Highly Qualified Personnel (HQP)

Shalane Basque

Biography: Shalane Basque is a research project manager at ICES. She holds an MSc in health and rehabilitation sciences from Western University and has worked as a project manager for over 10 years in healthcare. With a multifaceted background spanning clinical practice, project management, and research, she brings a unique blend of skills to effectively oversee trials in real-world settings. Currently at ICES, Shalane manages a pragmatic, cluster-randomized registry trial aimed at leveraging big data to assess the real-world effectiveness of a multicomponent intervention study. The intervention focuses on developing evidence-based tools to optimize lipid management, tailored to reduce physician workload and enhance the knowledge and clinical outcomes of patients residing in high-risk communities.

Yaminee Charavanapavan

Biography: Yaminee Charavanapavan is the Research Program Manager for the Subbarao Lab at SickKids Hospital where she oversees and implements pediatric asthma research initiatives including clinical research studies, such as the Canadian Healthy Infant Longitudinal Development (CHILD) Cohort Study – one of Canada’s largest general population-based cohort studies in Canada. Yaminee also supports clinical research initiatives in the Severe Asthma Clinic at SickKids. Currently she is working on implementing retrospective and prospective asthma registries to incorporate pragmatics trials for preschool asthma treatment and a pilot study to validate the use of a non-invasive predictive screening tool that identifies infants who are at high-risk of asthma symptoms and asthma-related health care use. Yaminee has a Master of Health Science in Health Administration from the University of Toronto and a Certification of Clinical Research Associate.

Luan Chu

Biography: Luan Chu currently works as a Senior Analyst/Research II within Provincial Research Data Services, Alberta Health Services in collaboration with the Alberta SPOR SUPPORT Unit. His current work involves the use of health registries, electronic medical records, and administrative data and collaboration with the Canadian VIGOUR Centre (CVC), an academic research organization at the University of Alberta, to answer research questions related to cardiovascular disease. Having completed his Doctoral degree in Health Sciences, Luan has obtained advanced programming skills and statistical knowledge in a variety of research areas including chronic diseases (diabetes, metabolic syndrome, liver diseases, and cardiovascular diseases), and complex biostatistical analysis approaches. He has been the first author and co-authors in various academic journal publications. He is interested in professional development training opportunities to upgrade his knowledge and skills by involving in a variety of self-paced training via public platforms. His current interest is to incorporate the concept of pragmatism into current traditional randomized clinical trials by using real-world data in cardiovascular trials. Outside his work, he enjoys travelling, skydiving, whitewater rafting, and long-distance hiking.

Erin DeBorba

Biography: Erin DeBorba is a junior research coordinator working in the Perioperative Department at Population Health Research Institute (PHRI). She graduated with an MSc in cognitive science of language from McMaster University. Erin was awarded the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council grant for her thesis focusing on the impact of short-term memory on second language learning. She worked on the STRATUS trial, which investigated the use of small-volume collection tubes for laboratory testing in intensive care units (ICU) for red blood cell (RBC) transfusions. Erin is currently investigating the outcome of delirium in cardiac patients through the restricted or standard care use of benzodiazepines in the B-Free Trial. This trial will assist in optimizing care for cardiac patients and reducing delirium outcomes.

Robin Ducharme

Biography: Robin Ducharme has been involved in academic research at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute since 2009 after receiving a BSc in Neuroscience from Carleton University. In 2014, she received a MSc in Epidemiology from the University of Ottawa, which involved a thesis project conducted at ICES. Her career focused on large data research from that point forward, in the role of ICES Analyst at the Ottawa site, and more recently, as a Senior Clinical Research Associate in the Obstetrics & Maternal Newborn Investigations (OMNI) Research Group. Her role within OMNI is to support the development and conduct of various perinatal research projects, primarily those involving the use of large databases.

Karin Eldred

Biography: Karin has her MSc in Rehabilitation Science and her BSc in Physiotherapy from the University of Alberta. She worked in rural healthcare centres as a frontline physiotherapist for nearly 20 years before relocating to Calgary where she now works as the Physiotherapy Research Clinician at Alberta Children’s hospital. She is interested in innovations related to physiotherapy assessments and interventions for children with Cerebral Palsy and other causes of chronic physical disability. She is also interested in advancing the role of physiotherapists within various healthcare settings with the aim of improving service delivery and experiences of children and their families. When she is not working, you can find her exploring the outdoors on skis, hiking boots, or her mountain bike.

Scott Emerson

Biography: Scott Emerson is the Senior Epidemiologist within the Epidemiology and Population Health Program of the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, an HIV focused research and treatment facility that also operates a primary care clinic serving vulnerable populations in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Scott leads and supports capacity-building efforts to better inform the use of routinely collected health data for research and evaluation purposes. He completed an MSc from UBC’s School of Population and Public Health (SPPH), and has previously held analytic roles at various organizations including ICES, Children's Hospital Research Institute, and UBC's SPPH.

Gordon Fernie

Biography: I am an experienced researcher with 15 years’ experience delivering research projects, including 7 years delivering clinical trials in the public and private sector. Since being awarded my PhD in Psychology in 2007, I have worked in several research areas including addiction and psychiatry before moving into managing clinical trials in 2012. In my last employment before leaving Scotland in 2021, at Q2 Solutions, an IQVIA subsidiary specialized in delivering laboratory services for the international clinical trials industry, I project-managed lab services for up to 15 concurrent trials at a Global (lead) or Regional (e.g. European) level. Prior to that, at the Centre for Healthcare Randomised Trials (CHART), within the Health Services Research Unit (HSRU) at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, I was Trial Manager on 3 concurrent randomized clinical trials at different stages of their lifecycle. These trials were pragmatic, comparing standard treatments against each other, often funded because they sought to fill an evidence gap or patient-centred research question. I have been a Clinical Research Assistant at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute since April 2023. I work with Shane English on his portfolio of Critical Care studies and clinical trials investigating subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) – bleeding in the brain caused by an aneurysm rupture. One of the studies we will be running includes creating a living registry of all SAH cases at The Ottawa Hospital using electronic health record (EHR) data.

Manoela de Paula Ferreira

Biography: Manoela de Paula Ferreira holds a PhD in physical education. She completed a postdoc fellowship at the University of Toronto in 2022, where she worked on a CIHR-funded study focused on sarcopenia and frailty in solid organ transplantation (SOT). In December 2023, she joined The Canadian Donation and Transplantation Research Program (CDTRP) as a Research Services Manager. She works closely with network investigators to advance their projects. She is developing a strategic plan to incorporate governance models, research tools and support for randomized control trials in donation and transplantation. She is also supporting a group of investigators focused on advancing pragmatic pediatric kidney transplant clinical trials using international registry databases. 

Chris Folkins

Biography: Dr. Chris Folkins is a Research Scientist with the New Brunswick Institute for Research, Data and Training (NB-IRDT) at the University of New Brunswick. He completed his PhD with the Department of Medical Biophysics at the University of Toronto and is a registered pharmacist who has practiced in both community and hospital settings while making several contributions to pharmacy practice research. In his role at NB-IRDT, Dr. Folkins leads a portfolio of health research collaborations with government and private sector partners aimed at using administrative data to support evidence-informed decision making in New Brunswick and beyond. Dr Folkins’ research interests include population health, health service delivery and real-world drug studies.

Neciula de Paula Carneiro Porto Gomes

Biography: Gomes is a research associate in Critical Care Medicine at Western University, focused on improving care standards in ventilator weaning protocols and sleep quality in ICUs. With a Ph.D. in Health Economics and a Master's in Biochemistry and Physiology, she has a strong foundation in health sciences and public health. During her postdoctoral at Western University, Dr. Gomes has worked on interprofessional collaboration, education, and health innovation in IoT medical devices and digital health. She has also contributed as a health professional in various hospital and community settings, focusing on continuous development, patient safety, and health management excellence. Motivated by her extensive experience in health, education, research, and development, Dr. Gomes aspires to leave a legacy of integral care for all healthcare stakeholders.

Stefana Jovanovska

Biography: Stefana is a Senior Research Project Manager on the Data and Analytic Services (DAS) team at ICES. With a diverse professional background encompassing analytical chemistry, quality control, and clinical research, she offers a wealth of expertise to her role. Stefana's primary focus is supporting publicly funded research as well as multi provincial projects support in collaboration with the HDRN Data Access Support Hub (DASH) team. Since joining ICES in 2016, she has supported over a thousand project teams, while striving to streamline processes and enhance.

Lauren Killin

Biography: I come into the HDRN Canada Pragmatic Training Program (HQP stream) with an MSc in Epidemiology and Biostatistics from Western University. I transitioned from my MSc program directly into pragmatic trials work as an epidemiologist with the ICES KDT program, and pragmatic trials that make use of health administrative data have been the focus on my work for the past ~4 years. Currently in my role I support the planning, implementation, and analysis of several pragmatic trials that make use of health administrative data. These include the pan-Canadian cluster RCT Dial Mag, and the MyTEMP trial.

Maja Kovats

Biography: Maja completed her Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science in 2016 at the University of Toronto, and returned in 2022 to complete the Master of Health Informatics program at the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation. She has worked for the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health since 2017 with the Drug & Alcohol Treatment Information System (DATIS) team supporting various data system implementations and improvements within the community mental health and addictions sector. Maja aspires to connect the vast amount of administrative data in this space with novel research to improve the lives of people experiencing serious mental illness. Maja also has two rambunctious toddlers and resides in downtown Toronto.

Robyn Kydd

Biography: Robyn Kydd is an epidemiologist with a broad academic background, including a Master of Science in Community Health and Epidemiology (College of Medicine, University of Saskatchewan,) a Ph.D. in Veterinary Medicine (Western College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Saskatchewan), and a Bachelor of Science in Biology (University of Victoria). Robyn has led and contributed to research and evaluation projects on a wide variety of topics. Her area of expertise includes research methods, program evaluation, quantitative and qualitative data analysis, survey development, systematic and scoping reviews, burden of disease methods, and biostatistics. Currently at the Centre for Health and Community Research (CHCR) at the University of Prince Edward Island (UPEI), Robyn provides guidance and scientific expertise for research and evaluation projects. Her role also includes supporting Secure Island Data Repository (SIDR) researcher consults, data access requests, and the development of agreements, procedures, and data workflows. Outside of her professional endeavors, Robyn enjoys hanging out with her family, exploring the beaches and trails of PEI, and baking bread.

Lauren Laing

Biography: Lauren is a research coordinator at London Health Sciences Centre. She holds a BSc (Hons.) Kinesiology from Western University in. She has always been excited to experience the hands-on aspect of research by working as a research coordinator whose role is pivotal in initiating and facilitating research projects. Currently, Lauren is helping develop a pragmatic trial that uses data collected from publicly funded health services to identify individuals who may have unrecognized chronic kidney disease and help connect them with the kidney care they need. Lauren is excited to be part of this program to continue to expand her knowledge on pragmatic trials.

Nicole Langlois

Biography: I am a Senior Research Associate with the Thrombosis Research Program / Ottawa Blood Disease Centre at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute and serve part-time as the Manager of Clinical Research for CanVECTOR, a national research network. I have had the honour of working with and learning from many investigators, trainees, research personnel, and patient partners from across Canada, resulting in diverse experience with clinical research methods, practices, and roles. My background is in nursing, with a BSc from Laurentian University where I first discovered a love of clinical research, then at Queen's University where I was in the first graduating class of the Master of Science in Nursing Research program. On weekends my favourite place to be is outdoors and on the move.

Heather LaPier

Biography: Heather LaPier is a clinical research assistant and study coordinator at St. Joseph’s Health Care in London, Ontario. She completed her Bachelor of Science in Microbiology at the University of Guelph in 2021, and an Ontario College Graduate Certificate in Clinical Research at Seneca College in 2022. Since July 2022, Heather has been a clinical research assistant for Lawson Health Research Institute at St. Joseph’s Health Care in the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism. She has worked on investigator-driven and industry studies, clinical studies and qualitative research. Working with Dr. Kristin Clemens, Heather has had the opportunity to get involved in pragmatic clinical research, as a research assistant on the PREFERRED-1 (Preventing Fracture in Renal Disease) trial and as the study coordinator for the OK-TRANSPLANT program (Obesity Management for Kidney TRANSPLANTation).

Henry Li

Biography: Henry is an Emergency Medicine Resident & Pediatric Emergency Medicine Fellow at the University of Alberta. He completed medical school at the University of Manitoba where he served as President of the Canadian Federation of Medical Students. He is passionate about leveraging big data and artificial intelligence to improve physician wellbeing and the quality of emergency care. He holds provincial and national peer-reviewed grants and actively contributes to multiple journals as a reviewer. Current areas of scholarship include the measurement of physician and learner wellbeing, diagnostic quality for pulmonary embolisms, risks and benefits of opioid prescribing, as well as language barriers in the emergency department. 

Kathy Li

Biography: Kathy is a lawyer and privacy professional who currently works as the Manager, Privacy at ICES. She is very interested in how data can be used to solve real-world problems and is pursuing a Master of Business Analytics and Artificial Intelligence to further her technical knowledge of these areas and how they intersect with law, policy, and ethics.

Laura MacLagan

Biography: Laura Maclagan is a Senior Epidemiologist in the Life Stage Research Program at ICES Central in Toronto, Ontario. She completed an MSc in Epidemiology at McGill University and a BScH in Biology at Queen’s University. Laura started her career at ICES in 2012, where she designs, analyzes and reports on health services research studies using large health administrative databases. Her recent work has focused on health care utilization, costs, and prescribing in persons living with neurodegenerative diseases. She has recently been involved in several pan-Canadian studies examining chronic condition surveillance and the impact of COVID-19 in persons living with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. Laura’s work has been published in a variety of high impact peer-reviewed journals including JAMA Health Forum, European Respiratory Journal, Medical Care, Age and Aging, the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (JAGS), and BMJ Open.

Kristin MacLennan

Biography: Experienced Program Manager with a demonstrated history of working in the hospital and health care industry. Research Professional with a Master's Degree in Science from Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson University) and a post graduate certificate in Health Economics. I am a certified Project Management Professional through the Project Management Institute (PMI) and a Certified Clinical Research Professional through the Society of Clinical Research Associates (SoCRA). My research focus in in health equity, specifically around HIV and other STBBIs, bringing new medical devices to market in Canada and getting these into the hands of community to get tested, know their status, get treatment and connected to appropriate care. My research experience includes Implementation Science, Patient-Oriented Research and Community Based Research Methodologies.

Kailee Morrison

Biography: After graduating from Queen’s University with a BSc (Hons.) degree in 2022, I enrolled in the University of Western Ontario’s Clinical Trials Management diploma program with the hopes of venturing into the world of clinical research. Shortly after, I got hired as a Research Coordinator at St. Catharines Hospital. Since then, I have grown immensely as a research coordinator thanks to the ongoing support and learning opportunities provided by the Niagara Health research program and staff. Last October, I received the CanVECTOR 2023 (Terri Schnurr) Clinical Research Coordinator of the Year award at the VASCULAR 2023 conference in Montreal. I am looking forward to continuing a meaningful career in clinical research in the Niagara region and to make research more accessible in the community.

Benjamin Norman

Biography: I am currently the lab manager for the Pediatric Onset of Neuromotor Impairments Lab, or PONI Lab, at the University of Calgary. Our lab focuses on researching rehabilitation strategies for people with pediatric onset neuromotor impairments, such as cerebral palsy. Our lab is based out of the Alberta Children’s Hospital in Calgary, Alberta. Our current work is focused on rehabilitation strategies such as robotic gait training and power training, as well as movement evaluation techniques such as markerless motion capture.  

Richard Perez

Biography: Richard Perez is a staff scientist with the Populations & Public Health Research Program at ICES. He is affiliated with the ICES McMaster site, where he oversees various research initiatives and all projects conducted at the site. He holds MSc and PhD degrees in Epidemiology from the University of Ottawa. He is also an Assistant Professor with the Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence, & Impact within the Faculty of Health Sciences at McMaster University. Within this academic capacity at the university, he is developing and teaching various graduate courses that focus on applied epidemiology, health services research, and data science.

Sandra Peterson

Biography: Sandra is a Research Analyst with the Centre for Health Services and Policy Research (CHSPR), University of British Columbia and holds a BSc (Hons) in physics and an MSc in physics from the University of Manitoba. Sandra has almost 30 years of experience working with administrative health data, first at the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy for 9 years, followed by 20 years with CHSPR. During her time at CHSPR, Sandra’s primary focus has been providing data analysis support for a wide range of projects using the Population Data BC linked administrative databases, including several multi-jurisdiction research projects. Sandra’s interests also include the development and documentation of standardized approaches for the use of routinely collected healthcare administrative data, to further the reproducibility and replicability of administrative data research. For the past 5 years, Sandra has been an active member of Health Data Research Network (HDRN) Canada, participating in the Algorithms and Harmonized Data (AHD) working group, the Data Access Support Hub (DASH) working group and the Common Data Model (CDM) working group.

Agathe Prieur Chaintre

Biography: Agathe Prieur Chaintré is a clinical research coordinator specializing in the field of aging. Having studied on three continents (France, Australia and Canada), she has gained international expertise in biology, nursing and gerontology. After practising as a nurse with the elderly, she earned a master's degree in gerontology from the Université de Sherbrooke (UdeS), where her research project focused on the social participation of older adults with hearing impairment. Currently she coordinates innovative projects at the Research Centre on Aging in Sherbrooke, affiliated with the UdeS, aiming to promote social participation to enhance the health and well-being of older adults.

Christina Qian

Biography: Christina is a director at Broadstreet HEOR, with an MSc in epidemiology from McGill University, specializing in pharmacoepidemiology. She has eight years of experience in pharmacoepidemiology research, specializing in non-interventional real world evidence studies using a variety of large administrative data sources from across North America. Her work has covered a range of disease areas including acute and chronic respiratory diseases, metabolic associated conditions, neuromuscular diseases, oncology, hematology, and other rare diseases.

Jennifer Reid

Biography: I have been an analytic epidemiologist at ICES Western for over 7 years. This experience has given me a strong foundation in both statistical methodology and administrative data. Recently, I was promoted to an Associate Research Methodologist role, with the intent to further develop methodology and support ICES Western initiatives, including expanding our ability to support trial work with routinely collected data.

Terry Saunders-Smith

Biography: Terry Saunders-Smith is the Trials Coordinator for the Health Policy Trails Unit at the University of Calgary. She has 16 years of experience managing both industry and investigator-driven projects.  She has managed health policy trials for the last 7 years alongside Dr. David Campbell. She has training in patient-oriented research and pragmatic clinical trials from the Alberta SPOR SUPPORT Unit. Additionally, she has completed certificates in Professional Management and Project Management from the University of Calgary.

Jyotpal Singh

Biography: Jyotpal Singh is a research scientist with the Saskatchewan Health Authority. He has extensive experience conducting clinical trials and has been involved in many international registries focused on cardiac disease. His current research interests include clinical trials methodology, clinical outcomes of pulmonary, cardiovascular and neurological diseases, and rehabilitation. Expanding on this, Jyotpal is interested in studying different clinical pathways to better understand their potential for improving patient outcomes, and ultimately, improve their quality of life. Finally, Jyotpal is also a passionate teacher about research and works closely with acute care and frontline personnel, physicians, medical learners, and other healthcare providers.

Victoria Telford

Biography: My background consists of a Masters of Arts from Wilfrid Laurier University where my psychology research focussed on adolescent and young adult moral identity development. Over the last three years I have made the shift to clinical research, specifically conducting randomized clinical trials within the adult population. I currently work as a Research Coordinator in the department of Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology (CPT) at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton coordinating our current study on the effects of expert CPT medication management intervention during hospitalization and follow-up post-discharge on patient medication management. I am also currently assisting with the development of a Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology e-curriculum for Canadian medical students.

Heather Walker

Biography: Heather Walker completed her degree at McGill University and initially worked as a labor and delivery nurse and community nurse. However, her interest shifted towards data-driven solutions, leading her to complete an MSc in epidemiology at Université de Montréal, focusing on programming and data-analysis. During her studies, Heather served as a research coordinator and gained experience contributing to research projects with Dr. Kate Zinszer. She also gained proficiency in various modeling techniques, including time series analysis, generalized additive mixed models, DLNM (Distributed Lag Non-linear Models), spatio-temporal modeling, and a range of machine learning approaches. Today, Heather is part of the OMNI group, where she applies her expertise in study design, statistics, and data analysis to contribute to clinical research in the field of maternal-child health. She later became a statistical programmer, specializing in data analysis for pharmaceutical research.

Nancy Chang Wang

Biography: Chang (Nancy) Wang is a PGY4 Cardiology resident at Western University. She completed her internal medicine and Masters of Epidemiology training through the Clinical Investigator Program at Queen's University. Nancy is passionate about cardiovascular medicine and health services research, and aspires to become a clinician-scientist. Outside of medicine, Nancy enjoys painting, origami, model building, baking, yoga and hiking with her husband and black lab Moxi.

Todd Wilson

Biography: Todd Wilson is a statistician with a PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Calgary. His current research focuses on statistical risk prediction tools for adverse chronic kidney disease and cardiovascular outcomes, in addition to research methods for understanding patient preferences and values towards invasive versus conservative management of heart disease and providing statistical support to various research teams. His research involves collaborations with several multidisciplinary teams including the Alberta Provincial Project for Outcomes Assessment in Coronary Heart Disease (APPROACH), the Can-SOLVE CKD Strategy for Patient Oriented Research (SPOR) Chronic Disease Network, the Alberta Kidney Disease Network, and the Clinical Nephrology Research Group. Todd’s research for the HDRN Canada Pragmatic Trials Training Program will involve a step-wedged, cluster randomized trial where a risk prediction model will be implemented into the electronic medical record (EMR) in a number of clinical zones over the province of Alberta time to assist in identifying patients at high risk of developing acute kidney injury following non-cardiac surgery.

Gray Yinggan Zheng

Biography: Gray Yinggan Zheng is a senior biostatistician with the Canadian VIGOUR Centre (CVC) at the University of Alberta. With solid training background in statistics, econometrics and measurement, he has been exposed to the full spectrum of research settings, ranging from observational studies based on administrative health data/population cohorts, registries and clinical trial data to the design and analysis of clinical studies, as well as working with operational colleagues on primary collection and management of data in clinical trials. His research interests include stepped wedge trial design, causal inference, and patient risk stratification in acute coronary syndromes and acute heart failure.

Yunxu Zhu

Biography: Yunxu Zhu currently works as a Research Assistant at Lawson Health Research Insitute, supporting various studies on diabetes, chronic kidney disease, osteoporosis and acromegaly. Before joining Lawson, she completed her Bachelor of Medical Sciences in Honours Interdisciplinary Medical Sciences at Westen University. Her undergraduate research focused on investigating the role of neuroinflammation in neurodegenerative diseases and stroke. Beyond research, Yunxu is committed to addressing disparities in healthcare and education. Her interests converge at the intersection of health, research and education, where she aspires to make meaningful contributions.