The McGill Sustainability Park has added three new leadership roles to its staff roster.
Elena Bennett will serve as Associate Academic Director (Research), Blane Harvey as Associate Academic Director (Teaching & Learning) and Robert Nason as Associate Academic Director (Entrepreneurship & Engagement).
They will collaborate with Rees Kassen, Academic Director of the Park, to develop its academic plan.
“Elena, Blane and Rob are outstanding scholars with demonstrated commitment to transformative impact-driven research,” said Kassen. “Their leadership will position the Park, and McGill, as a
global leader in sustainability-focused research, education and entrepreneurship.”
All three are part-time appointments continuing until the Park opens, which is expected in fall 2029.
The team is currently developing a strategic academic plan, which will be shared with the McGill community toward the end of this calendar year.
Elena Bennett
Elena Bennett is a Professor in the Department of Natural Resource Sciences and the Bieler School of Environment, Canada Research Chair in Sustainability Science and Director of NSERC Resnet, which monitors, models and manages Canadian ecosystems. Her work draws on landscape, ecosystems and systems ecology.
“McGill has so much strength in sustainability-oriented research,” said Bennett. “My great hope is that the Park becomes a gathering place – not only for those who work here, but for all those who want to engage with a new way of undertaking scholarly work on sustainability.”
Bennett is most excited about the Park’s ReAct Hubs, interdisciplinary research clusters designed to tackle specific challenges.
“These Hubs can be a central part of re-inventing the University in a new partnership with society to address the world’s most pressing sustainability questions,” she said. “In an era when public distrust of science and academy is growing, working hand-in-hand with society partners is a way to build back trust while doing work that the world needs most.”
Blane Harvey
Blane Harvey is an Associate Professor and William Dawson Scholar in the Department of Integrated Studies in Education, and leader of the Leadership and Learning for Sustainability Lab. His research investigates how climate change knowledge is produced, validated and communicated, and how learning and knowledge sharing can support action.
His vision for the Park is informed by the concept of transformative sustainability learning, which “engages students in real-world actions beyond the classroom,” said Harvey.
“It encourages them to collaborate across the typical boundaries of their disciplines and challenges them to think through the ethics and justice dimensions of sustainability. This kind of learning can have transformative impacts on learners, helping them discover ways to make a difference in their communities long after they leave McGill.”
To face societal challenges, “we need to fundamentally rethink many of the ways of working long associated with universities like McGill, including the way teaching and learning happen.”
Robert Nason
Robert Nason is a William Dawson Scholar, an Associate Professor of Strategy and Organization and Director of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Desautels Faculty of Management. His research focuses on the role of entrepreneurship in society, with a particular interest on entrepreneurship in contexts of poverty.
When it comes to his new appointment, “a big part of my role is integrating entrepreneurship deeply into what the Park does,” said Nason.
He said he aims to instill an entrepreneurial mindset across the Park’s operations, and give students, researchers and partners the confidence to see opportunity and act on it, whatever field they’re in.
“Not entrepreneurship as a narrow lane for venture-backed startup founders, but entrepreneurship in all its forms,” said Nason. “Ventures, but also policy innovation, intrapreneurs, social movements and community-led action. I see entrepreneurship as something that amplifies and enriches research and teaching, rather than competing with it.”
All three members are eager to collaborate with the McGill community and energized by the possibilities that await.
“This is a genuinely rare opportunity to rethink how a university operates,” said Nason. “The students are remarkable and our faculty are inventing incredible things – McGill has so much potential here.”