Biography

I obtained my bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the Université de Montréal. My thesis was on the prediction of metal bioaccumulation in St. Lawrence River invertebrates and was done under the supervision of Bernadette Pinel-Alloul (Université de Montréal) and Peter Campbell (INRS).

I then undertook doctoral studies at York University, under the supervision of Donald McQueen and David R.S. Lean. My thesis demonstrated through field studies that photoreduction of mercury in lakes was a key step in the cycling of this global pollutant, which led to my being awarded the Governor General’s Gold Medal for Canada. During my Ph.D., I was fortunate to be a Fulbright Scholar at Texas A&M University, under the supervision of Gary A. Gill.

I continued with a postdoctoral fellowship at Princeton, under the direction of François M.M. Morel. I held faculty positions at the University of Ottawa (1997), INRS-Eau, Terre et Environnement (1998-2002) and at the Université de Montréal (2002-present). At UdeM, I also headed the Department of Biological Sciences from 2011 to 2015.

The research conducted with the lab at UdeM allowed us to hold a Canada Research Chair, as well as to get the Michel-Jourdant Prize from ACFAS.