The winners of the 2023 Fonds de recherche du Québec (FRQ) Excellence Awards for Research Professionals have been announced. Two members of the Université de Montréal are on the list, namely researcher Étienne Artigau and coordinating officer Catherine Blanchard Gougeon.
Launched in 2015, these awards recognize the contribution of research professionals to mobilizing knowledge, educating the next generation and supporting research groups. Three prizes totaling US$5,000 are awarded annually by each of the three Fonds de recherche du Québec.
Quebec Research Fund – Nature and Technologies
Étienne Artigau, researcher at the Trottier Institute for Exoplanet Research (iREx)
2nd prize: Etienne Artigau
Étienne Artigau holds a master’s degree in physics and a PhD in astrophysics and is a researcher at the Trottier Institute for Exoplanet Research (iREx). Specializing in the development of innovative algorithms for the analysis of radial velocities of stars using infrared spectrometers, he notably carried out work during his PhD that led to the construction of the Montréal Observatory’s infrared camera. Megantic. Before joining the UdeM team in 2009, he worked as an astronomer at the Gemini Observatory in Chile, where he participated in research projects on brown dwarfs, those celestial bodies larger than a planet but smaller than a star and commonly referred to as drifting stars become.
At iREx he is Scientific Director of two instruments for detecting exoplanets using the radial velocity method: NIRPS in Chile and SPIRou in the United States. The prolific author, who has co-authored 114 scientific publications, is also part of the team analyzing data from the JWST space telescope. The algorithms he has developed over the course of his career have made it possible, among other things, to measure the mass of several super-Earths, exoplanets with properties intermediate between those of Earth and Neptune.
Quebec Research Fund – Society and Culture
Catherine Blanchard Gougeon, Coordinator at the Quebec Interuniversity Center for Social Statistics (CIQSS)
3rd prize (ex aequo): Catherine Blanchard Gougeon
Catherine Blanchard Gougeon has been the coordinator at the Quebec Interuniversity Center for Social Statistics (CIQSS) since 2014. Holding a bachelor’s degree in political science and a master’s degree in information science, she supports more than 450 researchers every day. in their access to Statistics Canada microdata. Today, the skills she acquired during her studies and her previous activities allow her to bring a technological dimension to her strategy to promote and promote the scientific spin-offs of research. Since arriving at QICSS, she has served on several mandates, including developing the organization’s first plan on equity, diversity and inclusion. She also coordinated nine editions of the Excellence en Relève symposium, which highlights the work of students in the field of social and health statistics.
She recognizes the importance of research for the progress of society and always strives to create connections between the scientific community and the academic partners of QICSS. It regularly makes recommendations for improving data access procedures and annually lists the publications resulting from more than 250 research projects.