Ms. Carole Després is a professor of architecture and Director of the PhD Program at Université Laval’s School of Architecture. She is also the Scientific Director of the SCHOLA.ca, a research consortium with a mission to develop a digital platform by 2022 that will feature decision-aid tools to guide the national Primary and Secondary School Renovation Program undertaken by the Government of Québec (www.schola.ca). Ms. Després is the Director of the Groupe interdisciplinaire de recherche sur les banlieues (GIRBA); for the past 20 years, she has coordinated the groups initiatives to better understand how suburbs evolve and guide new architectural and urban projects that will foster sustainable development.
As the President of the organizing committee of the 2020 conference of the International Association People-Environment Studies (IAPS), which was to be held in Québec City in June. Due to the pandemic, she had to quickly pivot and transform the conference into a virtual event. Over 300 people-environment researchers from 35 countries and 5 continents presented their latest work. These presentations were carried out during 60 workshops that were held in 7 different virtual conference rooms. Event attendees across multiple time zones were able to “virtually” gather and discuss the latest findings in their field.
In 2020, Ms. Després was one of the three recipients to win the Soutien à l’organisation de congrès internationaux contest from Québec City’s Ambassadors’ Club and the Fonds de recherche du Québec.
