OUR TEAM
The Myko team is made up of a diverse array of researchers, students, professionals, and partners.
STRATEGY AND OPERATIONS
About Richard
Richard [B.A., LL.B, B.C.L, LL.M] is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law at McGill University and an Associate Member of the McGill School of Environment. He began discussing and writing about climate impact scores and climate change, in 2012. Richard conducted the first experiment with Juan Pinto in 2013 and they co-founded Myko the following year. He is leading research into the problem of changing behavioural and social norms in real-time and has a particular interest in the governance of public goods.
About Jay
Jay (B.A, M.ScA) is the Founder and President of Legal Lighthouse Inc. and Confidence Driven Coaching. He is also the CFO of the Centre for International Sustainable Development Law, Climate Law Governance Initiative, and UNESCO’s Voices of Future Generations Initiative. Jay has also worked with the UN’s Business and Biodiversity programme and administered McGill’s Sustainability Projects Fund. Jay brings his interest and experience in experimental psychology and the environment to Myko where he joined the Myko founding team in 2014. Since then he’s played a leadership role on all financial aspects as well as providing actionable guidance on Myko’s strategic and developmental undertakings.
About Carolina
Carolina [LL.M. Environmental Law, GradDip in Environmental Assessment] is currently Coordinator at the McGill Space Institute and has previously held a legal research position at the Center for International Sustainable Development Law and acted as coordinator for the International Conference on Degrowth in the Americas. She is interested in environmental sustainability and the law which is what drew her to her work with Myko. Carolina joined Myko in 2014 as a founding team member. Since then, she has played a variety of key roles including research design, algorithms and metrics research, fund development, and led the creation of the Myko scoring mechanism.
About Julien
Julien [M.Sc] is currently pursuing joint B.C.L. and LL.B. degrees at McGill’s Faculty of Law. He joined the Myko team in 2017 and since then has studied and then conducted and supervised Life Cycle Analyses on a range of services and products to develop the databases necessary for scoring of user behaviors. He’s also been a key member of the leadership team and participated in the strategic development of the Myko platform as both a non-profit enterprise and a research project. In 2019 he was awarded the McGill Office of Sustainability Catalyst Awards Emerald Key for his meaningful and enduring contributions to the sustainability movement at McGill University.
About Tyler
Tyler [BA, Psychology, MA, Library and Information Studies] is currently interested in and conducting research on machine learning and blockchain technology and is especially interested in how these can be used to benefit scientific research and climate action. This brought Tyler to Myko in 2017 and he soon became a key member of the team thanks to his research contributions and his ability to communicate complex ideas in non-technical language. He has recently been invited to represent Myko in the AI Commons in Montreal (early 2019).
About Eva
Eva is completing her BSc Environment at McGill University. She was drawn to Myko because of its potential for environmental impact reduction through behavioural economics, and has since contributed to research and strategy development based on distributed ledger technologies and gift economies. Eva has also served as one of two Parks Canada Youth Ambassadors and co-founded North in Focus, a charity providing tools for northern Canadian communities to de-stigmatize mental health and reduce suicide. In addition to her research, Eva is also leading Myko’s design and branding. Currently, Eva is a consultant at Deloitte.
About Deborah
Deborah [BSc, MBA] is a mobilizer and connector of people and ideas. She’s an insightful strategist who cares about practical execution. Having led global internal communications teams at Alcan and Bombardier Aerospace, Deborah has spent much of her career as a consultant, facilitator and coach specializing in activating communities. Today she is focused on helping mission-based organizations design and build momentum around their cause. Deborah first met Myko team at the McGill Dobson Cup where she was a judge for the social entrepreneurship stream. Since then she’s acted as a facilitator, advocate and sounding board, helping the team bring the Myko vision to life.
About Bruce
Bruce is an expert in software design who already had experience working on various environmental and human rights projects when he joined Myko in the spring of 2019. He’s consulted for private companies, governments and NGOs on web technologies and founded 3 successful technology companies, selling two of them. As an entrepreneur, government employee and as an officer of a public company, he was responsible for creating financial technology including multi-factor risk models, decision support systems, investment accounting and 3rd party integration systems. Since joining the team, Bruce has played a central role on the technical side of the Myko climate impact platform development.
About Karine
Karine is a student at McGill’s Faculty of Law with an interest in sustainable development. Before law school, she was an information professional specializing in digital preservation at Library and Archives Canada and the International Monetary Fund. Karine holds a BA in English literature, a Master of Library and Information Studies, and a Master of Archival Studies.
About Nadine
Nadine [Honours BA in Psychology] is pursuing joint B.C.L. / LL.B. degrees at McGill’s Faculty of Law. She is interested in facilitating better access to information, as well as in environmental, health, and sustainability initiatives. This brought Nadine to join Myko in the spring of 2019.
About Edmond
Edmond is a seasoned, full-stack developer who seeks complex problems to solve. Passionate about engineering and rocket propulsion, Edmond’s previous work has involved designing computer systems for CO2 scrubbing on 100+ tonne ocean vessels, graph analysis for largescale blockchain applications, Bluetooth implementation for federal COVID contact tracing efforts, Machine Learning for image recognition, and more.
RESEARCH
Myko’s team of disciplinary experts in law and governance (real-time/AI), life cycle analysis, computer science and artificial intelligence working with other experts in engineering, management, behavioural economics, communications studies, and biology including:
- Monica Wachowicz, University of New-Brunswick, Associate Professor Geodesy and Geomatics Engineering and the CISCO Chair in Big Data. Read MoreHer work involves using big data in order to map and predict social behaviour. Her expertise is at the core of developing a reflexive algorithm for the social scoring platform. Role: development of data collection and analysis systems.
- Cécile Bulle, École des sciences de gestion of UQAM, Professor in the Département de stratégie, responsabilité sociale et environnementale and Research Chair at the Interuniversity Research Centre for the Life Cycle of Products (CIRAIG). Read MoreTrained as a chemical engineer with an expertise in modelling environment impacts. Role: coordination of LCA analysis and calculation of sustainability thresholds of user behaviours and consumption.
- Benjamin Fung, McGill University, Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Data Mining for Cybersecurity. Read MoreHe has expertise in using data mining to identify behavioural patterns and in designing databases to protect privacy and security. Role: ensure platform security and efficiency.
- Brian Leung, McGill University, Associate Professor of Biology and a member of the McGill School of Environment. Read MoreHis research focuses on creating models for ecological forecasting given uncertainty and sparse data. He has expertise in algorithm creation, decision theory, bioeconomic analysis, and risk analysis. Role: producing the mathematical models identifying behavioral patterns.
- Nicolas Kosoy, McGill University, Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences. Read MoreSpecializes in ecological economics and the socioecological assessment of human impacts. Role: experimental design for development of behavioral intervention tools.
- Jeremy Cooperstock, McGill University, Associate Professor in the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, member of the Centre for Intelligent Machines and director of the Shared Reality Lab. Read MoreExpert in human-computer sensory interactions. Role: deployment of automatic systems for data collection.
- Philippe St-Jean, McGill University, Sustainability Construction Officer. Read MoreOversees the LEED O+M certification project at McGill and improved sustainability of McGill’s infrastructure. Role: Developing feedback loops between Myko users and infrastructure they interact with.
- Primavera De Filippi, CNRS and Berkman Center at Harvard University. Read MoreResearches governance-by-design on the internet and the implications of encryption and blockchain for building social trust. Role: Creation of governance tools for the platform and assist our reflection on the relevance of the blockchain.
- Bernd Holznagel, University of Munster, Professor of Law and Director of Public Law at ITM. Read MoreExpert on internet governance and data regulation. Role: Creation of tools and regulations to allow for governance of the app by its users.
- Nima Navab, Concordia University, Researcher in Topological Media Lab and graduate in environmental design. Read MoreFocuses on the role of art and technology in enhancing both intimate and large-scale public interactions. Role: production of impact visualizations and other sensory responses.
ALUMNI
Myko has attracted some extraordinarily talented and accomplished people to the project over the years. They include:
About Juan
Juan [LL.B, LL.M., PhD] is a lawyer specialized in tax, behavioural, environmental, and public law and a guest lecturer in McGill’s law faculty. He has a particular interest in behavioral economics and law, and climate change. A co-founder of Myko, Juan has been a key member of the team since 2014. Insights from his work on Myko formed the basis of his PhD thesis “Social Score 1341: A Jurist learns how to nudge best”.
INSTITUTIONAL PARTNERS
Our institutional partners include:
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- McGill University Sustainability Systems Initiative
- Concordia University – Itinerum Platform
- CIRAIG, the International Reference Centre for the Life Cycle of Products, Processes and Services
- LEED Arc Platform
- Montreal Climate Coalition
- Pact for Transition
We are a participating member of the Boussole durable/Sustainability Compass program.