Canada’s universities, colleges and research communities share more than networks. They increasingly share security leadership, operations centers and threat intelligence, because few institutions can staff a complete security program on their own. The six cybersecurity leaders in this feature work inside that collective model. They lead security at national and provincial research and education networks, at the alliance supporting Canada’s research computing and at a university security team in British Columbia. Together, their organizations serve institutions in Manitoba, Quebec, Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario, alongside national research communities.
Gary Miller – VP, Cybersecurity Programs and Services, CANARIE
Gary Miller joined CANARIE in July 2024 to lead the growth and evolution of its cybersecurity programs. His mandate centers on advancing the cybersecurity capabilities of Canada’s research and education sector. That work runs through services such as the Cybersecurity Initiatives Program and Canada’s Shared Security Operations Centre (CanSSOC). It also includes developing new services with CANARIE’s stakeholder communities. Miller works with leaders across research, education, government and technology to strengthen cyber resilience through collective action. He brings more than 30 years in technology, cybersecurity and business leadership to the role. His earlier positions include Field CTO at Compugen, VP of Cybersecurity at CGI, National Cybersecurity Strategist at Bell and VP of IT Security and Risk Management at MTS Allstream.
Gerrit Bos – CISO, MRnet
Smaller institutions rarely have the budget for a full-time security executive. Gerrit Bos gives several of them access to one. As CISO at MRnet, Manitoba’s research and education network, he supports Brandon University, Université de Saint-Boniface and the University of Winnipeg as they mature their information security posture. Bos has held the role since December 2020. He came to it after more than three decades in IT at the University of Guelph. For the last eleven of those years, he served as IT Security Officer, responsible for the university’s overall security posture, policy development and enforcement, and its vulnerability assessment and encryption services.
Jean François Lemieux – Cybersecurity Manager, RISQ
At RISQ, Quebec’s scientific information network, Jean François Lemieux designed and launched a security monitoring and incident response service for members and partners. He took the SOC from initial concept through operational deployment. Along the way, he developed its business case, organizational structure, staffing model, processes and operational playbooks. Lemieux now oversees its security operations, incident response, service delivery and continuous improvement, working closely with member organizations. He became cybersecurity manager in January 2022 after a year as a cybersecurity administrator at RISQ. His path into the field included service as an infantry officer, psychological operations officer and information systems security officer in the Canadian Armed Forces. He also gained major incident and crisis management experience with the City of Laval. At RISQ’s 2025 colloquium, he was on the program to discuss the evolution of the active-monitoring SOC service.
Kevin Paul – Director, Cybersecurity, Cybera
Kevin Paul arrived at Cybera in May 2023 after 17 years with the Calgary Police Service. His final role there was as Sergeant leading the Cybercrime Team, overseeing investigations into ransomware, data breaches, intrusions, fraud and cryptocurrency crime. At Cybera, he has led the creation of Alberta’s Regional Security Operations Centre (rSOC), building it from concept into a 24×7 service supporting post-secondary institutions across the province. Paul built the team from zero employees and secured more than $4 million in government, grant and partner funding. Partnerships with CANARIE, CanSSOC and AARNet enable shared threat intelligence and follow-the-sun security operations. The rSOC has onboarded multiple Alberta institutions, including a U15 research university.
Benjamin Reid – Cyber Security Manager, Digital Research Alliance of Canada
Benjamin Reid works where cybersecurity meets the shared computing infrastructure behind Canadian research. As Cyber Security Manager at the Digital Research Alliance of Canada since March 2022, he has collaborated on cybersecurity initiatives across the Alliance Federation. At CANARIE’s 2025 SecuR&E Forum, Reid joined CANARIE and the Research-Intensive Group in a session on a joint cyber resilience program. He has also been listed as a presenter for a cybersecurity update at DRI Connect 2026. Reid came to the Alliance from Simon Fraser University. There, he spent more than a decade in systems administration, infrastructure engineering and information security, most recently as an information security analyst in advanced research computing.
John Cuzzola – Director of Information Security, Thompson Rivers University
For a smaller university security team, the challenge often lies less in collecting threat signals than in connecting them. John Cuzzola has tackled that problem at Thompson Rivers University. There, he has brought telemetry together in Microsoft Sentinel alongside Defender XDR, Purview and Entra. Cuzzola says correlation work that once consumed most of the day now takes a few hours in the morning. He became Director of Information Security in June 2021. Before that, he spent two decades leading technology for the Kamloops-Thompson school district. His career also includes research work with Ryerson University’s Laboratory for Systems, Software and Semantics, which produced scientific publications and two patents. At TRU, he taught ethical hacking and biometric authentication as a sessional lecturer.
Security Leadership Built on Collaboration
Canada’s research and education community has made shared capability a deliberate strategy. National programs, provincial security operations centers and shared CISO models all extend expertise to institutions that could not build it alone. The leaders featured here show how that model works in practice, from setting national direction to running 24×7 operations and connecting the signals a single campus team can act on.
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John Kevin Hao is a news and feature writer covering cybersecurity, technology, and business targeted for professional audiences.