Board of Directors
The Board of Directors is elected from among the Members of the Corporation. It meets four times per year to ensure that the Institute is fulfilling its mandate for research, mathematics education and collaboration with external bodies.
Board of Directors 2024-25
| Chair, Philip Siller | BroadRiver Asset Management. L.P. |
| Vice-Chair, Brenda Brouwer | Queen's University |
| Director, Deirdre Haskell | Fields Institute |
| Lia Bronsard | McMaster University |
| Maria DeRosa | Carleton University |
| Donna Kotsopoulos | Western University |
| Alistair Mitchell | Venture capitalist and entrepreneur |
| Yum-Tong Siu | Harvard University |
| Salim Teja | Radical Ventures |
| Ulrike Tillmann | University of Oxford |
| Maksims Volkovs | TD Bank Group & Layer 6 AI |
| Carolyn Watters | Dalhousie University |
| Michael Zerbs | Scotiabank |
Philip Siller, Chair, received his Ph.D. in mathematics (model theory) in 1973 from the University of Minnesota under the direction of Prof. Erwin Engeler, now at the ETH in Zurich. He later earned an LL.B. from the University of Toronto and practiced corporate and commercial law in Toronto. From 1982-92, he was an executive with Olympia & York Developments Limited, a diversified real-estate development company with interests in natural resources and other sectors. Since 1992, Mr. Siller has been the president of his own venture-management firm, Hexagram & Co.. From 2006-09, he served as Co-CEO of Eastport Capital Corp., a unit of Goldman Sachs & Co. in New York. Currently, he is Co-CEO and Co-founder of BroadRiver Asset Management, L.P., a manager of non-correlated alternative fixed-income investments for institutional investors. At the University of Toronto, he has taught seminars at the Faculty of Law and the Department of Political Science and served on the Advisory Board of the Centre for Russian and East European Studies and the Steering Committee of the Harrowston Program in Conflict Management and Negotiation. Mr. Siller is a member of the International Advisory board of the Minerva Center for Human Rights at the Faculty of Law, Hebrew University (Jerusalem). He is married and has four children. Philip has served on the Fields Board since 1994.
Brenda Brouwer, Vice-Chair, is the Senior Advisor, Academic Innovation at Queen’s University. In 2019-2021 she served as Interim Dean of the Smith School of Business at Queen’s University. Dr. Brouwer completed a secondment with the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence (AI), where she joined the executive team as Head, Academic Partnerships. Prior to her secondment at the Vector Institute, Dr. Brouwer was the Vice-Provost and Dean of the School of Graduate Studies at Queen’s University for eight years, preceded by five years as the Associate Dean in the School of Graduate Studies. Dr. Brouwer also provided national leadership in graduate education as President of the Canadian Association for Graduate Studies from 2015-2017.
Dr. Brouwer joined Queen’s after completing a PhD in Neuroscience at the University of Toronto. She holds a BSc in Kinesiology (University of Waterloo) and an MSc in Biomechanics (McGill University). She is a professor in the School of Rehabilitation Therapy with cross appointments to the School of Kinesiology & Health Studies and the Centre for Neuroscience. Dr. Brouwer maintains a successful research program that focuses on quantifying the biomechanical, neuromuscular, and metabolic demands of mobility in healthy aging and stroke, and she has supervised more than 47 graduate students and several post-doctoral fellows. She has published more than 90 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters from work funded through external research grants.
Dr. Brouwer has served on numerous Senate committees, Council of Ontario Universities’ committees, and working groups including the Council on Quality Assurance and the Highly Skilled Workforce Steering Committee. She has also been a member of the US Council of Graduate Studies Advisor group for completion in STEM master’s programs.
Deirdre Haskell was born in Philadelphia, PA, USA in 1963. She moved to England in 1974, where she went to school and university, completing her BA at Oxford University in 1984. She moved back across the Atlantic to pursue a PhD at Stanford University, awarded in 1990, and back once more for a postdoctoral fellowship at Queen Mary College of the University of London. A final transatlantic move took her to the College of the Holy Cross in her first tenure-track position. Another country then beckoned, and she moved to McMaster University in Canada in 2000, where she was promoted to full professor and served several terms as associate chair (undergraduate) of the Mathematics and Statistics department. Dr Haskell’s research in model-theoretic algebra has been supported by grants from the NSF and NSERC. During her career, she has organised many international conferences, including some at the Fields Institute. She has served on committees of the Association for Symbolic Logic, on the editorial board of the Bulletin of Symbolic Logic, and is currently a managing editor of Math Logic Quarterly. When not doing mathematics, she enjoys skiing, sailing, and hiking in the Sierra Nevada mountains in California.
Lia Bronsard is originally from Québec. She did her undergraduate studies at the Université de Montréal, graduating in 1983, and earned her PhD in 1988 from New York University under the supervision of Robert V. Kohn. After short-term positions at Brown University, the Institute for Advanced Study, and Carnegie Mellon University, she moved to McMaster in 1992. She was president of the Canadian Mathematical Society for 2014–2016.
Lia Bronsard was a plenary speaker at the Annual SIAM meeting in Boston in 2016, at the Mathematical Congress of the Americas in Montreal in 2017, at the CMS Summer meeting in Charlottetown in 2018 and at the 15th International Conference FBP 21 on Free Boundary Problems: Theory and Applications in 2021. She is on the editorial board of Nonlinear Analysis, CJM and CBM, Mathematics in Science and Industry, FACETS and the Canadian Applied Math Quaterly.
Her research has concentrated around singularly perturbed variational problems, including interfaces in reaction–diffusion systems, grain boundaries, superconducting vortices, and liquid crystal defects. Bronsard was the 2010 winner of the Krieger–Nelson Prize. In 2018 the Canadian Mathematical Society listed her in their inaugural class of fellows.
Maria DeRosa is a Full Professor in the Department of Chemistry at Carleton University and Dean of Science. Her research examines a family of synthetic nucleic acids known as aptamers that can fold into 3D nanoscale structures capable of binding tightly to a specific molecular target. Her group is focused on developing a better understanding of how these systems work and using this information to design useful nanotechnology, such as biosensors, components for nanomedicine, or smart delivery devices. Prof DeRosa received the John Charles Polanyi Research Award for new researchers in 2006, an Ontario Early Researcher Award in 2010, and a Capital Educators Award in 2015.
Donna Kotsopoulos is the Dean and a professor at the Faculty of Education, Western University. She is an extremely proud alum of this Faculty where she earned her doctorate in educational studies in 2007 and was the Governor General Gold Medalist. She is an Ontario Certified Teacher and has experience teaching and conducting research in both elementary and secondary schools. Her research explores mathematics learning across the lifespan as well as postsecondary education – particularly strategic resource allocation, leadership and university governance. She has been funded by SSHRC, NSERC and various other agencies. She is the co-founder of LittleCounters©, a community-based program that supports the development of early numeracy. Her service, research and teaching has been recognized with several awards, including the John and Gail MacNaughton Prize for Excellence in Teaching (2020), an OCUFA teaching award (2014), the Fields Institute Fellow (2017).
Alistair Mitchell is a venture capitalist and successful entrepreneur, corporate executive, and software services innovator. Co-Founder and Partner, Generation Ventures, and former Investment Director at the MaRS Investment Accelerator Fund, my prior experience was as both a start-up founder and large enterprise executive. At Blackberry, I managed business strategy, product marketing, software engineering, and business development in consecutive VP responsibilities for multimedia, instant messaging (BBM), and portfolio consumer services. Before Blackberry, I was Co-Founder and CEO of Puretracks, a pioneering digital music service that exited to Bell Canada. Early career experience included public radio and corporate communications. I hold an MBA (Bregman's Scholar) from the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management, and a Bachelor of Music (Rosenthal Award) McGIll University.
Yum-Tong Siu is currently William Elwood Byerly Professor of Mathematics, Harvard University. He received his B.A. in Mathematics from the University of Hong Kong in 1963, his M.S. from the University of Minnesota in 1964, and his Ph.D. in Mathematics from Princeton University in 1966. He started his academic career as an Assistant Professor at Purdue University (1966-1967), then University of Notre Dame (1967-1970), became Associate Professor at Yale University in 1970 and full Professor in 1972. He left Yale for Stanford University in 1978. After four years at Stanford, he joined the Harvard Mathematics Department in 1982. In 1992 he became the William Elwood Byerly Professor. He was an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow (1971-1973) and Guggenheim Fellow (1986). From 1996 to 1999 he served as Chairman of the Department. Over the years, he has held Visiting Professor positions in many well-known institutions around the world.
Professor Siu has been a prominent figure in the field of several complex variables for several decades. He has mastered techniques at the interface among complex variables, differential geometry, and algebraic geometry. He gave invited addresses at three International Congresses of Mathematicians, two of which were plenary addresses (Helsinki, 1978; Warsaw, 1983; Beijing, 2002). For his significant contributions to Several Complex Variables, he was awarded the Stefan Bergman Prize by the American Mathematical Society in 1993. Other academic honours include: honorary doctorates awarded by University of Hong Kong, University of Bochum (Germany), and University of Macau; Corresponding Member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences; Foreign Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences; Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Member of the National Academy of Sciences, Member of the Hong Kong Academy of Sciences, and Member of Academia Sinica.
Salim Teja is a Partner with Radical Ventures where he leads the firm’s Velocity Team. Radical Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm investing in entrepreneurs applying deep technology to transform massive industries. With a primary focus on machine learning and artificial intelligence, Radical Ventures partners with exceptional entrepreneurs to build enduring global companies. Salim brings over 25 years of experience in the technology sector as an entrepreneur, venture investor, corporate innovator, and innovation ecosystem builder. Prior to Radical Ventures, Salim served as President, Venture Services for MaRS Discovery District, where he led the strategic direction of MaRS’ Venture Services Program across four sectors including Energy & Environment (Cleantech), Finance &Commerce (Fintech), Health and Enterprise. This program engaged a portfolio of over 1200 high growth ventures who had raised over1.3B in capital and had generated over 1.4B in revenue. Prior to MaRS, Salim was Vice President Corporate Development with Indigo Books & Music where he drove the formation of the company’s Digital Innovation Lab. Prior to Indigo, Salim held the position of Chief Operating Officer at CX Digital, a leading online ad network. Salim has also held roles as Chief Operating Officer of b5media and Partner with early-stage VC firm Brightspark Ventures, where he was the driving force behind investments, including Radian6 (acquired by Salesforce.com). He was also Co-founder and Vice President of Sales and Business Development for San Francisco-based MobShop Inc, a pioneering e-commerce venture funded by GE Capital, Visa International, Mayfield Fund and Marc Andreessen. Salim is a graduate of the Ivey Business School at Western University.
Prof. Ulrike Tillmann has worked broadly in topology, K-theory, and non-commutative geometry. Her work on the moduli spaces of Riemann surfaces and manifolds of higher dimensions has been inspired by problems in quantum physics and string theory, while new challenges in data science have motivated some of her recent work.
After finishing school in Germany, Tillmann went to Brandeis University as a Wien International Scholar and studied for her PhD under Ralph Cohen at Stanford University. She then worked with Graeme Segal at Cambridge University before taking a position in Oxford where she has been a professor since 2000. Since 2021 she is the Director of the Isaac Newton Institute in Cambridge.
Tillmann was awarded the Whitehead Prize by the London Mathematical Society in 2004 and the Bessel-Humboldt Forschungs Preis in 2008. She was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 2008, an inaugural fellow of the American Mathematical Society in 2012, a member of the Leopoldina in 2017 and a member of EurASc 2022. She has served on many scientific boards of international institutions, including the Oberwolfach Research Institute for Mathematics, the Austrian Science Foundation (FWF), the Turing Institute, and the Einstein Foundation. She was a member of Council of the Royal Society where she also served as (interim) Vice-President and is now chair of its Education Committee. She just finished her term as President of the London Mathematical Society and is a Vice-president of the International Mathematical Union.
Maksims Volkovs is the Senior Vice President and Chief AI Scientist at TD Bank where he leads all research and development for Machine Learning at TD. Maks co-founded and was Head of Machine Learning at Layer 6 AI prior to its acquisition by TD, where his team built an industry-leading enterprise prediction platform with a focus on financial technology. Maks received his PhD from the University of Toronto where he was part of the Machine Learning Group led by Geoffrey Hinton. He previously worked at Microsoft Research and at Credit Suisse’s quantitative division. Maks has successfully competed in multiple international Machine Learning competitions organised by Google’s Kaggle and other platforms, achieving a status of Grandmaster (fewer than 200 in the world) with a global peak ranking of #47 out of over 130,000 data scientists. He has published over 25 papers in leading AI conferences and is co-inventor of 8 patents.
Carolyn Watters served as the National Research Council of Canada's (NRC) inaugural Chief Digital Research Officer, a position which includes oversight of the Digital Technologies Research Centre. Dr. Watters joined the NRC through the Interchange program, on secondment from Dalhousie University from Feburary 2019 through February 2021.
Dr. Watters, who has a PhD in Computer Science, served as the Provost and Vice President Academic for Dalhousie University, one of Canada’s oldest research universities, from 2010 to 2018. While Provost she served for a term as the Chair of the U15 Provost’s Academic Committee. Dr. Watters was one of the founding members of CALDO, a consortium of four and later nine Canadian research universities to build partnerships with universities in Latin America. She has engaged widely in quality assurance including a term as Chair of the Maritimes Higher Education Commission. Previously she was the Dean of Graduate studies including a term as the president of the Canadian Association of Graduate Studies. During that time she led international initiatives in partnership with the US Council of Graduate Schools.
She remains a Professor Emeritus in the Faculty of Computer Science at Dalhousie University, specializing in human computer engagement in information spaces from documents to social media. Her interdisciplinary and collaborative work has spanned all three national research funding councils: the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. She has published over 170 peer-reviewed articles, supervised many PhD and Masters students, and has engaged in applied research with corporations.
Dr. Watters engages, nationally and internationally, as a role model for women in science and technology, including giving service for many years on the founding board of Women Unlimited. She also has a deep appreciation for the importance of entrepreneurial experience and capacity building across disciplines and cofounded a successful spin-off company, now 20 years old, based on developing innovative interactive mathematics and working with publishers in the digital transformation of learning material.
Dr. Watters has been a member of a NSERC Discovery Grant committee, the NSERC Discovery Grant Process Review Panel, was the initial Chair of the NSERC Create Competition Committee, a member of the SSHRC Governing Council, and the Research Council for Mitacs.
Michael Zerbs served as Group Head, Technology & Operations at Scotiabank with responsibility for the advancement of Scotiabank’s overall technology and global operations strategy while planning jointly the digital strategy. His mandate included overall responsibility for Information Technology & Solutions (IT&S) and Global Operations.
Before joining Scotiabank in 2014 as Senior Vice President & Head, Risk Management Information Technology, Michael held senior positions in IT, including President and Chief Operating Officer at Algorithmics and Vice President, Risk Analytics at IBM. Most recently, he was Chief Technology Officer and prior to that appointment, Executive Vice President and Co-Head of Information Technology, Enterprise Technology. He was also instrumental in building Scotiabank’s initial digital blueprint and launching the Digital Factory.
Michael holds a Master of Science in Social and Economic Sciences in Commerce, a Master of Business Administration in Finance and a Doctorate of Philosophy in Economics. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences and on the Advisory Board of the Creative Destruction Lab through the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management.
Michael is married and has three children.
