Richard Boudreault
For distinguished accomplishments, service as a member of the Board, and translation of technology from theoretical to applicable. Also for significant contributions to the Society’s mission and service to the McGill chapter of Sigma Xi.
Sigma Xi Experience
Richard has been a member of Sigma Xi since 2006 within McGill’s Sigma Xi Chapter, where he was leading the chapter. He recently completed two terms as the head of the international committee and the director for the international constituency of Sigma Xi, where he developed a new set of membership for emerging nations. As such, he was key in the turnaround of various chapters as well as the GIAR program in Canada. As an active member of the executive committee, he coached management during political and financial periods for the organization. He presently serves on the awards committee and advisory board for American Scientist.
Biography
Richard Boudreault is a successful polymath scientist and engineer, serial STEM entrepreneur and innovative C-level general management, innovation management and commercialization and market entry executive with professional board director/chairman governance experience and a 40-year track record of achievements in leadership roles.
Engaged and a team builder, he served with purpose on more than 30 boards of directors, including public, private, and para-governmental/Crown Corporations and Agencies, international airports, not-for profit boards, centers of excellence, and is currently active on 5 external BoDs. Serving principally as board chair.
During his career, he has been a conduit translating research and discoveries to market. Innovation occurs when research (either purposeful or basic) is applicable to solve unmet needs in markets and for communities, generating value, growing the metaphoric pie, creating win-win scenarios.
A problem solver, he has held CEO, CTO, CRO (turnaround mandates) and top corporate positions within large and small entrepreneurial organizations, in both private and public sectors. Richard’s notable experience is multisectoral, involving Advanced Materials, Natural Resources/Metallurgy/Hydrocarbons, Clean Tech/environment and sustainability science, Photonics, Medical Devices, Computer Simulation and Rendering, Energy & Nuclear, Big Data & AI, Quantum Computation and Quantum Simulation, Robotics, and Aerospace sectors.
Richard led 13 STEM ventures, all successful, starting with floor value and raising them to c. billion dollars. His corporation’s portfolio is divided in three tiers, the first tier went public in Canada, the US, and overseas, the second and the largest, is composed of active and revenue generating corporations that were fused to larger international organizations of the likes of Microsoft, GE (3), Essilor, MDA, Amazon, and Textron. The last tier consists of private firms undergoing further development and growth. He is presently involved in a space startup in the In-situ Resource Utilization sector, the Canadian Space Mining Corporation.
He was the inaugural Board Chair for the new Canadian polar agency—Polar Knowledge Canada (POLAR), an agency of INAC. At Polar, he was passionate about integrating Traditional Knowledge of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit communities in current polar research, exploration, and science streams. The inclusion of Traditional Knowledge and Northerners is a true force multiplier for Arctic research and development. Dealing with permafrost and glacier thawing, sustainable infrastructure, energy storage and delivery on remote isolated grids. During his mandate, Polar has completed a world-class half-of-billion-dollar CHARS Arctic research facility in Cambridge Bay, NT and was officially inaugurated in August 2019. A total federal investment of half billion dollars over 5 years.
Prof. Boudreault is also an award-winning international authority on space engineering and science with more than 40 years’ experience. He was the youngest to be raised fellow of the International Astronautics Academy and one of the first Canadian to be called. He has flown more than 18 missions related to remote sensing, extreme communication, optical communication, synthetic aperture radars, science instrumentation (HF and optical), microgravity material processing furnaces and crystallography. He was involved in many missions studying earth’s upper atmosphere. Working on civilian and military applications. He created the aerospace education engineering programs and courses for the Canadian Military Colleges, including developing a robotics and effector. He has worked for ESA, NASA, and CSA but also with the Swedish Space Corporation. As a system engineer involved in the development and simulation of the Canadarm flown on the Shuttle, its version for the international space station and the ambidextrous remote manipulator (Dexter). Worked with NASA on closed ecological life support system (ECLSS). He developed the Moon-Mars strategic plan for the Canadian Space Agency in the early ’90s. Worked as a remote sensing consultant for CNES and participated to NASA’s workshop on asteroid deflections as well as on in-situ resources utilization (ISRU) on the Moon, Mars, and asteroids. His research team at McGill is involved in oxygen production from lunar regolith and autonomous mining systems, it is also involved in refining Rare-Earth Elements. Finally, he is a member the editorial board for Space Policy, an Elsevier journal.
Richard is also a recognized authority in quantum technologies, high performance computation, and communication. He serves as a consultant to governments on the development of an industry. He has initiated the Anyon quantum computing start-up which was a principal consultant to Google on crosstalk noise abatement, leading to the Quantum Supremacy demonstration of a 53 qubits device and sold a Quantum Computing device to the Defense Research Board in Canada. He collaborates with different groups internationally on quantum processors, simulators, and annealing devices as well as the associated government policies. He has developed a multimillion-dollar funded start-ups in applied Quantum Chemistry, enabling immediately actionable solutions in Li-Ion batteries and atmospheric water extraction. He has served the federal and provincial governments with advice on establishing competitive Quantum Technology industry in Canada.
Richard is a full professor, with an adjunct status, at École Polytechnique in Montreal (ÉPM) where he teaches and performs applied research on environmental engineering, green chemistry, quantum chemistry and clean tech innovation. He his involved in developing nanotechnologies to generate low or no energy atmospheric water for remote location and First Nations and Inuit communities. He is also adj. professor of Earth and Environmental Science at the U. of Waterloo.
He collaborates with the U. de Sherbrooke in developing various tools to improve Northerner’s life through a biodiversity research center focused on the Arctic (computational and experimental) and on north—south ecological gradients and is active on the advisory board of a novel Bios2 Biodiversity postgraduate training program.
The Future Skills Centre, a joint venture of the Conference Boards and Ryerson University, was created with an endowment of $1/2B from Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC), to develop new skills for Canada to maintain and increase national competitiveness.
He also served on the board and the executive committee for two elected mandates, for Sigma Xi, the Research Honor Society, and completed two terms as non-exec-director responsible for the international chapters of the organization. He was also active also on the SX advisory committee for the American Scientist magazine. He is a newly minted Fellow of Sigma Xi, the global research honour society with the distinction of its membership composed of more than 200 Nobel laureates.
As a governor for the purposeful First Nations University of Canada located in Regina, Saskatchewan, he is dedicated to the land-based teaching approach and philosophy using traditional knowledge to re-centre the students, enabling them to succeed as undergraduates. He is leading a multi-institution concept for a new Taiga Forest Traditional Knowledge Conservancy Program.
He is a Board member of the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique, a network of four distributed post graduate university campuses and research centres.
Mr. Boudreault is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineers, of the International Aeronautic Academy, and of the World Academy of Arts & Sciences., a Fellow of the Space and Aeronautic Institute of Canada and an Associate Fellow of the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics and Senior Member of the US Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).
A finalist in the first Canadians Astronaut competition, he is a licensed pilot and served time in the Military. He is also an advanced scuba diver with a strong interest for Canada’s nature, oceans and polar regions and was elevated to a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographic Society. He was awarded the Gold Medal of the RCGS for his achievements in the Arctic and was raised to the fellowship of the top Canadian national science academy, the Royal Society, in 2019. He was also raised to Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering, and elevated by the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanography Society (CMOS) to Fellow, for his work on atmosphere and ocean science in the Arctic, he is the chair of the industrial and executive of the Arctic focused groups. Richard has received in 2021 the Alouette award, the highest recognition for astronautics in Canada from the Canadian Aeronautics and Space Institute (CASI). Richard served on two commissions of the Canadian Academies Association on Innovation and more recently on the Future of Arctic Research
He was awarded with Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal for services to the nation and the Canadian Association of Physicist’s Medal for Outstanding Service in Applied Photonics. Moreover, he was elevated to the grade of Fellow of the UK Institute of Physics (IoP).
He has been recognized in the US by Photonics Spectra as a Beacon of the industry in their August 2016 edition. Both of those latest ones were for industrial contribution of optical system to the medical device industry.
And he is the first Canadian to be presented the George E. Pake award of the American Physical Society, in 2018, for research and innovation management excellence. He was awarded by the US IEEE-EMBS with Professional Career Achievement Award, at an international congress held in Germany in 2019.
He was Knighted into the Ordre des Palmes Académiques by France’s President Macron in 2017 and decorated in a ceremony at INO in 2019, for his career achievements in higher education, innovation, and research management.