Professor Pascale Fournier Elected to the Royal Society of Canada
Pascale Fournier, Full Professor in the Civil Law Section at the University of Ottawa and Research Chair in Legal Pluralism and Comparative Law, is elected as a member of the 2016 cohort of the College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists of the Royal Society of Canada (RSC). Her induction to this prestigious national institution will be officialised during a ceremony to be held on November 18th 2016, in Kingston, Ontario. Professor Fournier will have the pleasure of joining approximately eighty newly-elected RSC members whose notable realisations in the areas of research, arts and science are honoured this year.
Inaugurated in 2014, the College represents “Canada’s first national system of multidisciplinary recognition for the emerging generation of Canadian intellectual leadership”. It is mandated to recognize excellence demonstrated by scholars, artists and scientists by bringing them together at a highly productive stage of their careers, thus setting the scene for the development of new advances in understanding through the interaction of diverse intellectual, cultural and social perspectives. Members have been conferred a PhD or an equivalent qualification in the past fifteen years and are elected to the College for a period of seven years.
Professor Fournier with Elke Winter, Professor of Sociology at the University of Ottawa (left) and with Sébastien Grammond, Professor of the Civil Law Section at the University of Ottawa (right)
A Doctor of Law from Harvard University, Professor Fournier is an internationally recognized specialist of the interactions between Law and religion, viewed in a feminist perspective. A leader in her field, she is frequently invited by national and international organizations to speak on the topic of access to justice for women navigating various cultural contexts in Canada and worldwide. She is considered one of the most reputable academic legal experts of her generation, as evidenced by her empirical field research conducted in North America, Europe and the Middle East and her innovative interdisciplinary publications. Professor Fournier’s most recent publications discuss religion and secular law in France and England, as well as civil procedure in Quebec. Professor Fournier shared her work and inspiration with her RSC co-laureates in a presentation delivered on November 18th.
The criteria for election being excellence, Professor Fournier’s candidacy was recommended by the Honourable Nicholas Kasirer of the Court of Appeal of Quebec and was retained following a rigorous internal process of peer evaluation conducted by a group consisting of members of the RSC and of the College. Professor Fournier’s election to the College and the SRC attests to the “exceptional national recognition” afforded to her numerous achievements and underscores the creativity of her research “beyond established limits, through an experimentation requiring new theoretical perspectives and new methodological tools”.
Congratulations to Professor Fournier!
