Obituary: Pierre Pluye 1962–2023
Our esteemed colleague and friend Pierre Pluye passed away on August 1st 2023 at the young age of 60.
Pierre Pluye was trained as a medical doctor (MD, PhD), a full-time researcher, full professor in the Department of Family Medicine and associate member of the School of Information Sciences (McGill University, Montreal, Canada). He was a member of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences (CAHS). Pierre Pluye was specialised in mixed methods research (integrating quantitative and qualitative methods) and mixed literature reviews (including studies that use quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods).
I met Pierre at an ASIST conference in Montreal in 2013. Pierre came to speak to me about my presentation at the conference and we struck up an academic friendship with a mutual desire to collaborate. True to his promise, Pierre made contact a few months after the ASIST conference with several collaboration opportunities. When he was due for a sabbatical leave in 2019, Pierre came as an invited Professor to the School of Journalism & Communication in Aix-Marseille University in France. He participated in one of my classes on information retrieval and was very much appreciated by my students. I was also invited as thesis committee member of one of his PhD students.
Pierre was also a very conscientious Editorial Board member of Education For Information (EFI). I sent him many articles on mixed methods and information search to review. His reviews were always thoughtful, detailed and constructive.
With Vera Granikov he guest-edited two special issues on “Evaluating online health information sources using a mixed methods approach: Part I & II” (https://content.iospress.com/journals/education-for-information/34/4) which were delivered with maximum speed and proficiency.
We also discussed future collaborations on my current research focus on racism and Pierre suggested collaborating with one of his new Phd students who was interested in this topic.
I have been aware of Pierre falling ill practically after he returned from his sabbatical in 2019 and I had been following his progress in and out of hospital and praying for him. I was very sad to learn that he finally lost his battle with the illness and passed away this summer.
Together with the Editorial Board of EFI and the staff at IOS Press, we extend our heartfelt condolences to his family, his colleagues at McGill University and his students.
Pierre will be sorely missed. He was one of the truly noble and golden ones!
May his kind and loving soul R.I.P
Fidelia Ibekwe
Editor-in-Chief of EFI
Professor of Library & Information Science
Aix-Marseille University
France
ps. Obituary testaments for Pierre Pluye can be found here:
