Our Team

Co-Director - Anita Parmar (PhD, Physics)

anita.parmar@mcgill.ca

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 Montreal, and briefly started her own company designing supply-chain analytics tools before returning to McGill University. Within the Buidling 21 community she is currently exploring ways to augment the University experience, with experiences that maximize creativity and freedom.

Program Assistant: Darius Valevicius
darius.valevicius@mail.mcgill.ca

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.

Program Assistant: Viola H. Ruzzier
viola.ruzzier@mail.mcgill.ca

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.

Program Assistant: Claudia Raihert
claudia.raihert@mail.mcgill.ca

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.

Program Assistant - Nakiya Noorbhai

nakiya.noorbhai@mail.mcgill.ca

Nakiya Noorbhai recently graduated from McGill University with a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and a minor in Linguistics. She has started a PhD in Biology and Geography, where she is taking a data-science-based approach to look at the sand scarcity crisis and sand mining in sub-Saharan Africa. At Building 21, she is looking at ways in which art, particularly digital art, can be used to capture impressions of spaces, ideas, and communities.

Program Assistant - Alex Nicholas Chen

alex.nicholas.chen@mail.mcgill.ca

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: from the lived narrative textures of cities to the idiosyncratic ways we interact with the digital world.

Communication Mentor - Carole Graveline

carole.graveline@mcgill.ca

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.

Researcher, Project 2050: Radical Futures - Damian Arteca

damian.arteca@mail.mcgill.ca

Paule Joanne Toussaint (PhD), Montreal Neurological Institute

paule.toussaint@mcgill.ca