor, and director, Kevin Loring was the first-ever artistic director of the new Indigenous Theatre branch of the National Arts Centre. In 2009, Loring received the Governor General’s Award for English Language Drama for his outstanding play, Where the Blood Mixes. A Nlaka’pamux from the Lytton First Nation in British Columbia, Loring created the Songs of the Land project in 2012 in partnership with five separate organizations in his home community. The project explores 100-year-old audio recordings of songs and stories of the N’lakap’amux People.
Faculty of Engineering: Gilles Patry
Gilles G. Patry is executive director of the U15 Group of Canadian research universities. Gilles Patry was president and vice-chancellor of the University of Ottawa between 2001 and 2008, prior to which he was dean of the Faculty of Engineering. His research program at McMaster University led him to develop an innovative modelling concept that simulates the dynamics of wastewater treatment plants, and ultimately, to launch a Hamilton-based consulting company, Hydromantis.
Faculty of Law: The Honourable Louise Charron
In 2004, the Honourable Louise Charron became the first Franco-Ontarian women to be appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada. Louise Charron is a graduate of the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Law, Common Law Section (LLB ’75). She began law school at a time when few women studied law and even fewer practiced it. Driven by a strong desire to succeed, Louise Charron became one of a generation of trailblazers in the legal profession.
Faculty of Social Sciences: Doris Peltier
Doris Peltier is Anishinaabe from Wikwemikoong, a First Nations community located on the unceded territory of the Odawa, Ojibway, and Pottawatami peoples on Manitoulin Island in Ontario. For almost two decades, she has been involved in the Indigenous HIV movement in Canada, and for more than a decade she has worked in Indigenous community-based health research. She is fluent in her Indigenous language, which frames her worldview and her approach to Indigenous research. She is a mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, and lives with HIV. She embraces her role as matriarch to her little family as her most important role in life.
Faculty of Health Sciences: Pierre Lavoie
After losing a son and a daughter to lactic acidosis, a hereditary illness especially prevalent in the Saguenay-Lac Saint Jean region of Quebec, in 1999, Lavoie launched the first Défi Pierre Lavoie challenge, which involves cycling some 650 km in the Saguenay-Lac Saint Jean area in only 24 hours. He has repeated this feat three times. Pierre Lavoie leveraged the Défi to raise funds for a multidisciplinary team of researchers at the Université du Québec, Chicoutimi. Important breakthroughs were made, and in 2003, the gene responsible for lactic acidosis was finally identified, leading to a screening test that gives hope to future parents.
Faculty of Education: Wes Hall
Wes Hall is an established innovator, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. As executive chairman and founder of Kingsdale Advisors, he has been named one of Canada’s most powerful people by The Globe and Mail, Canadian Business, Toronto Life and Maclean’s. In June 2020, Wes Hall launched the BlackNorth Initiative, which challenges Canadian businesses to acknowledge and end systemic anti-black racism. Wes Hall will be the first Black Canadian dragon to enter the den on the upcoming 16th season of CBC’s Dragons’ Den; he intends to have an impact and make a conscious effort to award opportunities to up-and-coming BIPOC entrepreneurs.
Faculty of Science: May Berenbaum
Since 1980, May Berenbaum has been a faculty member of the Department of Entomology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, serving as department head since 1992 and as Swanlund Chair of Entomology since 1996. She is known for her studies of the chemically mediated coevolution between plant-feeding insects and their host plants. A member of the National Academy of Sciences, Berenbaum chaired the National Research Council board on agriculture and natural resources and the 2007 NRC committee on the status of pollinators in North America. She has testified before Congress on issues relating to honeybee health and pollinator decline. She is currently editor-in-chief of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Faculty of Medicine: Tina Boileau
Tina Boileau’s son, Jonathan, was born with recessive dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa (RDEB) and her daughter, Noémy, is a carrier of the gene. Since 2015, Tina Boileau has served as president of DEBRA Canada (Dystrophic Epidermolysis Bullosa Research Association of Canada), an organization that helped Jonathan connect with others like him and gave him a sense of belonging in the community. Like other “butterfly children”, Jonathan touched the lives of many people with his courage and positive attitude. On April 4, 2018, following complications from an infection and a valiant fight, Jonathan passed away with his mother by his side. Tina Boileau understands that there is still much work to do to find a cure, and even more work to make this cure available. With untiring commitment and drive, she is raising awareness in order to find effective treatments that will transform epidermolysis bullosa from “the worst disease you’ve never heard of” to “the worst disease you’ll never hear about again because people will be cured and free from this disease”.
Telfer School of Management: Allen Eaves
As head of clinical hematology at the University of British Columbia from 1985 to 2003, Dr. Allen Eaves focused on building one of Canada’s first bone marrow transplant programs. In 1993, he founded STEMCELL Technologies. Allen Eaves, OBC, is currently president and CEO of STEMCELL Technologies, which is now Canada’s largest biotech company with over 1500 employees and a global network of sales offices and distribution centres serving thousands of customers.