Mona Nemer is used to changing people’s minds.

When she was 17, Nemer and her fellow students had to fight to get her all-girls high school in Lebanon to open a science stream, academic courses that weren’t offered to them because they were female.

It was the 1970s, but school administrators didn’t think girls went into careers that needed science, says Nemer.

“We had a sort of mini-revolt,” says Nemer. It succeeded, and she was one of 17 to enter the program.

Nemer, now 60 and a prominent cardiac researcher, will use those same persuasive powers as Canada’s chief science adviser.

The job will be challenging.

Major cuts were made under the former prime minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government to departments such as Environment Canada and Fisheries and Oceans. The government laid off staff, leaving some departments with no trained researchers to replace outgoing scientists.

Funding for overall fundamental science was decimated as the Conservatives prioritized research into areas such as genomics and neuroscience. A report in June said an infusion of $459 million was needed just to bring fundamental research back to 2005 levels.

And early on, they abolished the position of science adviser, so there is no one to show Nemer the ropes. The country’s last science adviser was Arthur Carty, who held the position until 2008, when the Harper government eliminated the job.

Ninety per cent of scientists reported they were muzzled during the Harper years, according to a survey of 5,000 researchers by their union, the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada.

“They were completely silenced, at threat of discipline or termination,” says Debi Daviau, president of PIPSC. “They were not allowed to speak about their own work that they were experts in.”

“Even those that were designated as spokespeople had to go through rigorous approvals in order to be okayed to speak,” she says, a process that took so long their comments were often no longer relevant.

Only weeks into her new position, Nemer says she is developing a work plan and meeting researchers before she can consider setting scientific priorities for the country.

There are more than 10,000 employees in federal government research and development jobs. One of Nemer’s responsibilities will be to ensure they can speak freely. She will also advise the prime minister, Science Minister Kirsty Duncan and the cabinet on all aspects of science policy.

The Liberal government promises the office will be completely independent.

“We want our scientists talking,” Duncan said in an interview. “We want them collaborating. That’s how science works. We want our scientists to talk and Dr. Nemer must be independent and impartial.”

Nemer’s office will produce an annual report, beginning next fall, on the state of science in Canada, says Duncan. The report will be made public.

The government and PIPSC negotiated language in their latest contract that also protects scientific freedom and integrity, language that Daviau believes is a first for a collective agreement.

As science adviser, Nemer will also promote collaboration between government departments and academia, a role she already knows something about.

She was vice-president of research at the University of Ottawa for 11 years, where she was responsible for encouraging collaborative research across departments and faculties.

One day in 2003, she gave a guest lecture at the university, about her cardiac stem cell research. Gilles Patry, who was then the school’s president, was there. He turned to a colleague — Peter Walker, then dean of medicine — and told him they needed to find a way to hire her.

Not only was she one of the country’s top scientists in her field, says Patry, but “the clarity of the way that she was communicating demonstrated to me that she was also a good teacher, a good mentor for graduate students.

“Not every scientist is able to communicate their research,” he says, and Nemer was coming across to a varied audience that was both academic and open to members of the public.

When Howard Alper, the University of Ottawa’s first VP of research, retired in 2006, Patry made sure Nemer was invited to apply. Nemer, who was at the time a professor at the University of Montreal and an established cardiac scientist at the nearby Clinical Research Institute, got the job.

She had come to Canada via the United States, where she fled in 1976, a year after the civil war broke out in her native Lebanon.

“It was very difficult,” says Nemer, who was then a first-year student at the American University in Beirut, where an attack on a bus by gunmen launched the war. Nemer spent more time in shelters than in classrooms and she decided to continue her education in the U.S.

Her mother, a schoolteacher, and her father, a mechanical technician who took care of printing presses for a couple of Beirut’s major dailies, supported her decision, but there was a catch — she could only go to Wichita State University in Kansas or the University of Florida in Gainesville, two cities where the Nemers had family.

She chose the higher-ranked school in Florida but the university wanted her to do a semester of English before allowing her to enrol in chemistry. Nemer, who already spoke French and Arabic, had done a year and a half of English at university in Beirut and decided that was good enough.

“I figured I’ll go to Wichita for one semester in science then transfer back to Florida,” she says.

But when she arrived in the U.S. she was overwhelmed by culture shock. It took her an entire semester to get over it and led to her decision to stay in Wichita rather than make the change.

“I came from a metropolitan city that was quite international, where people walked on the streets and spoke many languages,” explains Nemer. “And I ended up in a place — this was the ’70s, things have changed — but most people hadn’t left their state, let alone their country.

“They spoke English with a different accent,” she says. “Nobody walked in the streets. There was no public transport. I mean you name it.”

She graduated and accepted a scholarship from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor to do her PhD. But a chance weekend with friends in Montreal the summer before school put her on a different path.

“I loved (the city) so I said I’m going to stay here and do my PhD,” says Nemer. She was accepted as a graduate student in chemistry at McGill in the summer of 1977 when she was 20.

After completing her PhD, she left the city to work for a biotech startup in the U.S., hoping to create new drugs, but returned to Montreal because she realized she didn’t know enough molecular biology to know what to target.

“I tell you this because it’s important. People think that I always knew that I wanted to be a university professor and so on,” says Nemer. “And a lot of the young people who are doing their graduate studies don’t know what they want to do.

“I keep telling them … go with the opportunities,” she says. “You don’t need to know exactly right away.”

Nemer did post-doctoral work at McGill and Columbia in molecular biology. By that time, her parents had immigrated to Canada because of the escalating Lebanese conflict.

She took a job as an assistant professor of pharmacology at the University of Montreal and operated her lab at the nearby Clinical Research Institute, where she studied how genes are controlled.

There, she was able to isolate a gene that produces a hormone called ANF and discovered the hormone is created by the heart to control blood pressure, thereby proving the heart isn’t just a pump but an endocrine organ.

Further research by her lab showed that production of the hormone increases when the organ is under stress or in heart failure. Six companies are now manufacturing tests that use ANF levels as a marker for cardiac stress.

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“Basically you can do a chemical test that is almost as accurate as a cardiologist assessment of whether there was heart failure or not,” says Nemer.

Her lab also discovered GATA4, a gene that is an important regulator for heart development and that is now being used in stem cell research.

At the Clinical Research Institute, Nemer began taking on leadership roles, because she believes younger scientists need to be involved to improve the system.

She served as director of academic affairs where she oversaw scholarships and researcher training and later, as the executive director of planning and development, in charge of recruitment and expansion programs.

“If we want the research system and academic system to keep improving then you need to have some of your actors and bright minds participate in it,” says Nemer, who is married and has a daughter. “Being an academic leader in my dictionary was not a retirement job.”

When she took the job at the University of Ottawa, in her late 40s, she says she wasn’t that young anymore but felt she had the right experience.

As VP there, she was behind a number of collaborative facilities such as the state-of-the-art Advanced Research Complex, where scientists are studying photonics, the science of harnessing energy from light particles — or photons — to allow for faster data transfer, as in fibre optics.

It was the first time the university created a centre based solely on one aspect of science and drew researchers from across departments and faculties.

Nemer also created a program to help undergraduates participate in research, and an initiative to encourage female scientists in STEM fields — science, technology, engineering and math.

“Dr. Nemer left an enduring mark on the University of Ottawa,” said university president Jacques Frémont, in an email. “Her passion and tireless work to promote research drove our university towards excellence.”

Meanwhile, Nemer continued to do research as director of the university’s Molecular Genetics and Cardiac Regeneration lab, where she worked with undergrads, graduate and postdoctoral students, as well as research associates and technicians.

When the science adviser position came open, Nemer applied. She was ready to move on after 11 years at the university.

“I felt that I had enough perspective and information and experience working in a large university,” she says. “And I thought that perspective could actually be interesting if I were to have a position at the national level.”

She has signed up for a three-year term, with an annual salary of $265,300 to $311,100, according to the Privy Council Office.

During the Harper years, Nemer says she witnessed how difficult it was to get grants. Scientists would try to align their research with the government’s objectives, says Nemer, or they would spend more time writing grant proposals because of a limited success rate. They were “researching money instead of researching knowledge,” she says.

Nemer’s predecessor, Carty, warned the government in 2008 that abolishing the position of science adviser would “tarnish our image as a leading player in science and technology,” comments he made to a government standing committee on industry, science and technology.

Carty also said that “shaping and providing science advice for decision-makers is never easy . . . for advice to be effective, there must be a receptor willing and able to use it.”

Instead of heeding his words, the Harper government followed up in 2011 with the elimination of the long-form census and began to silence federal scientists, especially any with information on climate change.

Critics have also singled out legislation passed in 2012, Bill C-38, which they say cleared the way for resource extraction by cutting federal regulations for environmental protection of fish habitats, parks and water quality. The bill also repealed the Kyoto Protocol implementation act. (The climate treaty had been signed under the Liberals, who failed to meet Canada’s commitments.)

The result of years of cuts is that “the public willingness to put trust in government to make good, balanced decisions has been seriously eroded,” said author Chris Turner, who wrote The War on Science: Muzzled Scientists and Wilful Blindness in Stephen Harper’s Canada, in an interview with the Atlantic in January.

Renewing that trust could be hard.

The Liberal government announced a $95-million injection for the country’s three main federal granting councils in its 2016 budget but was criticized a year later for failing to provide another increase in 2017.

The government also committed to hiring 135 research scientists, biologists, oceanographers in Fisheries and Oceans Canada, a department that experienced such deep cuts that it could “barely keep the lights on, never mind the boats afloat,” says Daviau, the PIPSC president.

A review of the department by the Liberals, a promise made in their 2016 budget, resulted in an additional $1.4 billion in new funding over five years for the DFO, which oversees the Canadian Coast Guard as well as fisheries management.

Still, the union estimates 1,500 scientists were lost during the Conservative government’s tenure. Some were scientists training to take over from researchers who were nearing retirement in departments such as chemical management, air quality control and fish habitat research.

“Although we have made a lot of advances with this government on advancing scientific integrity, the capacity that disappeared during these cuts — they have not yet replaced or replenished their reserves of scientists and researchers,” says Daviau.

The average Canadian may not be able to keep track of how many researchers have been rehired or who’s getting government grants, but if Nemer is successful in her new role, they should see a scientific resurgence, says Daviau.

“What the public should see is more science, more talk of science.”

Nemer hopes her appointment could have another benefit as well, which her 17-year-old self would have appreciated.

“I hope (the fact) that there’s a woman in it sends a good message to all the women and women scientists out there.”

Clarification - November 23, 2017: This article was edited from a previous version that referenced Brain Canada as one of the organizations that received funding for neuroscience research under the Conservative government of former prime minister Stephen Harper. However, the article did not make clear that Brain Canada funds brain research projects, from investigator-led basic research to clinical trials, through the Canada Brain Research Fund (CBRF). The CBRF, established in 2011, is a partnership between Brain Canada and Health Canada designed to encourage Canadians to increase their support of brain research, and maximize the impact and efficiency of those investments. According to the organization's website, by the end of October 2017, the fund had allocated $202.9 million in new funding to support 203 projects across Canada involving more than 900 researchers at 113 institutions.