Dr Marc Fortin

Dr Marc Fortin has been appointed VP research partnerships at the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), replacing Dr Bettina Hamelin who left the position in June to become president and CEO of Ontario Genomics. Fortin comes to NSERC from the Department of National Defence, where he held the dual roles of ADM S&T with the department and president and CEO of its R&D arm, Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC). Prior to his six-year stint at DND, he was ADM research at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada for five years. Fortin holds a BSc and MSc in plant science and plant virology from Laval Univ and a PhD in plant molecular biology from McGill Univ. His post-doctoral training in molecular genetics was taken at the Univ of California Davis and the Univ of Chicago. Mark Williamson, DG with DRDC's Centre for Security Service, will replace Fortin at DND in an interim capacity.