Healthy cities are based on the implementation of public policies favourable to health and quality of life, and premised on individual empowerment and citizen participation strategies.
Cécile Aenishaenslin (DVM, MSc, PhD) is a veterinarian and epidemiologist with post-doctoral training in intervention research. Her projects focus on the development and evaluation of interventions, programs and policies that use a one health approach to prevent and control zoonoses and antibiotic resistance. She favors participatory research approaches with communities and decision-makers and uses a mixed methodology that integrates quantitative (epistemological methods and specifications) as well as qualitative approaches. Her main projects focus on lyme disease prevention, antibiotic resistance monitoring and zoonoses in the Canadian Arctic. She is the director of the One Health Laboratory and a member of the GREZOSP.
He recently began an IVADO postdoctoral research (2024) at the Neuro in McGill University (Blake Richards, LiNC LAB) with the One Urban Health Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) (Evelyne de Leeuw) at Université de Montréal, and with Social Justice and Artificial Intelligence Research Chair (Anne-Sophie Hulin) at Université de Sherbrooke. His research focuses on health, agriculture, and ecology issues related to the governance of common goods (including data, and knowledge) and on the challenge of strategically and ethically building broadscale interdisciplinary communities of practice. He is currently a lecturer at the Université de Montréal for the Ethics, Health, & Big Data course (2020 to this day) and an editor of the Canadian Journal of Bioethics.
He was a research associate at Simon Fraser University for the Cell Map for Artificial Intelligence (CM4AI) of the Bridge2AI program funded by the National Institutes of Health (2022-2023) and a scientist-in-residence at the Quebec Ministry for Cyber Security and Digital Technologies (2023-2024), working on the conceptualization of the AI development and governance ethics framing.
He holds a bachelor's degree in biology from the Université de Sherbrooke (UdeS) and a master's degree in environment and sustainable development with a focus on biodiversity management from the Université de Montréal (UdeM). Upon graduation, he was awarded the Bronze Medal of the Lieutenant-Governor of Quebec, as well as the UdeM Environment Scholarship. He worked as a naturalist for over 10 years and has always prioritized passing on knowledge to the next generation. A serial entrepreneur in social economy, he founded the Miel Montréal cooperative (urban beekeeping) in 2012, now known as Polliflora. He continued his studies while working as a biodiversity advisor for UdeM's Sustainable Development Unit from 2012 to the present.
Sonia is the lead coordinator of Leveling the Playing Field, a research-intervention project. She is completing her PhD degree in community psychology and is interested in the roles of municipalities in supporting children's development. he previously worked in the Growing up in Québec study as well as in the Avenir d’enfants project. Passionate about collaboration and early childhood, she has been supporting stakeholders, organizations, and decision-makers from different sectors for nearly 20 years in taking action and making decisions in favor of the well-being of families and children.
After working in academic perseverance and tourism, she began studying management and sustainable development at НЕС Montréal. Following her end-of-study internship at the Laboratoire d'innovation Construire l'avenir durablement (CLAD) at the Université de Montréal , she began her current mandate at ESPUM in 2021. It consists of supporting intervention research projects and the mobilization, valorization and transfer of public health knowledge .