This text is part of the special section Les prix de l’Acfas
Various research paths can transcend borders, as evidenced by the Acfas Gala awards.
A college researcher
Simon Langlois, professor of physics in natural sciences at Cégep Marie-Victorin, won the Acfas Denise-Barbeau prize for college research. How to engage college students in science classes, and how to improve their speaking skills? These two questions guided his work. “I mobilized a lot of people, from primary to secondary. My fellow researchers tell me that with my projects, we could fill buses with workers! he laughs.
Since he launched it in 2011, his project For a scientific Montreal in which college students take part in elementary science classes, brings together 50 to 70 students and reaches 1,600 students per year. A triple winning formula for teachers – who lack training and preparation time for these courses – and for young people. Students develop their oral skills and put into practice their theoretical learning in physics and chemistry. As for the students, from disadvantaged backgrounds, “they change their perception of the scientist: at the beginning of the session, they draw a sort of disembodied elite resembling Einstein, but at the end, they represent college students”, rejoices Simon Langlois. The students involved in the classes often come from schools in the area, which reinforces the dynamic.
The Acfas prize highlights college research, which is less well known than that done at university. “This is very good research, supported by our administrations, underlines the professor. We have no pressure to publish or promote, we do it out of passion. »
A collaboration that works
Walking is the main research object of Sylvie Nadeau, professor at the School of Rehabilitation of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Montreal and winner of the Acfas Adrien-Pouliot prize for scientific cooperation with France.
His interest in applied biomechanics dates from his training as a physiotherapist. “My professor in the physiotherapy program at the Université de Montréal, who later became my master’s and doctoral supervisor, was fascinating. I took part in tests in her laboratory at the University, which confirmed my interest in studying movement, and more particularly walking”, says the one whose work has made it possible to discover determinants which serve as a basis for new avenues in rehabilitation to reduce gait abnormalities and other mobility problems in the elderly or living with neurological and orthopedic impairments.
A France-Quebec collaboration grant obtained at the end of his doctorate takes him to a laboratory in Marseille, the first step in a Franco-Quebec collaboration that has lasted 26 years. “The two countries have complementary strengths in research”, observes the researcher, who has notably collaborated with the French industrial giant Essilor and participated in a major agreement allowing Quebec physiotherapists and French massage therapists to practice on both sides of the Atlantic. She expanded the Provincial Adaptation-Rehabilitation Research Network (REPAR), which she directed until 2016. a Franco-Quebec collaboration,” explains the woman for whom this award is also recognition for the work of her peers and students in France.
An economist with genius
Dually trained in economics and engineering, Catherine Beaudry, professor in the Department of Mathematics and Industrial Engineering at Polytechnique Montréal and holder of the Canada Research Chair in Management and Economics of Innovation, received the Acfas Jacques-Rousseau award. for multidisciplinarity.
“My research subjects are science, technology, innovation and the performance of organizations”, summarizes the one who carries out econometric studies in her fields of research by borrowing tools from various disciplines (in sociology, for example). “I use statistical methods or clustering algorithms to try to understand the impact of different variables, such as measures of centrality of individuals or companies in a network, on the performance in science, in innovation, that of companies or their survival. For example, what is the impact of the centrality, or pivotal role in the network, of a researcher on the number of citations that his work will obtain, or that of a company on its ability to collaborate in the future? she illustrates.
The Polytechnique professor likes to remind her students that 70 to 80% of innovations result from a recombination of existing knowledge. “This kind of innovation, for which we do not reinvent the wheel but where we connect things that had not been connected before, requires more and more interdisciplinarity”, points out the one whose price could inspire young scientists to open their horizons.
A brain of symmetry
The study of symmetries is a central concept in mathematics and physics. Luc Vinet, world-renowned expert in the field, Director General of the Institute for Data Valorization (IVADO) and Aisenstadt Professor of Physics at the University of Montreal, received the ACFAS Urgel-Archambault Prize (physical sciences, mathematics, computer and genius).
The notion of symmetry is simple when he describes it: “It is a transformation of a physical system which leaves the properties of the latter unchanged. For example, when a force depends only on the distance between two points, the physical system remains invariant under the rotations which are therefore symmetries of this system”, he illustrates. They make it possible in particular to determine the fundamental forces of nature, but they can be very sophisticated, subtle, even hidden – the movement of a planet, for example, has many more symmetries than one would think at first sight -, continues the one who endeavors to identify them, as well as the manifestations of their “fractures”.
Luc Vinet made several important discoveries in various fields. In particular, he showed how to combine gauge symmetries (the invariance of a physical system under the local action of a symmetry group) with those of Einstein’s relativity, using geometry and topology. He says he is happy to have been able to help set up various networks or projects, such as the Mitacs Network of Centers of Excellence or the new campus of the Université de Montréal on the site of the Outremont marshalling yard, while remaining very active scientifically. “This award encourages me to go further,” he says.
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