EpiBio Research Day 2025
We are delighted to invite you to attend the third annual EpiBio Research Day 2025, taking place on Monday, April 7th, from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM in PHFM 1150.
Hosted by the Western Epidemiology and Biostatistics Student Council (WEBSC), this full-day event celebrates the outstanding research contributions of students from the Departments of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Statistical & Actuarial Sciences. The day will feature a diverse lineup of both oral and poster presentations, offering valuable insights into current topics in population health, statistics, and beyond.
We are also honoured to welcome our keynote speaker, Dr. Nicole Redvers (DPhil, ND, MPH). Dr. Redvers is a member of the Deninu K’ue First Nation (Northwest Territories) and an internationally recognized leader in Indigenous health and healing systems. Her work bridges Indigenous knowledge with academic research, and her keynote promises to be both inspiring and thought-provoking.
We encourage all students, faculty, and staff to attend — whether you're presenting, supporting a peer, or simply interested in learning more about ongoing research within our departments. Your participation helps foster a strong, collaborative academic community.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Ruiming Han or Deena Qaisi. We look forward to seeing you on April 7th for a day of connection, discovery, and celebration of student research!
Keynote Address
Dr. Nicole Redvers
Dr. Nicole Redvers, DPhil, ND, MPH, is a member of the Deninu K’ue First Nation (NWT) and has worked with Indigenous patients, scholars, and communities around the globe her entire career. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, and is a Western Research Chair and Director of Indigenous Planetary Health at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry at Western University. She has been actively involved at regional, national, and international levels promoting the inclusion of Indigenous perspectives in both human and planetary health research and practice.
Indigenous Health Research: Data and Decolonization
Indigenous Peoples have often been excluded from health research which has led to a data landscape saturated with data that is deficit-based or blaming data, aggregate data, decontextualized data, government priority data, and restricted access data. This presentation will examine these issues, and highlight some of the important nuances that epidemiologist need to be aware of when working with Indigenous Health-related data.
Opening and Closing Remarks
Dr. Kelly Anderson
Dr. Anderson is an Associate Professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics and Psychiatry at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry and an adjunct scientist at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences. She is also a Canada Research Chair in Public Mental Health Research, and is one of few researchers in the world using population-based health administrative data to study first onset psychosis. She is a research leader on both the epidemiology of psychotic disorders, as well as health services research on early psychosis intervention. She is particularly skilled at identifying crucial questions of high clinical and public health relevance.
Dr. Osvaldo Espin-Garcia
Dr. Espin-Garcia holds a PhD in Biostatistics from the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto an MMath in
Statistics-Biostatistics from the University of Waterloo and a BSc in Actuarial Sciences from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). Prior to joining Western, he worked as Principal Biostatistician at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre. His collaborations have led him to publish over 50 peer-reviewed articles involving complex traits such a cancer, Crohn’s disease and osteoarthritis. Dr. Espin-Garcia currently serves as a scientific member of the Ontario Cancer Research Ethics Board (OCREB) and is part of the Health Data Working Group.
Schedule
| 9:00 | Door Open | PHFM 1150 |
| 9:30-10:00 | Sign-up and Breakfast | PHFM 1150 |
| 10:00-10:10 | Opening Remarks | PHFM 1150 |
| 10:10-10:40 | Keynote Presentation | PHFM 1150 |
| 10:40-12:40 | Concurrent Oral Presentation | PHFM 3014/3015 |
| 12:40-1:30 | Lunch | PHFM 1150 |
| 1:30-3:30 | Poster Presentations (Voting stops at 3:00) | PHFM 1150 |
| 3:30-3:40 | Award Ceremony | PHFM 1150 |
| 3:40-4:00 | Closing Remarks | PHFM 1150 |
