Meet our Francophone Mobility Chairholders

The Collège des chaires de recherche sur le monde francophone (CCRMF) of the University of Ottawa welcomes international researchers as part of its Francophone Mobility Chairs program. Recognized as leading experts in their respective fields, these chairholders spend several months on our campus to hold workshops, give lectures, and collaborate in research and knowledge mobilization on the Francophonie.

Martine Lagacé

“Each guest chairholder brings a new perspective and an opportunity to enrich our knowledge, thanks to a shared love of the French language.”

Martine Lagacé

— Associate vice-president, research promotion and development

2025-2026

Francophone Mobility Chairs Program
Michel Agier

Michel Agier

Michel Agier is a professor who specializes in African studies and in the anthropology of the modern world at l’École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) in Paris. He has conducted field research in cities in Africa (Lomé, Douala) and Latin America (Salvador de Bahia, Cali) as part of scientific cooperation projects sponsored by the Institut de recherche pour le développement (IRD), of which he is currently director of research emeritus.

Named director of studies at the EHESS in 2004, Michel Agier was awarded the 2022 Research Prize from the Fondation Croix-Rouge française for his entire body of work. In 2024, he received an honorary doctorate from Lund University, Sweden.

As part of the Francophone Mobility Chair, Professor Brieg Capitaine, Professor Luisa Veronis, who holds the Research Chair on Immigration and Franco-Ontarian Communities, and Professor Vincent Mirza, director of the Research Centre on the Future of Cities, have invited Michel Agier to uOttawa to further explore the topics of his latest work, entitled Racisme et culture. Explorations transnationales (Seuil, 2025). Focusing on internalized racism as a function of culture, as well as anti-racist cultural performance, Michel Agier will revisit his African, Latin American and European fieldwork while retrospectively examining Francophone literatures and the social sciences. 

Sophie Brand

Sophie Brand

Sophie Brand is an assistant professor of language teaching at Radboud Teachers Academy (Université Radboud), where she conducts research on effective educational tools for developing the phonetic and phonological knowledge of students learning French, and thus promote their oral comprehension and speaking skills.

During her stay at uOttawa, she will work more specifically on the didactic principles and tools to improve French oral comprehension that she has identified in projects conducted at the high school level in both Canada and the Netherlands. She is hosted by Professor Claude Quevillon Lacasse and by Professor Megan Cotnam-Kappel, who holds the Chair on Digital Thriving in Franco-Ontarian Communities.

Louis-Philippe Dalembert

Louis-Philippe Dalembert

Louis-Philippe Dalembert is a Haitian novelist, short-story writer, poet and essayist. His works, which have been translated into a dozen languages, have garnered several awards, most notably the Prix Goncourt for Poetry (2024), and the Prix François-Coppée from the Académie française (2021). He has also received: the French language prize and nomination as a finalist for the Prix Goncourt des Lycéens for his novel Mur Méditerranée (2019); the Prix FNAC for Milwaukee Blues (2021); and the Prix Orange du Livre. He was named as a finalist for both the Prix Médicis and the Grand Prix du Roman from l’Académie française for Avant que les ombres s’effacent (2017). He was also named a resident fellow of the Villa Medici in Rome.

Louis-Philippe Dalembert holds a doctorate in comparative literature from the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle and a degree in journalism from the École supérieure de journalisme de Paris. He has served as a visiting professor in the US, Switzerland, and Germany, as well as in France as holder of the writer-in-residence chair at Sciences Po, Paris.

In 2010, he was named Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters of France.

Professor Jonathan Paquette, who holds the International Francophonie Research Chair on Cultural Heritage Policies, has invited Louis-Philippe Dalembert to uOttawa, where he will examine contemporary literature and poetry in partnership with the Collège des chaires de recherche sur le monde francophone and the Salon du livre afro-canadien.

Fatoumata Hane

Fatoumata Hane

Fatoumata Hane is a socio-anthropologist who teaches at the Department of Sociology at the Université Assane Seck de Ziguinchor, Senegal, where she is also coordinator of the Institut Éducation Famille, Santé et Genre (IESFG). From 2014 to 2016, she held positions as department head before serving as director of the Institut supérieur d’enseignement professionnel (ISEP) in Bignona, Senegal, until January 2020. She is assistant editor of a public health journal entitled La Revue française de santé publique and author of some fifty publications. She is a knight of the National Order of the Lion of the Republic of Senegal.

Hosted by Professor Marie-Eve Desrosiers, who holds the International Francophonie Research Chair on Political Aspirations and Movements in Francophone Africa, and by Professor Nathalie Mondain, who is co-coordinator of the African Studies program, Fatoumata Hane will spend her time at uOttawa strengthening collaborations that involve governance and citizenship, systems and public policies that deal with health and aging, and public and private solidarity in Africa. Her stay will promote scholarly discussions on the contemporary transformations occurring in public health in Africa and in Francophone spaces.

Brice Arsène Mankou

Brice Arsène Mankou

Brice Arsène Mankou is a full professor and vice-president of international relations at the Centre de valorisation professionnelle de Tunis (CVPT), a visiting researcher at the Centre de recherche en éthique (CRE) [University of Montreal] and director of cooperation delegated to the Centre africain de recherches interdisciplinaires sur l’Afrique (CARIA) in Oshawa, Ontario.

Sponsored by Luisa Veronis, who holds the Research Chair on Immigration and Franco-Ontarian Communities , Brice Arsène Mankou will use his time at the University of Ottawa to study issues involving the sociology of the family and migrations, and communities of Black Francophones in France and Canada. His research, which has been published in several books, will enrich scholarly discussions on Francophone mobility and the contemporary dynamics of central Africa.

Jorge Muñoz

Jorge Muñoz

Jorge Muñoz is a sociology professor at the Université de Bretagne Occidentale de Brest, France, and a member of the Laboratoire d’études et de recherche en sociologie(LABERS). He is an expert on workplace health issues and occupational risk prevention organizations, but also works with the Agence nationale de sécurité sanitaire de l’alimentation, de l’environnement et du travail (ANSES), where he is a member of an expert panel on occupational diseases. As part of his teaching responsibilities, he supervises the IDS master’s program at Université de Bretagne Occidentale and is co-director of research at the faculty of letters and social sciences of Brest.

Hosted by Professor Marie-Claude Thifault, who holds the Canadian Francophonie Research Chair in Health, Jorge Muñoz will spend his time at uOttawa studying health and safety in Francophone nursing environments in Ottawa and Brest. His stay will promote collaborations that focus on contemporary workplace health and safety issues and the dynamics of prevention.

Sidonie Verhaeghe

Sidonie Verhaeghe

Sidonie Verhaeghe is a university lecturer in political science at the Université de Lille, France. She specializes in the history of feminist and anarchist movements and ideas, and is currently investigating how the feminist libertarian perspective evolved within the history of Francophone political theory. 

Her stay at the University of Ottawa will allow her to pursue research on the anarchist theories and practices of women’s emancipation in Francophone Canada, and to bolster research on anarchism in French. She is hosted by Professor Frédéric Vairel, director of the School of Political Studies.

Fabienne Martin-Juchat

Fabienne Martin-Juchat is a professor of information science and communication at Université Grenoble Alpes, France. She takes an anthropological approach to body language and emotional communication, particularly in terms of health-care technologies.

Cristina Ferreira

Cristina Ferreira holds a doctorate in sociology and is an associate professor at the Haute École de Santé Vaud in Lausanne, Switzerland. She takes a sociohistorical approach to her research, which focuses on the institutional use of forensic psychiatry. Over the past few years, thanks to support from the Fonds national suisse (FNS), a Swiss national fund, she has conducted research on restriction and assistance measures, and on the contemporary history of forensic expertise in civil and correctional contexts.

Adélie Pomade

Adélie Pomade is a senior lecturer at the Université de Bretagne Occidentale in Brest, France. As an expert on public participation in environmental decision-making, she conducts research at the intersection of legal theory, environmental rights and the sociology of law. She explores participative methods and legal tools that allow for public participation in decisions, as well as non-legal partnerships to improve such participation.

Constance Devereaux

As an educator, researcher and consultant, Constance Deveraux works in the field of cultural management and policy. She focuses on cultural sustainability issues and critiques of policies that prioritize economic factors rather than culture and community. She has been named a Fulbright Senior Specialist in cultural policies and management for several countries and has worked with marginalized cultural groups to strengthen cultural integrity through related management strategies and policies.

Doudou Dièye Gueye

Doudou Dièye Gueye is a lecturer and researcher at the Department of Sociology of the University Assane Seck de Ziguinchor, Senegal. His work focuses on migrations, and more specifically on the “irregular migration industry” in the southern cross-border region of Senegal. As a researcher, he has participated in several international research programs, such as the “Gender, Return Migration and Reintegration in the Gambia, Guinea and Senegal” study sponsored by the Swiss Network for International Studies, and the “Complex Migration Flows and Multiple Drivers in Comparative Perspective (MEMO)” project with the University of Toronto.

Christophe Alcantara

Christophe Alcantara is a university lecturer specializing in information science and communication at the Université Toulouse Capitole, in France. He is an expert in digital reputation and assistant director of the Institut de droit de l’espace, des territoires, de la culture et de la communication (IDETCOM), an institute dedicated to the rights surrounding spaces, territories, culture and communication. His most recent work focuses on the cultural, historic, heritage and political issues surrounding the famous thousand-year-old pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela.