BIO
Hélène Vézina holds a PhD in Demography from the Université de Montréal and is professor in the Department of Human and Social Sciences at the Université du Québec à Chicoutimi. Her research program touches on issues of historical demography and population genetics in a multidisciplinary context. She has worked extensively on the genetic and ethnocultural diversity of Quebec regional populations and on the demohistorical factors that have shaped this diversity. She has also been involved in projects on the genetic epidemiology of various disorders. Her research rests on the use of the genealogical and family data found in the BALSAC database, which she has been using since her doctoral research on the demographic and genealogical aspects of Alzheimer’s disease. Since 2010, she has been Director of the BALSAC Project in charge of the development and exploitation of the population database. She is currently working on a new initiative for the creation of i-BALSAC, a multisectoral platform for cutting edge research in the biomedical and social sciences.