Janice Parente has spent more than thirty years advocating for the rights, safety and welfare of research participants, working to strengthen protections and advance human research accreditation in Canada.

Janice is the author of Ethics on Trial: Protecting Humans in Canada’s Broken Research System (Dundurn Press, 2025), which examines the structural governance failures that have allowed unethical research practices to persist. She is currently writing her second book, They Came for Care: Inside Canada’s Quiet Return to Unethical Human Experimentation, scheduled for publication by Dundurn Press in 2027.

Born in Hamilton, Ontario, Janice earned a B.Sc. in biochemistry from McMaster University, followed by a Ph.D. in medicine (molecular pharmacology) at the University of Alberta and a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Calgary.

Janice began her career in clinical research within the pharmaceutical industry and, in 1992, founded a research company that grew into two successful operating companies: ethica CRO and Veritas IRB. She later established two non-profits dedicated to Canadian human research accreditation and national standards development: HRA Canada and HRSO.

Janice is the proud mother of two daughters - both women in STEM pursuing postgraduate degrees. She lives with Olivia, her South Korean rescue dog, on a peaceful lake in the Quebec Laurentians.