The Digital Research Alliance of Canada Board of Directors is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Michael Schull as the organization’s next CEO, effective December 1, 2025.
Michael Schull, MSc., M.D., FRCPC, is a nationally recognized leader with a track record of driving digital transformation, building national and international research and data partnerships, and organizational growth and sustainability. He will join the Alliance from ICES, a Canadian not-for-profit health research and data analytics institute, where he has served as CEO and Senior Scientist since 2013. Dr. Schull is also currently a Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto and a Senior Scientist at the Sunnybrook Research Institute.
“Michael brings extensive leadership experience, a compelling strategic vision and strong alignment with the Alliance’s mission and values – qualities that, together, will help him drive our ambitious national mandate,” said Feridun Hamdullahpur, Board Chair. “With rapidly growing researcher demand for compute and support services, his deep understanding of Canada’s research ecosystem and track record of innovation and operational excellence will help advance our vision for a scaled-up, integrated and sovereign digital research infrastructure system.”
Dr. Schull’s research focuses on health service utilization, quality of care, health system integration and patient outcomes, and the evaluation of health policy. Much of his work has focused on strengthening Ontario and Canada's health research infrastructure for the analysis of large, routinely collected datasets, and ensuring the data can be used for research and to support health system evaluation and decision-making. Dr. Schull is a founding member of Health Data Research Network Canada (HDRN), a pan-Canadian network of health data and research centres seeking to facilitate and enable pan-Canadian research. He is also a past Co-Director of the International Population Data Linkage Network.
Under his leadership, ICES has expanded the types of data available for researchers, created a virtual data platform where researchers can access and analyze linked datasets, launched a health artificial intelligence data and analysis platform, and engaged the public in the work of ICES to ensure it remains aligned with public values.
“The Alliance plays a vital role in advancing and elevating Canada’s research ecosystem,” said Dr. Schull. “I am honoured to build on the team’s strong record of collaborative leadership to advance Canada’s digital research infrastructure by scaling public compute capacity, increasing access to data and empowering Canada’s researchers to tackle the most pressing challenges of our time.”
George Ross will continue to serve as CEO until Dr. Schull’s start date, advancing key organizational priorities from compute infrastructure renewal and AI-enabled capacity-building, to laying the groundwork for a national research data platform.
Dr. Schull’s appointment follows an extensive international CEO search led by a Board CEO Search Committee. Chaired by Board Director Jeffrey Taylor, the committee was further composed of Board Chair, Feridun Hamdullahpur and directors, Philippe Beaudoin, Connie Bonello, Donna Bourne-Tyson, Guillaume Bourque, Luc Vinet and Amol Verma. Executive recruitment firm Boyden aided in the search.
Fluent in both English and French, Dr. Schull was born in Montreal and raised in Québec before relocating to Ontario, where he earned a B.A. and M.D. from Queen’s University. He later completed an M.Sc. in Epidemiology and Biostatistics from McGill University and a Harkness Fellowship with the Commonwealth Fund in the US. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Canada. He is currently based in Toronto.
Media Contact:
Sophie Sakillarides
Bilingual Communications Specialist
Sophie.Sakillarides@alliancecan.ca