Dr. Sandra Toze’s research involves examining the ways in which work is being transformed through innovative information and knowledge management practices, facilitated by technology, and increased collaboration. A core motivation of her work is to explore how key changes including social, mobile, analytics, cloud, and automation are affecting how we find, interact, and use information to solve problems and learn. Her research is centred on three related themes: 1) collaborative information and data processes of groups; 2) the shift to digital governance; and 3) user-specific, social, and mobile information interactions.

Dr. Toze was a collaborator in an SSHRC Partnership Development Grant - Transforming Government Work for the Digital Era, which co-hosted several events (two conferences, several forums, and conference panels) and produced a special issue of Canadian Public Administration. More recently, Dr. Toze was the Primary Investigator for a training needs analysis that assessed the current training needs for digital competencies across the Government of Canada and provided insights as to how the government can both develop digital competencies and adapt training and skills development capacities for a more modern and digital workplace. Key Recommendations included the need for broader and deeper digital literacy, to foster a more proactive training culture, to continually measure, and refine digital training, and to create differentiated training streams.

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Rachael is a graduate of the Interdisciplinary Ph.D. at Dalhousie University. Previously, she completed a Bachelor of Arts at the University of King's College and a Master of Resource and Environmental Managementat Dalhousie. She has conducted research with the Torngat Plants, Wildlife, and Fisheries Secretariat and other partners to map out a vision of the future of fisheries in Nunatsiavut and create holistic fisheries governance solutions that are resilient against environmental and societal change. She enjoys the opportunity to do research in a space that is more iterative and collaborative than traditional research projects.

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Bertrum MacDonald is a Professor of Information Management (Emeritus) in the Department of Information Science in the Faculty of Management at Dalhousie University. With a background in science (BSc, Biology), history of science (MA), and information science (MLS, PhD), he pursues research that investigates the dissemination and use of scientific information in historical and contemporary contexts. He is particularly interested in interdisciplinary research, such as the Environmental Information: Use and Influence initiative, since this work tackles large questions from the point of view of several relevant disciplines. He has been Director of the School of Information Management, Associate Dean (Research) and Dean of Dalhousie’s Faculty of Management. He can be seen speaking about research projects at local, national, and international levels, and he has held executive positions with local, national, and international associations.

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Ronnie Noonan-Birch is an ocean science and policy researcher based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, whose work focuses on bridging the gap between scientific knowledge, policy development, and decision-making to advance sustainable ocean futures. She holds a BSc in Marine Biology and a Master’s in Environmental Studies. Her graduate research on Canada’s blue economy developed a framework to assess social equity, environmental sustainability, and economic viability in ocean industries through the lens of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Ronnie is currently the Science and Policy Manager at the Ocean Frontier Institute where she works with over 180 ocean researchers across multiple disciples to connect knowledge production to knowledge use.

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Peter Wells is an Adjunct Professor in the Marine Affairs Program, Faculty of Science and in the Department of Information Science, Faculty of Management, and a Senior Research Fellow, International Ocean Institute, at Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS. He has a BSc in Biology (McGill University, 1967), a Master of Science in Zoology (University of Toronto, 1969) and a PhD in Zoology/Aquatic Toxicology (University of Guelph, 1976). He retired 30 June 2006, from Environment Canada, after 34 years of public service, his last position being the Head, Coastal and Water Science, and Senior Research Scientist, Coastal Ecosystems, in Dartmouth, NS. At the same time, he served the United Nations GESAMP in various capacities for 14 years, taught at Dalhousie University starting 1983, and taught an international marine pollution course in Bermuda for 16 years. He has approximately 300 publications. At Dalhousie, he supervises graduate students in marine environmental science and marine affairs (ecotoxicology, environmental indicators, ecological risk assessment, land-based marine pollution), and environmental informatics. His current research includes choosing indicators for coastal ecosystem health; utilizing blue mussels for monitoring chemical contaminants; and evaluating the use and influence of marine environmental information in environmental policies and decision making. His community service includes being Chair, Bay of Fundy Ecosystem Partnership (BOFEP), and member of its working groups. He was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2000)and was a recipient of Dalhousie University's highest award for teaching excellence by part-time faculty (2002).

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Isabelle Caron is an Associate Professor in the Department of Public and International Affairs in the Faculty of Management at Dalhousie University. She holds a PhD in Public Administration from the University of Ottawa. Her research focuses on human resource management, employee motivation and retention, news ways of working, performance, integrity and accountability in the public sector. From 1999 to 2012, she worked at the Privy Council Office, the Treasury Board Secretariat of Canada, Health Canada and Canadian Heritage as a senior policy analyst.

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Elizabeth De Santo is Professor of Environmental Studies in the Department of Earth and Environment at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, PA. From 2009-2013 she was Assistant Professor in the Marine Affairs Program at Dalhousie University, where she taught in the Marine of Marine Management Program and the College of Sustainability. She has an interdisciplinary background combining the natural and social sciences with political science and legal analysis. Elizabeth holds a PhD in Geography (co-supervised in Laws) from University College London, an MSc in the History of International Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science, a Master of Environmental Management from Duke University, and a BA in Zoology from Connecticut College.

Elizabeth's teaching and research focuses on marine conservation and environmental governance, in particular: (1) the efficacy of spatial approaches to conserving marine species and habitats (i.e., Marine Protected Areas), and (2) improving the science-policy interface in environmental decision-making. She is particularly interested in the challenges of effectively implementing Marine Protected Areas and biodiversity conservation worldwide. She has held positions with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the World Environment Center, consultancies with the Office of the Auditor General of Canada and the Institute for European Environmental Policy, and she is a member of the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law.

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Anatoliy Gruzd is a Canada Research Chair in Social Media Data Stewardship, Professor at the Ted Rogers School of Management at Toronto Metropolitan University, Toronto, and Director of the Social Media Lab. He is also a Member of the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists and a founding co-chair of the International Conference on Social Media and Society.

Anatoliy’s research initiatives explore how the advent of social media and the growing availability of user-generated big data are changing the ways in which people communicate, collaborate, and disseminate information and how these changes impact the social, economic, and political norms and structures of modern society. His expertise lays in developing and testing new analytics tools for discovering and visualizing social media data and online social networks. The broad aim of his various research initiatives is to provide decision makers with additional knowledge and insights into the behaviours and relationships of online network members, and to understand how these interpersonal connections influence our personal choices and actions.

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Philippe Mongeon is an associate professor and Chair of the Department of Information Science in the Faculty of Management at Dalhousie University, director of the Quantitative Science Studies (QSS) Lab, and an associate member of the Centre interuniversitaire de recherche sur la science et la technologie (CIRST). His research uses bibliometric and other quantitative methods to study the dynamics and practices of knowledge production, dissemination, and use, as well as scholarly publishing, research evaluation, and research governance.

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Kevin Quigley is a professor with the Department of Public and International Affairs in the Faculty of Management at Dalhousie University. He is a public administration scholar who specializes in risk governance and critical infrastructure, focusing in particular on public sector responses to rare and high impact events, such as pandemics, natural disasters, industrial failures, and cyber and terrorist attacks.

Kevin has advised a wide range of public sector organizations and has contributed to many national and international research initiatives in support of risk research. He was previously a senior public servant in the Cabinet Office of the Government of Ontario.

He has a Master's degree from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a PhD from Queen's University (Belfast). He held an ESRC postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Edinburgh and was a visiting scholar at the American Political Science Association's Centennial Center in Washington DC and in Sciences Po in Toulouse France.

Kevin has published two critically acclaimed books on critical infrastructure, including, Too Critical to Fail: How Canada Manages Threats to Critical Infrastructure (co-authored with Ben Bisset and Bryan Mills) which was shortlisted for the 2018 Donner Prize, awarded for the best public policy book by a Canadian.

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 Suzuette S. Soomai is an Adjunct faculty member in the Department of Information Science, Faculty of Management Dalhousie, and Regional Senior Fisheries Manager with the Canada Department of Fisheries and Oceans. Her research focuses on the role of scientific information—produced by fisheries management organizations—in policy- and decision-making for marine fisheries management. She holds an Interdisciplinary PhD and a Master in Marine Management (MMM) from Dalhousie University. and a Master of Philosophy in Zoology and a BSc (Hons) from the University of the West Indies. She has extensive research and public sector experience with marine resource management in the Caribbean and Canada.

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Ian Stewart is Associate Professor of Humanities at the University of King’s College and an Adjunct Professor of the Department of Classics, Dalhousie University. He has served as Director of the History of Science and Technology Programme at King’s and also teaches in the King’s Foundation Year Programme. With a BSc (Physics), MA and PhD (History of Science), Ian is broadly interested in the historical and contemporary relations between science and humanities within the university context and more generally in the sphere of public debate and government policy. He is active nationally and internationally in the field of early modern history of science and publishes particularly on the work and influence of Francis Bacon (1561-1626). With EIUI, he pursued a study of the role and character of scientific literature in the NS Hydraulic Fracturing Review process.

He currently co-leads a pan-Canadian, SSHRC-funded research project, NEDIA (Network of Expertise and Dialogue on Impact Assessment), in partnership with Impact Assessment Agency Canada (IAAC). Defining what an “impact” is and who determines that it is at the heart of Canada's goals for sustainable development. This issue is a central challenge to good science policy.

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