Our Team

$400 000 Granted

Building 21 is run by a small group of individuals from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds.

Directors

Ollivier Dyens (PhD, Literature)

Founder & Co-Director

Ollivier Dyens is full professor in the Département des littératures de langue française, de traduction et de création. He is the author of 14 books. He was Deputy Provost, Student Life and Learning at McGill from 2013-2018. His area of research is the impact of technology on humanity.

ollivier.dyens@mcgill.ca

Staff

From coordinating partnerships to organizing programs, our staff work to create the conditions for an active scholar culture.

Alex Nicholas Chen

Program Lead

Alex Nicholas Chen recently graduated from McGill University’s Honours Cognitive Science program. His projects at Building 21 have involved disclosing blind spots in existing research paradigms and articulating novel ways of pursuing and understanding human phenomena. He is interested in un-forgetting the invisible delights, joys, tragedies, and vitalities of our everyday experiences.

alex.nicholas.chen@mail.mcgill.ca

Isabella Chiaravallotti

Social Entrepreneurship Co-ord

Isabella is a PhD candidate in the Plant Science Department at McGill studying the use of machine learning for crop improvement. After her 2024 BLUE Fellowship at B21 Isabella discovered her entrepreneurial spirit and now coordinates B21's collaboration with INTG215, part of the social entrepreneurship minor, where B21 students work with student consultants to develop their business idea.

isabella.chiaravallotti@mail.mcgill.ca

Sophie Wu

Program Assistant

sophie.wu@mail.mcgill.ca

Nakiya Noorbhai

Program Assistant

Nakiya Noorbhai graduated from McGill University with a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and a minor in Linguistics. She has started a PhD the department of Geography and Urban Studies, where she looks at construction sand mining and infrastructure development. At B21, she leads the Future of Cities program where she works with a diverse group of students to design cities built to withstand the complex challenges of the future.

nakiya.noorbhai@mail.mcgill.ca

Faculty Mentors

Our affiliated faculty graciously provide expertise, insight, and mentorship to Building 21 scholars.

Nikolas Provatas

Canada Research Chair in Computational Materials Science

McGill Department of Physics

John Mac Master

Associate Professor

Schulich School of Music

Jean-Baptiste Poline

Associate Professor

McGill Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery

Paule Joanne Toussaint

Senior Researcher

Montreal Neurological Institute

Past Staff

Our past staff played a pivotal role in building programs and shaping culture that continue to benefit B21 today.

Anita Parmar (PhD, Physics)

Co-Director

After completing her B.Sc. in Physics at McGill University, Anita Parmar continued on to complete her Ph.D. in theoretical condensed matter physics at the University of New Mexico, worked as a statistician and research manager in non-profit for health policy, as a logistician for an import-export company in Mexico City, as a management consultant in Montréal, and started her own company designing supply-chain analytics tools before returning to McGill University.

anita.parmar@mcgill.ca

David 'Jhave' Johnston

Methodological Advisor

David Jhave Johnston is a digital-poet writing in emergent domains: AI, 3D, VR, and code. Author-programmer of the multimedia human + AI writing art-project ReRites (Anteism Books, 2019), the theoretical-history Aesthetic Animism: Digital Poetry's Ontological Implications (MIT Press, 2016), and many online interactive literary works at www.glia.ca. Jhave currently is an independent writer, affiliate faculty in the Computational Arts Dept at Concordia University, advisor at McGill’s Building21, and an interdisciplinary creative consultant.

jhave.b21@gmail.com

Carole Graveline

Communication Mentor

Journalist by trade, communicator by profession. Director of Engagement and Partnerships at McGill and Director of Media Relations. Always concerned with communicating, popularizing, informing and building bridges with the community. A career as a journalist with Radio-Canada radio and television, filled with travel, major interviews and reports always imbued with humanism. Co-author of a book on the short history of AIDS in Quebec.

carole.graveline@mcgill.ca

Jill Harrington

Intergenerational Leader

A career of adventures in teaching, government communications, policy development, think tank research, fundraising, and educational technology in Canada (Calgary, Winnipeg, Waterloo, Toronto, Guelph and Montreal), Bermuda, and Germany.

jill.harrington@mail.mcgill.ca

Viola H. Ruzzier

Program Assistant

Viola Hallé Ruzzier is a Program Assistant at Building 21. She recently graduated from McGill University with a Bachelor's degree in Anthropology and Biology. She is interested in studying how science is written, and has written a short volume containing stories based on scientific concepts and phenomena.

viola.ruzzier@mail.mcgill.ca

Claudia Raihert

Program Assistant

Claudia completed a M.Sc. in Linguistics at the University of Edinburgh and studied French Literature and Linguistics during her BA at McGill. Her research focuses on metaphor, and what metaphor processing can tell us about human cognition. She is also interested in category-learning, and how different categories can shape and influence our perceptions. Claudia has a soft spot for poetry, nature, and déjà-vus.

claudia.raihert@mail.mcgill.ca

Darius Valevicius

Program Assistant

Darius is a graduate of the cognitive science and neuroscience programs at McGill. His academic research and his project at Building 21 explore the neuroscience of aesthetics and emotion. Outside of B21, he currently works as a research software developer for the McGill Centre for Integrative Neuroscience.

darius.valevicius@mail.mcgill.ca

Tatiana Becerra

GPS Doctoral Intern

Tatiana is a doctoral candidate in Educational Studies and Language Acquisition at McGill University. With the GPS internship, Tatiana is exploring paths for transdisciplinary knowledge co-construction and dissemination, specifically seeking new or improved avenues for collaborative, participatory research that transforms literacies and language education towards equity, justice, and sustainability, especially in rural communities.

tatiana.becerra@mail.mcgill.ca

Kendra Oudyk

GPS Doctoral Intern

kendra.oudyk@gmail.com

Naomi Askenazi

Program Assistant

Naomi Askenazi is a second-year master’s student in experimental medicine. Her research revolves around biomusic, a technology that transforms bodily signals into real-time musical outputs. Naomi’s thesis focuses on the development of this technology in the context of pediatric palliative care. As a community scholar at B21 during her undergraduate years, Naomi explored new methods of dream collection and participated in the Future of Cities project. She currently runs Tinker Tuesdays, continues with the Future of Cities project, and can be found with a needle and thread in her back pocket, always looking to weave together stories, perspectives, and artifacts with beautiful patterns.

naomi.askenazi@mail.mcgill.ca

Aditya Jain

Sustainability Officer

aditya.jain@mcgill.ca

Rebecca Brosseau

Brand & Strategy Manager

rebecca.brosseau@mail.mcgill.ca

Damian Arteca

Researcher, Radical Futures

damian.arteca@mail.mcgill.ca

Past Volunteers

Volunteers have generously contributed their time and skills to B21 through their own initiative.

MingXi Gu

Web Design

MingXi Gu volunteered at Building 21 as an undergraduate majoring in Computer Science. With Alex Nicholas Chen, he created the design mockups and first implementation (April 2024) of Building 21’s visual identity and website. MingXi is intensively passionate about accelerating progress, innovation ecosystems, and technological disruption.

mingxi.gu@mail.mcgill.ca