Our team
A qualified and experienced team at your service
The advantage of the Niska team lies in these four aspects:
- Passionate and experienced researchers and practitioners: the experience of the seven members ranges from 2 to more than 30 years of practice.
- Intergenerational transfer and sharing, a key to ensuring innovation and knowledge progression: within Niska, professionals of all ages work, learn and evolve together to develop models and ideas true to current realities and challenges facing community development.
- A multidisciplinary background, emulating our society’s diversity: all Niska team members have a different basic training, which enables us to approach and understand the complexities and intricacies of social, economic and environmental development in their fullest forms.
- Co-operative values, born in discourse and operationalised in practice: Niska members are living co-operative and democratic values both in our internal affairs and in interaction with clients and partners. This integration is important to us and indicates our desire for coherence between discourse and practice.
Niska members
Mr. Chakda Yorn holds a Ph.D and M.Sc. in management from the University of Sherbrooke and a Bachelors degree in Bio-Agricultural Sciences from Laval University. He champions projects linked to forest and agricultural management, territorial governance, high speed Internet in small communities, etc. More generally, Mr Yorn is interested in rural and sustainable development strategy implementation in organisations and communities. He has developed a very clear understanding of the Nord-du-Québec region, having lived and worked with aboriginal communities for several years.
Karl Lussier holds a Masters degree in Co-operative and community development management from the University of Sherbrooke. His bachelor’s degree was in civil engineering, with a specialisation in project management and the environment. He has participated in various projects on partnership, strategic and sustainable local development management over the past twelve years. Mr Lussier is also involved in strategic planning projects for organisations and communities.
With over thirty five years of experience, Paul Prévost is one of the pioneers of local development management in Québec. Retired professor from the Management Department at the University of Sherbrooke, he has, amongst others, contributed to the diffusion of strategic planning in Local Development Centres and other organisations dedicated to development, in addition to having contributed to the training of many of today’s development leaders.
Bibiane Roy, in addition to holding an original training in sociology from University of Québec in Rimouski as well as a specialisation in adult education from the University of Sherbrooke, stands out with her twenty years of involvement in community development in Québec and abroad. Her recent work has brought her to develop an expertise in community strategic planning as well as to intervene in sustainable development management.
Mélanie Lagacé has a Masters from IRECUS in Development management (specialising in local development) at the University of Sherbrooke and has an original training in social work at the University of Québec in Montréal. Ms Lagacé has been working on community development and democratic practices and ICT-enabled governance projects, amongst others, for more than ten years. Her interests are participatory practices management, democratic processes within organisations and communities as well as developmental evaluation and research.
Collaborators
Niska is pleased to work with a number of collaborators coming from various horizons who lend their expertise to our mandates.
In this fashion, we are pleased to thank and underline the significant contributions of the following persons:
- Ms Diane Gravel, graduate from Laval University in organisational psychology, expert collaborator on organising and holding public consultation events, forums and task forces;
- Mr René Bougie, graduate from IRECUS, University of Sherbrooke, acts as collaborator in research and redaction;
- Ms Marie-Claude Hudon, Masters graduate in social intervention (social economy) from the University of Québec in Montréal, acts as collaborator in research and redaction;
- Ms Joanie Bellerose, soon graduating in intercultural mediation from the University of Sherbrooke, acts as collaborator in participatory evaluation;
- Ms Émanuèle Lapierre-Fortin, Masters graduate in regional development from the University of Guelph, acts as collaborator in research and redaction;
- Mr Dicko Baldé, Doctorate in Business Administration, acts as collaborator and scientific advisor;
- Mr François Bergeron, Masters graduate in sustainable development management at the University of Sherbrooke;
- Mr Alex Boudreau, graduate in communications, undertaking a study on continuing education of managers and professionals as part of his Masters degree in education at the University of Sherbrooke;
- Mr Luc Dancause, research and planning officer – knowledge mobilisation, partnership services and support to innovation, University of Québec in Montréal;
- Mr Kimba Dodo, graduate studies diploma in Integrated Rural Development at Laval University;
- Mr Marc Gagné (M.Sc./MAP), graduate in public administration from the National School of Public Administration, currently works for the National Research Council of Canada in Ottawa;
- Mr André Joyal, professor at the Université of Québec in Trois-Rivières and member of the Research Institute on Small and Medium Entreprises;
- Ms Stéphanie Ramdé, Masters graduate in Co-operative and community development management at IRECUS, University of Sherbrooke;
- Ms Aminata Touré, Masters graduate in Co-operative and community development management at IRECUS, University of Sherbrooke.