Our People

Quantum-Safe Canada relies on four impressive groups:

The Governing Board
The Advisory Board
The Academic Steering Committee
Our Staff

the governing board

Gwen Beauchemin

Gwen Beauchemin is the Chief Executive Officer of Tillet Consulting, a company she co-founded after two years as the Chief Information Security Officer with Payments Canada. Before that, Gwen spent 16 years in senior roles with the Government of Canada – the last three as the Director of the Canadian Cyber Incident Response Centre in Ottawa. The first 15 years of Gwen’s career were focused on telecom software development at Bell Northern Research and Nortel.

Robert Crow

Robert Crow recently retired from his role as Managing Director and Executive in Residence at the Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC) at the University of Waterloo. Prior to that, Robert had a distinguished career in policy development, government relations and administration, holding senior positions with Research In Motion, the Information Technology Association of Canada and Ryerson University.

Benoît Dupont

Benoît Dupont is the holder of the Canada Research Chair in Cyber-Security, and of the Research Chair in the Prevention of Cybercrime. Benoît is a Professor of Criminology at the Université de Montréal and the Scientific Director of the Smart Cyber-security Network (SERENE-RISC), which he founded in 2014. He also sits as an observer representing the research community on the Board of Directors of the Canadian Cyber Threat Exchange (CCTX).

David Fransen

David retires from the Board effective September 27, 2024.

David Fransen is a public policy veteran, recently retired from a long and impressive career in public service with the Government of Canada, which culminated in a term as Canada’s Consul General in Los Angeles. Prior to that, David was Assistant Deputy Minister of Policy at Industry Canada, followed by a stint at the University of Waterloo where he served as the first Executive Director of the Institute for Quantum Computing as well as Associate Vice-President of Strategic Relations.

Robert W. Gordon

Robert W. Gordon is the Strategic Advisor at the Canadian Cyber Threat Exchange (CCTX), following several years and the founding Executive Director (ED) of the oranization. As ED, he had organizational responsibility to deliver cyber threat information services and lead all cyber intelligence engagements and research activities. Before this, Robert was a Director, Global Cyber Security at CGI following . a long and successful career in the federal government, which included being the architect of Canada’s first Cyber Security Strategy.

sami khoury

Sami Khoury is the Head of the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (the Cyber Centre). The Cyber Centre provides expert advice, guidance, services and support on cyber security for government, critical infrastructure owners and operations, the private sector and the Canadian public. Sami began his career at the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) exploring the impact of emerging multimedia communications technologies. He has held various management and leadership roles at CSE, including Director General Capabilities Development and more recently Deputy Chief (ADM) for Enterprise Technologies and Solutions. In this role, he was CSE’s Chief Information Officer (CIO) and responsible for IT and information security, as well as leading CSE’s overall research program and 24/7 operations centre.

Michele Mosca

Michele Mosca leads Quantum-Safe Canada and sits on the Governing Board ex officio. Michele is co-founder of the Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC) at the University of Waterloo, a Professor in the Department of Combinatorics & Optimization of the Faculty of Mathematics, and a founding member of Waterloo’s Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. He is also co-founder and Director of CryptoWorks21, a training program in quantum-safe cryptography, and a founder of the ETSI-IQC workshop series in quantum-safe cryptography.

Brian O’Higgins

Brian O’Higgins is currently a board member and advisor to several corporations. Brian has worked in high technology and software for over 35 years, and been involved with IT security for 25 years. Brian is probably best known for his pioneering role in PKI (public key infrastructure) as co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Entrust. He was also a co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Third Brigade, an enterprise security company that was acquired by Trend Micro in 2009.

Vanda Vicars

Vanda Vicars is Chief Operating Officer at the Global Risk Institute in Financial Services. Since 2019 she has led strategy development and execution for member services, events, education, marketing, communications and corporate services. With more than 30 years of leadership experience in the information and communications technology sector, Vanda has held senior roles at Capgemini, Bell Canada and IBM. She oversees the cyber risk file at GRI delivering board-level education on the topic of cyber security oversight. Over the course of her career, she has delivered project and cyber services to the financial sector and various government entities.

the advisory council

Melanie anderson

Melanie Anderson is the Director of Cryptographic Security and Systems Development at the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, a part of the Communications Security Establishment. Melanie and her team are responsible for Canadian Communications Security policy and compliance, evaluating the security of cryptographic products, providing cryptographic advice and guidance including preparations for the quantum threat to Cryptography, and modernizing the Government of Canada’s classified infrastructure. Since joining the CSE in 2003, she has served in several positions across the organization, including four years based in the United States as a technical liaison for CSE at the National Security Agency. On her return to Canada, she spent three years in leadership roles in Incident Management and Cyber Defence. Prior to assuming her current role in 2020, Melanie was the Manager of Cryptographic Systems Development.

Marc Brouillard

Marc Brouillard is the Chief Digital Officer for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. His previous role was as Chief Technology Officer and acting Chief Information Officer of Canada at the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat. Marc has also served as deputy departmental CIO and acting departmental CIO at the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat. Prior to joining the Government of Canada, Marc was VP, Business Development for a local eCommerce Services start-up, and before that, he spent 13 years at MONTAGE IT Services, a division of MTS/Allstream, where he held numerous positions in technology consulting and business development.

Bruno Couillard

Bruno Couillard leads Crypto4A’s technology vision and product architecture. He brings more than 30 years of experience in technology and cybersecurity in both the public and private sector, including Chrysalis-ITS (Gemalto) and Canadian Armed Forces. Bruno played a leading role in the development of the Luna hardware security module (HSM) and the PKCS#11 standard (API to cryptographic tokens), solutions that underpin the security of today’s internet. Bruno has authored numerous patents, including security of root key transfer, time stamping, and time synchronization.

catherine johnston

Catherine Johnston is a payments professional with a strong interest in cybersecurity. Catherine recently retired from the voice of Canada’s payments and smart-card industry, ACT Canada, where she was President and CEO for more than 25 years. Prior to that she worked for Bull Information Systems.

tyson macaulay

Tyson Macaulay is a veteran of the cybersecurity industry, with over 25 years of technical and management experience. He is currently the Chief Security Officer and Vice-President, Field Engineering with Rockport Networks in Ottawa. Prior to joining Rockport, Tyson was Chief Product Officer at InfoSec Global (ISG), a cryptographic lifecycle product company supporting enterprise, IoT and embedded markets. Past positions include senior roles with BAE Systems, Intel and Fortinet.

colin macsween

Colin MacSween is the Director General, National Cyber Security within the National and Cyber Security Branch at Public Safety Canada. Colin has previously worked with the Department of National Defence, the Canada Border Services Agency and, most recently, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. Colin holds a Master of Public Administration from Dalhousie University.

john mulholland

John Mulholland is Director, Quantum Risk Management with evolutionQ Inc., which he joined after an impressive 36-year career in cryptographic science, policy and management with the Communications Security Establishment in Ottawa. John’s academic background is in physics and computer science.

ruth promislow

Ruth Promislow is a Partner at Bennett Jones LLP in Toronto, specialising in commercial litigation with a strong focus on cybersecurity. Ruth has extensive experience with cybersecurity matters including cyber preparedness, incident response and related litigation, working with clients to develop effective incident response plans.

Martin Proulx

Martin Proulx is Director General, Engineering, Planning and Standards within the Spectrum and Information Technologies and Telecommunications Branch of the Department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED). Since 2011, he has been responsible for Canada’s efforts on spectrum planning and engineering, for supporting Public Safety Canada in ensuring the cyber security of Canada’s critical information and communications technology infrastructure, and for international standardization activities at the ITU-T, and for technical regulatory standards for telecommunications equipment. Prior to moving to ISED, he worked at Health Canada as Acting Director General of the Materiel and Asset Management Directorate. Before joining the Government of Canada in 2010, he held senior positions at Nortel Networks in both Canada and France.

Sarah Shortreed

Sarah Shortreed is Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at ATCO. Her responsibilities include leading ATCO’s information technology function global businesses, including its enterprise IT strategy and roadmap. Her 30-year career spans many industries and includes executive roles in business consulting, complex multi-stakeholder programs, operations, sales, CRM and product management. She was recently the Chief Information Officer at Bruce Power, and previously worked at BlackBerry, IBM and Union Gas. She is the current Chair of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) Committee at the Conference Board of Canada.

Scott totzke

Scott Totzke is the co-founder and former CEO of ISARA Corporation, a security-solutions company specialising in creating quantum-safe cryptography for today’s computing ecosystems. Prior to ISARA, Scott was Senior Vice-President of Enterprise & Security at Huawei, where he launched their R&D office in Waterloo. Scott was also a senior vice-president at BlackBerry for over 13 years, where he helped shape their security, regulatory compliance, lawful access and privacy strategies on a global scale. Before BlackBerry, Scott was a senior consultant with EDS, building technical expertise and leadership experience in network security, architecture and database design.