Marie-Andrée Pelland has been a full professor of criminology in the Department of Sociology and Criminology, Université de Moncton (New Brunswick, Canada) since 2009.  In 2007, she received her doctorate from the School of Criminology, Université de Montréal. Her research was based on the polygamous Bountiful community in British Columbia. Professor Pelland is interested in issues related to victimization, criminality as well as individual and group trajectories of so-called “cultic” power relationships. She is also interested in the process of changes in people who commit crimes, while other studies examine the trajectories of victims of sexual violence by religious figures or within patriarchal communities or within universities. She has been a board member of Info-Cult since 2009.… show more ▼

Michael Crelinsten: As a public policy advisor with Info-Cult since the end of the 1980s, he joined the Board of Directors in 2006. Professionally, he worked for Opcan-Katimavik, the Canadian Federal Government’s National Youth Community Service program (1977-1985), and he also represented Canada on the Forum Humanum initiative of the Club of Rome. From 1987 to 1994, he was the Quebec Director of the Canadian Jewish Congress (Quebec Region). During this time, he also taught a course on the Tactics and Strategies for the Management of Intercultural Conflict at McGill University (Montreal) and from 1991 to 1994, he chaired the Jewish, Greek and Italian Coalition on Constitutional Affairs. From 1994 to 1998, he was responsible for relations between Montreal’s Jewish community and the city of Beersheba (Israel). He then served as Executive Director of the Federation of Child and Family Services in Victoria, British Columbia for two years (2001-2002) before becoming a Canadian Federal Refugee Commissioner (2002 -2006). He then became the Executive Director of Montreal’s Jewish Community Centre (2006 – 2010). Finally, he served as Executive Director of the Jewish Public Library in Montreal from 2010 until his retirement in 2024.… show more ▼

Marie-Hélène Frappier holds an honours degree in political thought from the University of Ottawa, a master’s degree from the Université de Montréal and a postgraduate diploma (DEA) in philosophy from the Université de Paris. She has been a philosophy teacher since 1993 and at College Ahuntsic since 1995. Her involvement with Info-Cult dates from 1992, when she first participated as a researcher and coordinator of a documentary film on the prevention of cultic phenomena and she has collaborated with Info-Cult since then. She is also motivated by questions pertaining to the prevention of cultic thinking, ideology and the different beliefs that lie at the very heart of thought, dogmatism and totalitarian tendencies.… show more ▼

Céline Castillo is a 1997 graduate in Forensic Psychology and Criminal Sciences from the University of Montpellier (France), where she also completed a D.E.A. in psychoanalysis. During the course of her doctoral studies, she received a scholarship for her research on alienation in a cultic environment. Living in Quebec since 1999, she has worked in child and adolescent psychiatry and as a consultant clinician in various institutional settings (in particular with the Youth Protection Department) or in the community (including the Center for the Prevention of Radicalization. Leading to Violence, in Montreal). Her experience as a college and university lecturer has also led her to teach in various federal penitentiaries. She was also called upon to give refresher training to mental health workers and media in hostile environments. Elected as Vice-President of the Société québécoise d’hypnose (SQH) in 2020 and a member of the Order of Psychologists of Quebec since 2008, Céline is a psychotherapist in private practice. She also acts as an expert in various family and criminal law cases since 2013. Her involvement with Info-Cult has been multifaceted since the 2000s and she co-facilitates support groups since they were set up in 2018.… show more ▼

Adriana Pacheco has been a member of Info-Cult since 2013 and received her doctorate in Criminology from the Université de Montréal in 2011. Adriana is particularly interested in violence against children in a religious context. She has conducted research on the Baptist Church of Windsor and on parental punitive practices in the case of four Quebec Conservative Protestant congregations. She was also editor-in-chief of the journal Criminologie from 2007 to 2012.

Louis Raphael has been involved with Info-Cult for almost 30 years, first as a volunteer and intern. He is now on the board of directors and also assists with information technology. He has a Bachelor of Civil Law from McGill University and works mainly in information technology and management consulting with exchange-listed companies.

Sarah-Michèle Vincent-Wright is a doctoral candidate in law at the Université de Montréal and holds a doctoral scholarship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). Specializing in international law, her research focuses on the protection of human rights, particularly in times of armed conflict (book published in 2021), and on reducing socio-economic inequalities linked to women’s unpaid or underpaid care work (subject of her doctoral thesis). She has diversified experience in scientific communication in North and South America, Europe and Asia, having served as an expert intervener at the Supreme Court of Canada and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and as a visiting researcher at the International Criminal Court. Alongside her studies, she is the scientific coordinator for the Canada Research Chair in Human Rights and International Reparative Justice and the Observatory on National Security Measures. She also coordinates the grant-funded projects Human Rights and International Justice Lab (Canada Foundation for Innovation) and Dialogue on Human Rights (Fonds de recherche du Québec). Additionally, she has taught courses and coached multiple moot court competitions within her Faculty. A member of the Quebec Bar, she heads the Legal Affairs Committee of Info-Cult. … show more ▼