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Ellen Ballon was born in Montreal on October 6, 1898 of Jewish Lithuanian immigrant parents. She started taking piano lessons at an early age, beginning her studies at the Conservatorium at McGill under Clara Lichtenstein, a former student of Liszt, in March 1904. She gave her first concert appearance at the age of five. In 1906 she moved to New York to study piano with Rafael Joseffy and harmony with Rubin Goldmark. She performed for Sir Wilfred and Lady Laurier in New York (1909) and made her New York debut in 1910.

In 1914 she moved to Switzerland to study with Josef Hofmann, but wartime conditions forced her return to New York in 1916. She performed as a concert pianist throughout these years, and became a pupil of Wilhelm Backhaus in 1925. Ellen Ballon toured Europe in 1927, and upon her return to Canada, established a scholarship in music at McGill University. She toured Canada in 1928, and in 1934 returned to England to live. Her career suffered a fallback in 1938 when she broke her right ankle getting out of a taxicab. Two years later her leg had healed sufficiently that she could resume concert performances, so she recommenced her career and moved to New York City.

In 1942, both of Ellen Ballon's parents died, and she began to participate actively in war efforts. In 1945 she commissioned a concerto from the Brazilian composer, Heitor Villa-Lobos and performed the world, American and Canadian premiers of this work in 1945, 1946, and 1947, respectively. Ellen Ballon was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Music by McGill University in 1954. She married Colonel Theodore LaFleur Bullock of Quebec in 1958 and died in Montreal in 1969.

Catherine Banks is an award-winning playwright. She was born in 1957 in Middleton, Nova Scotia, and was educated at Digby Regional High School before earning her BA (1978) and BEd (1979) from Acadia University. From 1980-1985 she worked as a special education teacher in Shelburne and Halifax, and began writing for the theatre while raising her children, Rilla and Simon.

Her plays, frequently described as "Atlantic Gothic," have been performed across Canada and have received numerous awards and critical recognition. In 2008 Catherine Banks received Nova Scotia’s Established Artist Award for her body of work. Three Storey, Ocean View won the du Maurier National Play Competition's Silver Medal in 1995 and was nominated for a Merrit Award for best new play in 2000. Bone Cage received a Special Merit prize in Theatre BC's New Play Competition in 2002, was showcased at the National Arts Centre's On the Verge in 2005, and was awarded the Governor General’s Literary Award for (English) Drama in 2008. In 2012 It is Solved by Walking won Catherine Banks the Governor General's Literary Award for (English) Drama for a second time.

An active member of the Canadian theatre scene, Banks has participated in numerous readings and workshops and collaborated with theatres across the country. She served on the faculty of Sage Hill Writing in 2018, 2020, and 2021. She is a founding member and past president of the Playwrights Atlantic Resource Centre and has served as the Atlantic representative for the Playwrights Guild of Canada.

Becka Barker is an interdisciplinary artist based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Barker's work has been exhibited at venues such as the Ottawa International Animation Festival, Seoul’s EXiS (winner 2007, Best International Film), Nocturne Art at Night (Halifax), Images Festival (Toronto), Festival du Nouveau Cinéma (Montreal), KunstDoc Art Gallery (Seoul), Halifax Independent Filmmakers Festival, Atlantic Film Festival, Eyelevel gallery (Halifax), and Echo Park Film Centre (Los Angeles). She was Executive Director of the Centre for Art Tapes from 2002 to 2004 and has been regular part-time faculty at NSCAD University since 2005. She has also served on the board of Nova Scotia arts organizations including the Centre for Art Tapes.

Barker has also been involved in educational research since earning her Master's of Education in 2010 from the Univeristy of Calgary. Her research focuses on literacy, media art education, language teaching pedagogy, and studio-based learning in academic educational contexts. She has shared her work at KOTESOL Pan-Asian Consortium (2010), TESL Canada (2012), CSEA/CAGE (2013), NSATA (2013, 2014), DCUTL (2016), AWELL (2014, 2016), UAAC (2016), and STLHE (2017).

Joyce Carman Barkhouse (nee Killam) was born in Woodville, Nova Scotia, on 3 May 1913. She was the middle of five children born to Harold Edwin and Ora Louise Killam. Barkhouse attended the small rural school in Woodville until grade eleven, when she transferred to the King’s County Academy in Kentville to complete grade twelve. In 1932 she earned her Teacher’s License from the Provincial Normal College in Truro, and began teaching in Sand Hill, Nova Scotia. In 1939 she taught in Liverpool, where she met Milton Joseph Barkhouse, a teller with the Royal Bank of Canada. They married in 1942 and had two children, Murray Roy and Janet Louise. Milton’s position with the Royal Bank took them from Liverpool to Halifax, Charlottetown and Montreal. In 1968, following the death of her husband, Joyce Barkhouse returned to Nova Scotia.

Barkhouse’s writing career began in 1932 with the publication of a short story in the Baptist church paper, The Northern Messenger. Her subsequent articles and short stories, primarily written for a younger audience, have appeared in church papers, anthologies, textbooks and periodicals; her column, For Mothers and Others, appeared in newspapers throughout Nova Scotia from 1973–1976. In 1974, at the age of sixty-one, Barkhouse published her first book, a biography of the geologist, George Dawson. She went on to published eight children's books, including Pit Pony, which was adapted for television by CBC, and Anna’s Pet, co-authored with her niece Margaret Atwood, and adapted for stage by Mermaid Puppet Theatre.

In 1993 the Joyce Barkhouse Writing for Children Award was established by the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia (WFNS). Barkhouse herself received the Ann Connor Brimer Award from the Nova Scotia Library Association in 1991; the Valuable Contribution to Children's Literature Award from the Nova Scotia Children's Literature Roundtable in 1990; the Marianna Dempster Memorial Award from the Canadian Authors Association in 1989; the Cultural Life Award for outstanding service to the cultural life of Nova Scotia in 1982; and First Prize, Children's Fiction, from WFNS in 1979. Barkhouse was named to the Order of Nova Scotia in 2007 and to the Order of Canada in 2009.

Barkhouse died in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, on 2 February 2012.

Jerome H. Barkow is a socio-cultural anthropologist and professor emeritus in Dalhousie's department of sociology and social anthropology, and an honorary professor at Queen's University, Belfast. He received his BA in psychology from Brooklyn College in 1964 and PhD in human development from the University of Chicago in 1970.

Barkow's work has included field research in Nova Scotia, West Africa and Indonesia; his publications are wide-ranging and include the acclaimed Darwin, Sex and Status: Biological Approaches to Mind and Culture (1989). His edited works include The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture (1992), with Leda Cosmides and John Tooby; and Missing the Revolution: Darwinism for Social Scientists (2006).

Barkow served on Dalhousie University's Committee on African Studies in 1969-1970, and organized panels for the fourth annual conference of the Canadian Association of African Studies held at Dalhousie from 27 February- 2 March 1974.

Larry Baxter is an HIV/AIDS activist, community volunteer, and former health care worker residing in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Raised in the Annapolis Valley, Larry graduated from Middleton Regional High School in 1969 before attending Dalhousie University, where he was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science in 1972. Larry was the Program Director and Youth Consultant for the Canadian Red Cross from 1972-1996. He later worked as a home support worker until is retirement in 2014.

As a person living with HIV, Larry has participated in and/or facilitated a wide range of organizations and research projects regarding HIV/AIDS. Larry has been a knowledge user on projects related to HIV and aging, as well as a patient advisor on several primary health care focused research projects within Nova Scotia. Larry chaired AIDS Nova Scotia [formerly MACAIDS] for a term, and sat on the Nova Scotia Advisory Commission on AIDS from 2000-2010. He was Secretary for the NAMES Project from 1999-2013, serving as the main custodian of the AIDS Memorial Quilt for over a decade until it was passed onto the Canadian AIDS Society. He has also volunteered in myriad other ways to support interests such as food security, care-giving and social justice.

Françoise Baylis is a Canadian bioethicist whose work is at the intersection of applied ethics, health policy and practice. The focus of her research is on issues of women's health and assisted reproductive technologies, while her research and publication record also extends to topics such as research involving humans (including human embryo research), gene editing, novel genetic technologies, public health, the role of bioethics consultants and neuroethics. She works as a public intellectual who regularly engages with print, radio, television and online media, and she is a frequent commentator on CBC Radio and Radio-Canada.

Baylis was born in Montreal in 1961. She holds a BA in Political Science from McGill University (1983), and an MA (1984) and PhD (1989) in Philosophy from the University of Western Ontario. In 1996 she came to Dalhousie University as an Associate Professor in the Office of Bioethics Education and Research (later the Department of Bioethics), and in 2004 she was appointed Professor and Canada Research Chair in Bioethics and Philosophy. She is currently appointed to the Faculty of Medicine, with cross-appointments in both Philosophy and Obstetrics & Gynaecology. Baylis is the founder and leader (since 2003) of Novel Tech Ethics (now NTE Impact Ethics), an interdisciplinary research team based at Dalhousie University.

In 2007 Baylis was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. Other notable career achievements include being named to the Who's Who in Black Canada and the Canadian Who's Who; holding three Governor-in-Council appointments, including membership in the Canadian Biotechnology Advisory Committee (1999-2001); serving as a member of Governing Council, Canadian Institutes of Health Research (2001-2004); sitting on the Board of Directors, Assisted Human Reproduction Canada (2006-2010); serving as the Royal Society of Canada Academic Secretary (Academy I) and the Atlantic Steering Committee Chair (2012-2015); and holding a Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) in Bioethics and Philosophy (2004-2018). In 2016 Professor Baylis was inducted into both the Order of Nova Scotia and the Order of Canada. In 2022 she received the prestigious Killam Prize, granted annually by the Killam Trusts.

Further details of her scholarly and professional activity can be found at https://www.dal.ca/sites/noveltechethics/our-people/francoise-baylis.html.

Robert Bell was a Canadian geologist, professor and civil servant, and is considered one of Canada’s greatest exploring scientists, having named over 3000 geographical features. He was born in Toronto in 1841 to Presbyterian clergyman and amateur geologist, Reverend Andrew Bell, and Elizabeth Notman. In 1873 he married Agnes Smith, with whom he had four children.

As a teenager Bell worked as a summer assistant to Sir William Edmond Logan with the Geological Survey of Canada; by 1859 he was heading his own survey party. He was educated at McGill University, where he studied under John William Dawson. In 1861 he earned a civil engineering degree and the Governor General’s Medal. He studied for a further two years at the University of Edinburgh. In 1863 he was appointed professor of chemistry and natural sciences at Queen’s College, Kingston, but continued summer fieldwork for the Geographical Survey. In 1867 he joined the Survey full-time, where he remained until his retirement in 1908. He died in 1917.