Laurent Poliquin

Dr. Poliquin is professor in the department of Biological Sciences, Université du Québec à Montréal, since 1989. His research interests are in cell biology and virology, as well as in active methods for teaching sciences. He was part of a group of colleagues who changed the B.Sc. program in biology at UQAM, in 1996, to arrange the program entirely around student-centered pedagogy, mostly Problem-based learning. It thus became the first undergraduate program in Sciences in Canada to use that approach in its entirety. Since then it has become a model world-wide of how an institution can implement a program-wide change in pedagogy with a broader range of life and learning skills. Besides his work on virus/host cell interactions (specifically, cellular and molecular mechanisms determining the evolution of an infection and the possible release of pathologies), Dr. Poliquin has given workshops on how to design and incorporate problem-based learning in College and University courses.