Executive
Derek J. Wilson, President
Derek J. Wilson Started his scientific career by studying drama and vocal performance in the Arts York high school program in Markham, Ontario. Shunning the fame and fortune he would inevitably have garnered as a broadway superstar, Derek enrolled in the biochemistry program at Trent University in Peterborough where he did his undergraduate thesis in protein folding under Dr. Steven Rafferty. This was followed by a bioanalytical mass spectrometry-oriented PhD at the University of Western Ontario under the gentle tutelage of Dr. Lars Konermann, who is very tall and also German.
After first breaking a very expensive stopped-flow instrument, the PhD went well. There were awards from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and 7 academic papers. This lead to an NSERC-funded post-doctoral stint at Cambridge under the stellar Prof. Chris Dobson, in which Derek was at best partially successful in learning biophysical Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR).
Just before he left for that post-doc, he was interviewed at York and, amazingly, they decided to hire him! His research group at York focuses on the development and application of Mass Spectrometry and Microfluidics to challenging problems in biochemistry, including the underpinnings of enzyme catalysis and the molecular origins of neurodegenerative disease. His fundamental work is supported by NSERC, the Alzheimer's Society of Canada and the Krembil Foundation with application development partnerships with Sanofi Pasteur, Sciex and Apotex among other companies.
Contact info:
Derek Wilson
Professor, York University, Department of Chemistry
Research Chair, Molecular Origins of Disease
Director, Technology Enhanced Biopharmaceuticals Development and Manufacturing Initiative
President, Canadian Society for Mass Spectrometry
Toronto, ON Canada
Email: dkwilson@yorku.ca
Phone: +1 647-667-5506
http://www.yorku.ca/dkwilson
Jeffrey C. Smith, Vice President
Dr. Jeff Smith is a Full Professor in the Department of Chemistry and the Institute of Biochemistry at Carleton University. He received his BSc from Trent University in 2000 having the good fortune of being the first honours BSc student to be able to use the MS infrastructure in Trent University's Water Quality Centre under the tutelage of Professors Raymond E. March and Steven P. Rafferty. He then moved to the Centre for Research in Mass Spectrometry at York University and earned his PhD in MS-based proteomics under the supervision of Professor K. W. Michael Siu in 2005. For the next three years, Jeff worked as a Post-Doctoral Fellow and Research Associate at the Ottawa Institute of Systems Biology at the University of Ottawa under the supervision of Professor Daniel Figeys.
In 2008 Jeff joined Carleton University and is currently the Director of the Carleton Mass Spectrometry Centre. In 2018 Jeff was awarded the CSMS Young Investigator Award. His research focusses on the use of mass spectrometry to investigate the biomolecular mechanisms of cellular life. This overarching statement encompasses everything from studying lipidomic, proteomic and metabolomic dynamics in applications such as virology, cancer and hypoxia to the development of novel derivatization strategies to enhance the sensitivity of MS analyses (Google "TrEnDi" for more details). Jeff's work is highly collaborative with large research partnerships including the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, the University of Ottawa, Purdue University, the University of Texas at Austin, the National Research Council, Health Canada, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police as well as others and is gratefully supported by NSERC, CFI, ORF, CIHR, MITACS and Carleton University.
Contact info:
Jeffrey C. Smith, Ph.D.
Director, Carleton Mass Spectrometry Centre
Vice President, Canadian Society for Mass Spectrometry
Professor, Department of Chemistry, Institute of Biochemistry
and Chemical and Environmental Toxicology Program
Steacie Building, Carleton University
1125 Colonel By Drive
Ottawa, ON K1S 5B6
Phone: 1-613-520-2600 x2408
Paul Mayer, Treasurer
Paul Mayer is Professor of Chemistry at the University of Ottawa, where he has been since 1998. His research interests lie in the fundamental aspects of gas phase ion reactions and processes occurring in mass spectrometers. He was the 2008 recipient of the F.P. Lossing Award. He obtained his BSc from the University of Manitoba in 1990, followed by a PhD with John Holmes at the University of Ottawa in 1994.
He held postdoctoral positions with Tomas Baer (University North Carolina, Chapel Hill) and Leo Radom (Austrailian National University, Canberra, Australia), prior to his appointment at the University of Ottawa.
Contact info:
Paul M. Mayer
Chemistry Department
University of Ottawa
10 Marie Curie
Ottawa, ON Canada K1N 6N5
Phone: 1-613-562-5800 x6038
http://mysite.science.uottawa.ca/pmmayer/index.htm
Dajana Vuckovic, Secretary
Dajana Vuckovic is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and the Director of the Centre for Biological Applications of Mass Spectrometry at Concordia University. She received Honours BSc in Chemistry from the University of Toronto in 2002, followed by three years as an R&D analytical chemist in the pharmaceutical industry. Her PhD in analytical chemistry in 2010 at the University of Waterloo under the supervision of Prof. Janusz Pawliszyn, introduced in vivo solid-phase microextraction for LC-MS metabolomics of blood.
After NSERC PDF in chemical and quantitative proteomics with Prof. Andrew Emili at the University of Toronto, she joined Concordia University in 2012. Her research interests include measurement of unstable metabolites and the development of new analytical methods and devices to improve metabolite coverage and data quality in LC-MS/MS metabolomics and lipidomics to support biomarker discovery and validation. Her research program is supported by NSERC, Fonds de Recherche du Quebec, CIHR, CQDM, MITACS and Heart and Stroke Foundation. She serves on editorial boards of Bioanalysis and Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry and as Secretary for Metabolomics Association of North America. She was awarded the 2019 CSMS Young Investigator Award and 2020 Eastern Analytical Symposium Young Investigator Award.
Contact info:
Dajana Vuckovic, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Director, Centre for Biological Applications of Mass Spectrometry (CBAMS)
Secretary, Canadian Society for Mass Spectrometry
Concordia University
7141 Sherbrooke Street West
Montréal, Québec, Canada,H4B 1R6
Phone: 1-514 848-2424 x3981
Email: dajana.vuckovic@concordia.ca
Lekha Sleno, Past President
Lekha Sleno is a professor in the chemistry department at UQAM (Université du Québec à Montréal) since 2008. Her research interests focus on studying reactive metabolites covalently binding to proteins and developing new metabolomics-based methods using liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). Originally from Montreal, she did her BSc (2002) in Biochemistry at Concordia University, followed by a PhD (2006) at Dalhousie (Chemistry, Prof. Dietrich Volmer), focused on bioanalytical mass spectrometry.
She then went on to the University of Geneva (with Gerard Hopfgartner) in Switzerland for a first post-doc in pharmaceutical mass spectrometry, working on reactive drug metabolites, followed by a second post-doc at University of Toronto (with Andrew Emili) in proteomics.
Contact info:
Professor Lekha Sleno
Chemistry Department
Université du Québec à Montréal
PO Box 8888 Downtown Station
Montreal, QC H3C 3P8
Phone: 1-514-987-3000 x1599
Email: sleno.lekha@uqam.ca
