Team Biography

Guillaume Bourque, Ph.D
Director

Dr. Bourque joined McGill University in 2010 and is a Professor in the Department of Human Genetics and the Director of Bioinformatics at the McGill Genome Center. He leads Canadian Center for Computational Genomics (C3G), a Genome Canada bioinformatics platform, and the McGill initiative in Computational Medicine (MiCM). Dr. Bourque is also the head of the Epigenomics Mapping Center at McGill, a project that oversees data generation and processing as part of the Canadian Epigenetics, Environment and Health Research Consortium (CEEHRC), which is associated with the International Human Epigenome Consortium (IHEC). He is also the chair of the Integrative Analysis working group of IHEC. Dr. Bourque is on the External Consultant Panel of the US-funded Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) project. He is also on the Steering Committee of the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH) since two of his projects, CanDIG and EpiShare, have been selected as Driver Projects by the organization. In 2019, his leadership in Digital Research Infrastructure was recognized and he was named as one of the 4 Directors of the Applicant Board of the new organization that will coordinate these efforts for Canada. This new organization, called the New Digital Research Infrastructure Organization (NDRIO), is funded by the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED), with a budget of 375 M$ over the next 5 years, to deploy and coordinate a national infrastructure (covering high-performance computing, software and data management) that will support all areas of research. From 2020 to 2021, he was the inaugural chair of the Researcher Council of NDRIO.

Ksenia Egorova, M.Sc.
Research Officer

As a Research Officer at C3G, Ksenia manages the admin unit and provides research support to the team. She is responsible for grant management, strategic budget planning, and financial matters. With a background at the McGill Genome Center since 2016 and prior experience as a Government PR Manager, Ksenia brings a wealth of expertise to her role. She holds three MSc degrees, including in Economic Sciences and Human Resources. Ksenia is currently furthering her education in Human Resources Management at Simon Fraser University. Beyond the office, she has a passion for travel—particularly for exploring Canada’s national parks—and enjoys culture, art, music, and gastronomy.

Mayumi Yoshida
Research Administrator

Mayumi is a Research Administrator at the C3G. She has been working at McGill since 2016. Prior to joining Canadian Centre for Computational Genomics, she worked as a Program Administrator at the Steinberg Centre for Simulation and Interactive Learning. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Sociology from Concordia University along with a minor in Business Studies from the John Molson School of Business, as well as a background in marketing, theater and fashion.

Nathalie Aerens, M.Sc.

Secure Data for Health (SD4H) Platform Manager

Nathalie is managing the Secure Data for Health Platform project, which will be a secure cloud infrastructure for the analysis and sharing of genomic and health data. Prior to joining McGill, Nathalie worked as a manager within a multi-stakeholders consortium facilitating climate change research. She also worked for a couple of years as a consultant in the space and aeronautics sectors. She first graduated in electromechanical engineering at Université Catholique de Louvain. Later she completed a master’s degree in Environment from Université de Sherbrooke. In the last few years, she has been an active member of different steering boards.

David Bujold, M.Sc.
Bioinformatics Manager, Data Team

David has been developing software solutions in bioinformatics for over 15 years, focusing on ways to facilitate genomics (meta)data storage, discovery, analysis and visualization. He joined the McGill Epigenomic Data Coordination Center in 2012 to tackle challenges related to epigenomics, and has since developed many data management and distribution solutions, including the IHEC Data Portal. Other projects of interest include CanDIG and EpiShare, platforms to make genomic and epigenomic data under controlled access more accessible, while maintaining study participants’ privacy.

François Lefebvre, B.Eng, M.Sc.
Bioinformatics Manager, Services Team

François is managing the Montreal C3G services team, which helps researchers get the most out of their experiments. He is involved in the planning and follow-up of scientific data analysis work. Prior to joining McGill, François worked as a bioinformatician in the field of immunology with Dr. Rafick-Pierre Sékaly in Montréal and Florida. He holds a B.Eng. from Université Laval and an MSc degree in Bioinformatics from Université de Montréal.

José Héctor Gálvez, M.Sc.
Bioinformatics Manager, Tech. Dev. Team

José Héctor  is the manager for the Technical Development unit at C3G which is responsible for developing bioinformatics tools (such as GenPipes), providing support for large-scale projects, as well as benchmarking and developing standard operating procedures. He joined C3G as a Bioinformatics Consultant in 2017 in the Services unit before switching to the Technical Development team in 2019 as a Bioinformatics Specialist. In the past, he has worked on developing RNA-seq and Nanopore pipelines within GenPipes, as well as coordinating the bioinformatics analysis for the Quebec COVID-19 Viral Sequencing Project (CoVSeQ). He holds a M.Sc. degree from the McGill Department of Plant Science with a concentration in Bioinformatics.

Kimberly Begley
Senior Project Manager, Pan-Canadian Genomic Library (PCGL)

Kimberly provides strategic leadership and project management expertise to coordinate the research activities of national, multi-institutional, patient-oriented projects with collaborators in academia, government, public, not-for-profit and private organizations. She has managed projects, networks, clinical trials, and programs in chronic disease including cancer, arrhythmia, and chronic pain. Prior to joining the PCGL she was the Strategic Lead of Programs at the CIHR Institute of Genetics. In her spare time, she provides a taxi service to her two teenage daughters and is learning the phenomenon of “chicken math” in Nova Scotia.

Robert Eveleigh, M.Sc.
Bioinformatics Specialist

As a Bioinformatics specialist of the TechDev unit since 2012, Rob is responsible for maintaining the DNA-Seq, Tumor pair and RNA-Seq variant pipelines in GenPipes. He has been and still remains involved in numerous large scaled population and cancer based projects including PROFYLE, CGEN, Gen3G and Hostseq where he applies his expertise in small and large variant detection, benchmarking, annotation and interpretation. Prior to joining McGill, Rob worked in evolutionary bioinformatics where he attained his MSc degree in Computational Biology from Dalhousie University and also holds a diploma of software engineering from the University of New Brunswick (UNB).

Gary Leveque, M.Sc.
Bioinformatics Specialist

Gary’s strength as part of C3G’s services team is to aid genomics researchers with De Novo genome assembly of novel organisms. Prior to joining C3G he was part of the Data Analyst team at Genome Quebec in Montreal supporting the downstream efforts of the sequencing core group since 2010. He also has extensive experience with genomics laboratory techniques and thus aids with troubleshooting potential issues originating in the lab. Gary received his MSc degree from McGill in the Human Genetics Department.

Pascale Marquis, M.Sc.
Bioinformatics Specialist

Pascale is providing services for clients and users at C3G as a Bioinformatics Specialist. Mainly working on large-scale whole genome sequencing projects, but also involved amplicon-seq and rna-seq analysis. She holds an MSc degree in Plant Science from Laval University.

Emmanuel Gonzalez, Ph.D
Metagenomics Specialist

Emmanuel is the in-house specialist in all things related to metagenomes and microbiomes at C3G. He is involved in several large-scale studies exploring links between the microbiome and various disorders. Emmanuel Gonzalez received a PhD in computational and theoretical chemistry from the University of Montreal. Before joining McGill, he was a member of the Norwegian Centre of Excellence for Theoretical and Computational Chemistry and IRBV at Université de Montréal.

Pierre-Olivier Quirion, Ph.D

Advanced Research Computing Specialist

Pierre-Olivier is the Advanced Research Computing (ARC) specialist of the group. As such he has one foot at the C3G and one at Calcul Québec, where he architects, deploys, tests and optimizes C3G genomics tools, pipelines and platforms on both High Performance Computing and Cloud platforms. Before his involvement with genomics he was seen honing his trade solving software problems in eclectic supercomputer environments, as an astrophysicist modeling stellar pulsation, as a Technical Director in animated film studios and as a professional in a Geriatric Hospital Neuroimaging lab.

Senthilkumar Kailasam, Ph.D
Bioinformatics Specialist

As a Bioinformatics Specialist, Senthil is involved in providing bioinformatic analysis of next-generation sequencing (NGS) data, development of new bioinformatics pipeline for genomics and metagenomics data, and collaborative genomics research initiatives at C3G. Prior to joining C3G, Senthil had five years of postdoctoral training at McGill University and the University of Lethbridge, in the field of Computational structural biology and epigenomics. He holds a PhD in Molecular Biophysics from Indian Institute of Science (IISc).

Alain Pacis, Ph.D
Bioinformatics Specialist

Alain received his undergraduate degree in Cell and Molecular Biology at Concordia University. In 2018, he obtained his PhD in Bioinformatics from University of Montreal. His research focused on the genetic and the epigenetic regulation of innate immune responses to infection. As a bioinformatician at C3G and GCRC since August 2018, Alain’s work primarily involves single-cell RNA-seq, epigenomics and cancer genomics.

Ulysse Fortier-Gauthier, Ph.D
Bioinformatics Software Developer

Ulysse joined C3G as a bioinformatics software developer to assist with the deployment of the McGill Genome Centre’s LIMS in 2019. Since joining C3G, he has worked at integrating Clarity LIMS to the center infrastructure and is currently working on an open-source sample tracking software called Freezeman. Ulysse previously worked as a software developer building a metrics reporting system for a call center. He completed a baccalaureate in computer science at Université de Sherbrooke. He also holds a Ph.D. in Psychology from Université de Montréal. His research work specialized mostly on visual attention and short-term memory.

David Brownlee, CD, M.Eng.
Database Analyst

Part of the Data team, David organizes large data sets and maintains public facing databases to promote C3G’s commitment to Open Science. Prior to delving into genomics, he worked with marketing and psychological research data with emphases on automating quality control and data mining. He completed his M.Eng. in Software Engineering at Montreal’s École de technologie supérieure.

Andres Tocasuche
Systems Analyst

As the Systems Analyst, Andres is responsible to analyze, document and implement new system solutions and platforms used by C3G and the McGill Genome Center. Before joining C3G, Andres worked as a Senior Analyst on the private sector, responsible of training and promoting IT solutions to business and technical users on emerging markets.

Solomia Yanishevsky, MHI
Data Administrator

Solomia holds a Bachelor of Science degree majoring in biology and psychology from the University of Toronto and has obtained a Master of Health Informatics degree from Dalhousie University. She joined C3G as an intern in May 2020. Now, as a Data Administrator, Solomia works with metadata schemas and synthetic datasets to be used for testing data systems. Solomia also performs data modeling and mapping across various biomedical metadata standards and to C3G’s existing data models.

Gordon Krieger, M.A.
Web Design Consultant

Gordon started programming computers in adolescence, but then took a long detour into music, resulting in multiple albums, a few films, and a decade writing about experimental music for CBC Radio. He has degrees in both Philosophy and Computer Science.

Paul Stretenowich
Bioinformatics Specialist

Part of the Technical Development team since April 2019, Paul is a Bioinformatics Specialist involved in the development of GenPipes’s pipelines, bioinformatics analysis and GenPipes’s users support. Prior to joining McGill Paul worked as a Bioinformatician at the University of Montreal for 1 year. He has a French Engineering diploma in Biotechnology. Paul is also involved in maintaining and installing/updating softwares for the TechDev team in a shared stack: CVMFS.

Gerardo Zapata, M.Sc.
Bioinformatics Analyst

In 2017 Gerardo obtained his Bachelor’s of Science from Dalhousie University, focusing in Marine Biology, Biochemistry plus a specialization in Genetics. Following, he received his Master’s in Biochemistry and a specialization in Bioinformatics from the University of Ottawa in 2020, where his research focused on epigenetic regulation during murine nervous system development under Dr. David Picketts within the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute (OHRI). At C3G, within the services team, Gerardo is responsible for aiding researchers to complete their NGS experiments, focusing mainly in transcriptomic and epigenetic bulk and single cell data analyses.

Chris Kostiw
Web Application Specialist

Chris is a web application specialist contributing to the Freezeman LIMS project at C3G. Prior to joining C3G, Chris has worked as a front end developer on communications software, and as a desktop application developer in Java and C++ in the content management, publishing, and structural engineering domains.

Danielle Perley, M.Sc.
Bioinformatics Analyst

Danielle is a Bioinformatics Analyst at C3G working on various projects, including amplicon sequencing, RNA-Sequencing and Methyl-Sequencing projects. Prior to joining C3G, she worked as a bioinformatic analyst at the University of North Dakota Genomics Core. She holds an MSc in Evolutionary Biology from the University of New Brunswick.

Julian Martinez, Ph.D
Web Application Developer

Julian joined C3G as a web application developer in the data team and contributes to the development and maintenance of the Bento platform. Julian holds an M.Sc. in Microbiology from the National University of Colombia. He also obtained a PhD in Plant Science and Bioinformatics at McGill University, where he conducted research on transcriptional plant responses to elevated CO2 and mechanical wounding. His current professional interests are related to software development to support scientific research.

Jean-Michel Garant, Ph.D
Bioinformatics Specialist

Jean-Michel`s responsibilities include long read technology pipelines and the automated quality validation analysis of sequencing runs. He also contributed to the HostSeq & BQC19 projects, both as part of the C3G team and during his previous employment at Canada`s Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre in Vancouver. His previous experiences include RNA structure & biology, transcriptomics, workflow design and sequence pattern identification using machine learning. He holds a B.Sc and Ph.D in biochemistry from Université de Sherbrooke and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Canada`s Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre.

David Lougheed
Web Application Developer

David is a web application developer in C3G’s data team. He first joined C3G as an intern in 2018 during his undergrad, and has since worked on the Bento platform, the Freezeman sample tracking software, and the EpiVar browser, among other projects. He holds a B.Sc. in Computer Science and Biology and an M.Sc. in Human Genetics (done in Prof. Bourque’s lab) from McGill University.

Victor Rocheleau
Scientific Data Architect

Victor is currently a scientific data architect in the C3G’s data team. He is an experienced software developer with a background in R&D, system design, and backend development. Prior to working at C3G he was involved in project management, systems engineering, software architecture, applied machine learning (vision and NLP), big data, DevOps and web development. Victor obtained his bachelor’s degree in Software Engineering (2020) at École de technologie supérieure (ÉTS). Outside of computers, he enjoys mountain biking, as well as photography.

Mareike Janiak, Ph.D
Bioinformatics Analyst

As a Bioinformatics Analyst in the TechDev team, Mareike is responsible for maintaining pipelines in GenPipes, testing and developing new pipelines for the community, and responding to user requests. Prior to joining C3G, she worked as both a field and computational biologist, with her doctoral and postdoctoral research focusing on mammalian comparative genomics, phylogenomics, and metagenomics, most often in primates. Mareike holds a Ph.D in Evolutionary Anthropology from Rutgers University.

Wilian Correa de Macedo, M.Sc.
Bioinformatics Analyst

With previous training in pharmacy/biochemistry, Wilian holds a MSc. in human genetics. During his Master’s degree, he started his path towards bioinformatics as his projects were transitioning from classic sequencing to massive parallel sequencing. On his Ph.D. he deepened his skills by working exclusively on analysis of transcriptomic data, in the context of infectious diseases. As a data analyst at the C3G, Wilian works on diverse DNA/RNA-seq projects. He is also tasked with supporting the analysis of various projects in immuno-genomics at the laboratories of Dr. David Langlais and Dr. Jörg Fritz.

Nafiz Islam
Web Application Developer

Since 2021, Nafiz has been a part of C3G, initially as an intern on the Data team, and now working as a Web Application Developer for the Freezeman LIMS project. Nafiz completed his studies at McGill University and earned a bachelor’s degree in Software Engineering. During his spare time, he finds delight in discovering new ideas and exploring open source software.

Alumni

Justin Marcelino
Web Application Developer

Justin is a software developer in C3G’s data team. He graduated from Dawson College with a computer science DEC and previously worked as a full stack developer. He continues to use his skills to contribute to the freezeman LIMS project.

Félix Guingant
SW Infrastructure Developer

Félix is a Software developer specialized in DevOps and linux environments. Currently, he is a DevOps Admin working to build a Secure Cloud (SD4H) at C3G. He is also responsible for the core operations and maintenance of the SD4H compute cloud service. Félix is working in collaboration with CQ and Alliance groups to leverage existing platforms and services. Prior to working at C3G he worked as an IT consultant at Eureden, Nehs Digital, Dassault Systems, and RAMQ, where he developed more skills in the cybersecurity and DevOps environment. Félix obtained his bachelor’s of science at La Rochelle University in IT and cybersecurity. During his free time, Félix likes to surf, hike, cycle, play board and video games.

Sebastian Ballesteros Ramirez, B.Sc.
Bioinformatics Software Developer

While pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Software Engineering at McGill University, Sebastian joined the C3G as an intern in 2020. After graduation, he joined the team as a Software Developer working in projects such as EpiShare, Bento and FreezeMan. He contributes to the development and implementation of software solutions in multiple technologies.

Mary Ann Kizhakechethipuza, ECBA, M.Sc.
Business Analyst

Mary Ann joined C3G as a business analyst in 2020. Since then, she has been helping with a variety of projects ranging from “COVID-19 resources Canada”, which is a national online platform for joining efforts towards pandemic response to “Bento”, which is a collection of open source microservices used to construct data-focused platforms. As an Aeronautical Engineer by trade, she holds a M.Sc in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Glasgow and has worked previously in an Assistant Manager capacity for the Canadian Aviation industry. She also holds the ECBA certification from the International Institute of Business Analysis(IIBA).

Brennan Brouillette
Bioinformatics Software Developer

As a member of the data team, Brennan contributes to the development and maintenance of the CanDIG and Bento platforms, providing secure, scalable, and accessible solutions for genomics research. He holds a degree in Computer Science from Vanier College, certifications in applied Artificial Intelligence, and has a number of years of experience building technologies in the fin-tech and music industries.

Pubudu Nawarathna, M.Sc.
Bioinformatics Consultant

Pubudu is a Bioinformatics consultant and part of the Technical Development team since November 2019. He is involved in the development of GenPipes’s pipelines and GenPipes’s users support. In addition, he is involved in several Bioinformatics research projects focusing on epigenetics and transcriptomics. Prior to joining C3G, Pubudu completed his M.Sc. in Human Genetics at McGill University.

Robert Syme Ph.D
Bioinformatics Specialist

After completing a postdoctoral position in Australia, Rob joins the team as a Bioinformatics Specialist with a background in fungal/plant genetics and developing omics resources, strategies, and infrastructure for laboratories working with non-model organisms. He has more than a decade of experience working in genomics, and holds a PhD in bioinformatics from Curtin University.

Mathieu Bourgey, Ph.D
Bioinformatics Manager, Tech Dev Unit

As a Bioinformatics manager of the TechDev unit, Mathieu ensures the integration and the support of new genomics technologies in the platform and he leads the software development. Prior to joining C3G, Mathieu was the team leader of the Bioinformatics service unit at Genome Quebec. He holds a PhD in Statistical Genetics from University Paris-Sud XI and a Master degree in Genetics from University Pierre-et-Marie-Curie (Paris VI).

Ksenia Zaytseva
Scientific Data Architect

Ksenia is a Data Architect with the Data team at the C3G. She is involved in the development of metadata services for (open) data management in Genomics. Before joining C3G she worked on Open Data and Open Science projects in Digital Humanities and Cultural Heritage domain. Her professional interests are Semantic Web technologies and Linked (Open) Data, methods and technologies in knowledge engineering and infrastructure solutions for data analysis.

Rachade Hmamouchi, M.Sc.
Program Manager

As a Program Manager, Rachade is leading the organization of current workshop series as well as the development of new ones. She contributes to the development and implementation of promotional strategies too. Rachade has a background in bioinformatics and project management working in academic and industrial research. She holds an MSc degree in bioinformatics and data analysis from the University of Geneva.

Édouard Henrion, M.Sc.
Software Developer

As a Bioinformatics Software Developer for C3G since November 2015, Edouard is involved in developing analysis tools and pipelines for the community as well as answering user requests and resolving software issues. Prior to joining McGill Edouard worked for 9 years as a Bioinformatician in Guy Rouleau’s laboratory mainly focused on understanding brain/neuronal diseases. He holds an MSc degree in Bioinformatics and Genomics from University of Versailles, France.