Monique Simair

Director, Slogotski Hunt Centre for Entrepreneurship, University of Saskatchewan

Monique Simair, PhD, is a scientist and two-time exited founder who has spent nearly 20 years building and commercializing deep tech for mining and industrial water treatment.

In 2010, Monique launched the first commercial environmental microbiology genomics assays for the mining sector through Contango Strategies. The company was acquired in 2018. Her second company, Maven Water & Environment, developed practical, lower-energy approaches to industrial water treatment. Maven was named Saskatchewan’s 2022 ABEX Business of the Year before being acquired in 2025.

Dr. Simair designed Canada’s first full-scale, permitted gravel-bed bioreactor for mine-water treatment. Installed at an Ontario gold mine, the system progressed from pilot to full scale in less than two years and can treat 20 million litres of tailings water each day using biological processes.

Her work has earned her ECO Canada’s 2021 ECO Impact EP Award and recognition from Profit Magazine as one of Canada’s future entrepreneurial leaders. She was also the youngest person appointed to Canada’s Science, Technology and Innovation Council. Her current focus is on developing new ways to grow Canada’s economy through entrepreneurship, serving as the inaugural Director of the Slogotski Hunt Centre for Entrepreneurship at the University of Saskatchewan.