Alper is Chair, Canvassing Cmte. for Global Res. Excellence, Governor General of Canada. He served as Chair, Govt. of Canada;s Sci., Techn., and Innovation Council, from 2007-2015. He was previously Vice Pres. of Res. at the U. of Ottawa for 9 years. He was Co-Chair of IAP: The Global Network of Sci. Acad., during 2007-2013. He was past president and foreign secretary of the Royal Soc. of Canada. His research has been concerned with metal catalyzed organic reactions of value to different industrial sectors. His awards include: the Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal for Sci. and Eng., Canada's highest research honour. He is a Companion of the Order of Canada(1999)[the highest recognition given to a citizen of Canada] and Officer, Natl. Order of Merit, Republic of France(2002), as well as Commander, Order of Merit, Republic of Italy (2014). He was the first Canadian ever honored by the Chem. Soc. of Japan as an Hon. Foreign Member in 2013.

Chan is professor emeritus, McGill Univ., Canada, and visiting disting. chair prof., Hong Kong Polytechnic Univ., China. His previous positions include: Professor, chair, dean and vice principal, McGill Univ., and visiting prof., Université Louis Pasteur, Strasbourg. He has gained international respect for his contributions to the use of organosilicon reagents, organoindium reagents in aqueous media and ionic liquids, in the synthesis of a variety of organic compounds, including allene oxides, bridgehead alkenes, sclerin, tetra-hydrocannabinol, functionalised decalins, sex pheromones, muscarine, N-acetylneuraminic acid and epigallocatechin gallate. His honours include: Hon. res. prof., Inst. of Chemistry, Academia Sinica, China; Merck, Sharpe and Dohme Award, Chemical Inst. of Canada; Senior Killam Fellow, Canada Council; and R. Lemieux Award, Canadian Society of Chemistry. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

Ghosh is Distinguished James McGill Prof. and Macdonald Prof. of Education, McGill University, Montréal, Canada. Dean of Education (1998-­‐2003), she is Fellow, Royal Society of Canada (chaired the Standing Committee: Advancement for Women in Scholarship for two terms); Member, Order of Canada (2000); Officer, Order of Quebec (2005); and Full Member, European Acad. of Sciences, Arts and Letters, Paris (1999). A recipient of several national and international awards she is past pres., American Comparative and International Education Society (2011-­‐12) and former pres., Shastri Indo-­‐Canadian Institute (1988-­‐90). Her research spans Asia, Africa, Latin America and Canada. Author of several books including Education and the Politics of Difference (2004, 2013), Redefining Multicultural Education (1996, 2004, 2014), on editorial boards of several international journals, and was featured in Time Magazine, Canadian Ed., (13.10.2003) in an article on 'Canada's Best in Education'. Her current research on the role of education in countering violent extremism (religious and right-wing) has resulted in several important publications, grants, conference presentations and keynote speeches.

Nasim was president of the Pakistan Academy of Sciences. He obtained his PhD (biochemical genetics, 1966) at the University of Edinburgh. He was science advisor to the COMSTECH Secretariat; chairman, National Commission on Biotechnology (NCB), Pakistan; and founding president of Federation of Asian Biotech Associations (FABA). His previous positions include senior research officer at the National Research Council of Canada and principal scientist of the Molecular Genetics Group at King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre in Riyadh, Saudia Arabia. His awards included: Pride of Performance in Molecular Genetics, President of Pakistan, and Sitara-e-Imtiaz in Molecular Genetics, Pakistan. He was also fellow of the Pakistan Academy of Sciences and Islamic Academy of Science.