Nobody's Child, Everybody's Children:
LOUISE VANDELAC, Ph.D. Socio. MA Eco.po. and LL Eco.po.Sc.po
BRIEF BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
December 2006
Dr. Louise Vandelac is professor in the Sociology Department and the Environmental Sciences Institute at the University du Québec à Montréal. She is also researcher and past director (2003-2006) of CINBIOSE, the Center for Interdisciplinary RESEARCH on Biology, Health, Environment and Society a WHO (World Health Organization) and PAHO (Pan American Health Organization) collaborating centre for the prevention of work and environmentally related illness.
Coming from a multidisciplinary background (political science, political economy and sociology), Dr. Vandelac has directed over twenty research projects, contributed to many published collections and published over sixty scientific articles. She has supervised close to fifty Masters and PhD. Students and has been active in many university and research organizations. She has addressed close to 400 conferences, notably in Quebec and in France, but also in English Canada and abroad.
Her analytical criticism of economics and work-family interactions, along with feminist studies, evolved towards a focus on reproductive health issues, particularly those involving reproductive technologies and genetics, notably their scientific, ethical and social evaluation, as well as public policy in this domain.
In this capacity, she was appointed to the Royal Commission on Reproductive Technologies in 1988, and to the National Council on Bioethics in Research on Human Subjects. She has been also invited to sit on numerous public bodies, including the Conseil Supérieur de l’Éducation, the Comité Québécois sur les OGM, and the Comité Aviseur Saint-Laurent Vision 2000, and is beginning second terms on the Commission des Sciences Naturelles et Sociales of the Canadian Commission for UNESCO.
Her current focus is on the epistemology of Ecology and on Environmental Health questions, particularly the wide-ranging issues surrounding the socio-technical mutations of life-forms (human, animal, and vegetable), and their impact.
Using an eco-health approach centered on the examination of public policy and socio-scientific evaluation measures, her research subjects include transgenesis and cloning, the impact of persistent pollutants on the health of populations and ecosystems, and the ecology of the bio-food chain and the food system.
With the democratization of science and the co-construction of knowledge, essential to democratic life in mind, she became co-founder of the first francophone Women's Health Center, of the Institut de recherche et d’études féministe de l’UQAM and of the Coalition québécoise pour une gestion responsible de l’eau, Eau Secours, which, through its imposing membership list, reaches more than 1.2 million people after 10 years of existence.
Dr Vandelac has won several prizes and was inducted into the Cercle des Phénix, which recognizes the contribution of Quebec public figures to the environment. She was named as honorary member of the “Association Québécoise des Biologistes”, and was one of 12 Quebec women honoured during the 2005 Écodéfi international conference by the “Réseau Québécois des Femmes en Environnement” for their significant contribution to the environment.
She has also received several honourable mentions at film festivals in Quebec, France and the United States for the National Film Board documentary Main basse sur les gènes ou les aliments mutants, which she co-directed with Karl Parent.
As sociologist working from a global and transdisciplinary approach on numerous issues, Louise Vandelac is often invited to present her work or provide an expert’s point of view on current events. In 2005, she was named one of Elle Québec’s 40 Women of the Year, one of Châtelaine’s 7 “Green” Women, and one of 100 influential people in Quebec selected by the French magazine Le Point. Since 2000, Dr Vandelac has been the subject of a dozen profiles on radio programs and in magazines and academic journals.