This week we are recognizing one of the eight 2026 Elsie award winners. Named after Elsie MacGill, the chief aeronautical engineer at Canadian Car and Foundry who oversaw the production of 1,451 Hawker Hurricanes during the Second World War, these are annual awards given by the Northern Lights Aero Foundation, an organization whose vision is “To be the Premier organization in Canada that inspires, supports, and promotes women in the field of aviation and aerospace.” You can learn more about the organization by clicking here.
The fifth of eight award recipients is featured this week.
Katia Canciani, recognized with the Government Award
Katia Canciani is the Head of the Conflict Zone Information Office (CZIO) at Transport Canada, Civil Aviation and the Chair of the International Safer Skies Consultative Committee. In 2020, she was instrumental in establishing Canada’s CZIO and in developing the Safer Skies Initiative, aimed at mitigating the risks of flying over conflict zones. She leads the Safer Skies Forum, a recurrent event dedicated to strengthening how the global civil aviation community mitigates safety and security risks. As a Civil Transportation Staff Officer at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, she provided expert advice that bolstered NATO’s and Allies’ resilience and support in an extremely challenging security environment. Katia was the first Canadian and first woman to be elected as Chair of the NATO Transport Group Civil Aviation Committee. A commercial pilot and mother of three, she holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communications and has authored 50 books for children and adults. She won the 2020 Governor General’s Literary Award for Young People’s Literature, and her biography of Clément Ader, inventor of the aircraft, received the 2023 Saint-Exupéry-valeurs jeunesse literary award, in France.
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