Health After 2020 Dialogue Sessions

Dr. Nitasha Puri is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Medicine at UBC and Medical Lead at the Roshni Clinic in Fraser Health. Her research interests broadly centre on substance use among racialized populations, healing and recovery, and health equity. As an addition medicine physician originally trained in family medicine, she is involved in teaching addiction medicine fellows and leading an innovative culturally tailored outpatient addiction service for people of South Asian ancestry living with substance use disorder.

As founder of the non-profit youth-led organization Students Overcoming Substance Use Disorder and Addictions (SOUDA) Society of Canada, Gurkirat Singh Nijjar is responsible for bringing life-saving resources to the community. Team SOUDA offers education, resources, naloxone training, and conversation in four languages to help break the stigma and encourage harm reduction strategies. Since 2019, Gurkirat has led his team of volunteers to set up opioid overdose response and prevention booths at community events, places of worship, and parks. He has also worked to improve pedestrian road safety in Surrey through a road safety campaign and has made time to volunteer with the Chimo Community Services crisis line program, along with volunteering in the community kitchen of Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara and the food bank. He is also a Fraser Health wellness ambassador and serves as a community outreach director at One Voice Canada. Gurkirat is currently a third-year BSc Chemistry student at UBC.

Dupinder Kaur Saran (Jaswal) is a registered nurse with 24 years of varied nursing experience and has a passion for community service and advocacy. She founded Nurse On the Go Home and Healthcare Services and One Voice Canada Foundation, which helps support, create awareness, and advocate for international students. She is also a trustee and vice-chair at the Surrey libraries and a director with a few non-profit organizations. Dupinder devotes her time volunteering in the community with youth, women, seniors, and those in need.

Kulpreet Singh is founder of the South Asian Mental Health Alliance (SAMHAA), a non-profit network dedicated to mental health awareness, acceptance, support, and empowerment. SAMHAA was created to provide a safe forum where members of the South Asian community can come together to create awareness of mental health issues, fight stigma and misinformation, and bridge the gap between the community and mental health resource providers.

Harleen Dhami graduated with a Bachelor of Science from UBC. She previously did research work at Stigma and Resilience Amongst Vulnerable Youth. She is passionate about community-based research, knowledge translation, and creation of culturally sensitive resources.  In her free time, she loves to spend time outdoors running or doing yoga.

Veena Sriram is an Assistant Professor with a joint appointment in the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs in the Faculty of Arts and the School of Population and Public Health in the Faculty of Medicine at UBC. Her research sits at the intersection of global health, social science, and public policy, and her interests are in understanding power and politics in health policy processes in low- and middle-income countries. She draws upon theory and methodologies from the social sciences in conducting her research and has a particular focus on qualitative approaches. Her work has been published in interdisciplinary journals, such as Social Science and Medicine, BMJ Global Health, and Health Policy and Planning.

Veena has a particular focus on health workforce policy and health sector governance. She has conducted extensive research at the national and state level in India, exploring a range of health policy and system questions, including medical specialization, health workforce policy development, the functioning of national health authorities, and emergency care systems. She has also contributed to expanding the application of theory and concepts to study power in health policy and systems research. Veena also writes regularly on contemporary issues in global health policy in forums, such as International Health Policies, and is actively involved with Health Systems Global and Emerging Voices for Global Health.

Veena has been awarded fellowships from the American Institute of Indian Studies and the US Fulbright Program. She has led the design and execution of qualitative research funded by the US National Institutes of Health (Fogarty International Center and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality), the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. She has also consulted for the World Health Organization.

Peter Berman is a health economist with almost 50 years of experience in research, policy analysis and development, and training and education in global health. He is Professor at the School of Population and Public Health in the Faculty of Medicine at UBC, where he was also Director from 2019-21. He is affiliated as Adjunct Professor at the Public Health Foundation of India and as advisor to the China National Health Development Research Center for healthcare financing and health accounts. He was Adjunct Professor in Global Health at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health at Harvard University, where he was on faculty as Professor until 2019 and the founding faculty director of Harvard Chan’s Doctor of Public Health degree.

Peter’s current research at UBC focuses on key factors affecting government decision-making in response to public health crises and has been closely engaged in health systems research in Ethiopia since 2012. He has led and/or participated in major field programs in all regions of the developing world.

Peter is the editor-in-chief of the book series World Scientific Series in Global Health Economics and Public Policy and author/editor of six books on global health economics and policy, more than 60 academic papers in his field, and numerous other working papers and reports. He is also co-author of Getting Health Reform Right: A Guide to Improving Performance and Equity, co-author/editor of Tracking Resources for Primary Health Care: A Framework and Practices in Low- and Middle-Income Countries, co-editor of the Guide to the Production of National Health Accounts, and co-editor of Paying for India’s Health Care.

Girija Vaidyanathan is a career civil servant who joined the Indian Administrative Service in 1981. She has wide experience in implementation and financing of schemes in the development sector, having spent nearly 15 years in the health, nutrition, and environment sector in various leadership positions.

In her early posting as Project Coordinator at the World Bank-funded Tamil Nadu Integrated Nutrition Project, she was exposed to the field level implementation of health and nutrition programs as well as evaluation and monitoring techniques. During her years in the finance department, she was responsible for the financing of health, education, and other social sector schemes.

She was posted as Mission Director, National Rural Health Mission and Commissioner, Maternal and Child Health of the state of Tamil Nadu in India in 2008. During the three years that she held the post, she was directly involved in various programs to improve maternal health and reduce the maternal and infant mortality rates in the state. Her important contributions during this period include setting up of neonatal intensive care units in all districts as well as introduction of various skill-building initiatives for nurses and doctors. During this period, the state was recognized as the top performer among the better off states in health sector achievement.

Girija was responsible for policy formulation in the health sector as Health Secretary, first during 2001, when she played an important role in the design and sanction of the Tamil Nadu Health Systems Project. During her second stint as Health Secretary, she continued to pursue her passion for health system strengthening and reform, working towards system improvement in various functional areas such as maternal and child health, TB control,  public funded insurance, data systems, and food and drug safety.

After leaving the health department, she was associated with the implementation of the state’s mother and child tracking system and has been instrumental in linking the same with the civil registration system, which has played an important role in increased antenatal registration and improved delivery of public services.

Girija continues to work with the initiatives of the state toward provision of universal health coverage, which include the strengthening of diagnostic services and setting up of health and wellness centres at the Health Sub Centre and Primary Health Centre level.

Sarthak Gaurav is an Associate Professor in Economics in the Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management at the Indian Institute of Technology (ITT) Bombay. He is an affiliated faculty at the Ashank Desai Centre for Policy Studies and Nutrition Group and co-founded the Behavioural Lab and Geospatial Information Science and Engineering Hub, where he leads the Data for Policy and Health GIS initiative.

Sarthak has been researching risk and vulnerability of agricultural households in Vidarbha and Gujarat since 2008 as part of his PhD. His postdoctoral research at the London School of Economics and the Centre de Sciences Humaines in New Delhi was on a Palanpur longitudinal village study.

His forthcoming co-authored book, Accidental Gamblers: Risk and Vulnerability in Vidarbha Cotton, documents his primary research over the past 14 years.

Marianne Vidler is Assistant Professor in the Division of Maternal Fetal Medicine in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology in the Faculty of Medicine at UBC. Dr. Vidler is an obstetric health researcher and leads a research team aimed at developing, testing, and introducing new knowledge that will reduce the unacceptable maternal, perinatal, family, societal, and global impacts of pregnancy complications. She aims to build sustainable, equitable partnerships across individuals and institutions. 

Dr. Quantrilla Ard is a passionate behavioral scientist and public health professional. She uses her social media platforms to engage, educate, and inform others on her doctoral research. Dr. Ard is a champion of reproductive justice and health disparities and is involved as a women’s health CBO board member and patient family partner. She has been a guest on several podcasts and writes on the topics of Black maternal and infant health and mortality. In addition, she provides expert opinion on these topics in various print and online media outlets. Read more about the work she is involved in on her The PhD Mamma website. 

Janny Xue Chen Ke is Clinical Instructor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Pharmacology and Therapeutics in the Faculty of Medicine, UBC. She is also an anesthesiologist at St. Paul's Hospital and a member of the Providence Health Care anesthesia perioperative medicine specialty group. Dr. Ke graduated from Harvard University with a Master of Science in Epidemiology in 2021. She has expertise in advanced statistical analysis and machine learning research of population datasets. 

Justine Dol is a Post-Doctoral Fellow with Dr. Cindy-Lee Dennis and the Mothering Transitions Research Lab based at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto. Her research focuses on the postpartum transition for mothers and using mHealth technology to improve maternal and newborn outcomes. 

Rita McCracken is Assistant Professor and Scientific Director, Innovation Support Unit in the Department of Family Practice in the Faculty of Medicine at UBC and a family physician. Dr. McCracken’s research aims to change patterns of prescribing and de-prescribing in order to better patient outcomes. She also has an interest in equity-oriented opioid-sparing pain management in primary care. Her other research work involves studying the family doctor shortage in BC.

Colleen Varcoe is Professor in the School of Nursing in the Faculty of Applied Science at UBC. Dr. Varcoe’s research is focused on interventions for women who have experienced intersecting forms of violence and interventions for organizations to support equity-oriented care. She is a leader in implementing and studying equity-promoting healthcare, including trauma- and violence-informed approaches, cultural safety, and harm reduction.

Fred Cameron is the acting Operations Director and Harm Reduction Manager with SOLID Outreach Society. After a lifelong battle with addiction, Fred entered the world of recovery in 2015. In his early struggles, he realized that if he embraced it, his experience could be used to help others. Fred has extensive experience as a community researcher with the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research and as member of the BC Support Unit Patient Council.

Shawna Narayan is Research Analyst in the Department of Family Practice in the Faculty of Medicine at UBC. She is dedicated to addressing inequalities in healthcare and education. As part of the REDONNA study team, she contributes to crucial research that aims to the improve safety of opioid prescribing in primary care. She also has an interest in improving cultural responsiveness of mental healthcare and medical education on opioid-sparing pain management.

Trisha Chakrabarty is Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia, Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Health Professional Investigator, and consultant psychiatrist at the Mood Disorders Centre of Excellence at UBC Hospital. Her research interest is in cognitive functioning in mood disorders, with a focus on the etiology, contributors, and functional implications of cognitive dysfunction in mood disorders. Dr. Chakrabarty is involved in research to develop novel therapeutic strategies to address mood related cognitive deficits and is currently principal investigator on a collaborative initiative with the National Research Council Canada to develop a virtual reality cognitive remediation program for use in individuals with mood disorders. 

Elena Hernandez is a Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Department of Psychiatry in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia. She is currently researching end-users’ opinions regarding a virtual reality intervention for psychiatric care, which involves interviewing clinicians and patients and analysing the data through qualitative methods. She obtained her PhD in Psychology at the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom in March 2020, where she investigated the factors that affect the delivery of cognitive behavioral therapies and how cultural differences influence the psychotherapeutic process. Dr. Hernandez also holds a Master of Science in Clinical Research and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. Her main research interests include user experiences about mental health interventions, evidence-based psychotherapies, and cross-cultural psychology.

Nushi Choudhury is a researcher and biomedical engineer at the National Research Council Canada and leads the Cognitive Health Technologies team, which has been focused on developing bWell, an interactive and immersive virtual reality (VR) platform to deliver cognitive tasks for assessment and rehabilitation. Her research focus is on advancing long-term collaborative research agreements with multiple clinical sites across Canada, including The Hospital for Sick Children, the University of British Columbia, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, and the Institut universitaire de gériatrie de Montréal. With these sites, Ms. Choudhury aims to adapt and customize bWell for therapeutic use, to improve its clinical relevance, and validate the use of VR programs in trials with varied clinical populations. She believes that VR can be used to better understand the complex processes underlying human behaviour and that enabling the accessible use of VR as a digital therapeutic has the potential to address the current, worldwide gap in mental healthcare resources.

Mark Hewko is a researcher with the Medical Device Research Centre at the National Research Council Canada. During the early part of his 25+ year career with the Council, he has applied his biomedical engineering knowledge in the fields of spectroscopic imaging of human tissue recovery post-injury, oral and dental health, and intravascular imaging. His current research is focused on cognitive health rehabilitation with the cognitive care team and their virtual reality-based bWell platform. The projects follow a similar evolution from the lab-bench development to clinical collaboration through to industry knowledge transfer and often commercial success.

Liisa Galea is Professor in the Department of Psychology in the Faculty of Arts, UBC; Health Advisor to the Vice-President, Research and Innovation, UBC; and Scientific Advisor, Women’s Health Research Institute. She leads the Women’s Health Research Cluster (350 members). Dr. Galea is a world-renowned expert in sex hormone influences on brain and behaviour in both health and disease states, with a focus on stress-related psychiatric disorders and dementia.

She is a Distinguished University Scholar and has won the NSERC Discovery Accelerator Award twice and the Vancouver YWCA Women of Distinction Award. She is a Fellow at the International Behavioral Neuroscience Society and the Kavli Foundation. She has outstanding metrics (H index=75, >170 papers, >19000 citations). 

Dr. Galea is the chief editor of Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology (IF8.606), the President-elect of Organization for the Study of Sex Differences and co-Vice-President of the Canadian Organization for Sex and Gender Research. She serves on advisory boards provincially (UBC [Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health, Institute of Mental Health, UBC Health], BC Support Unit), nationally (CIHR University Delegates Advisory Committee), and internationally (Steroids and Nervous System [Italy], Alzheimer’s Association [US]. Dr. Galea has also served on editorial boards (Hormones and Behavior, Endocrinology, Psychoneuroendocrinology, Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, Neuroscience, eNeuro) and peer review panels (NIH, Wellcome Trust, CIHR, Brain Canada, NSERC).

Gillian Einstein is the Wilfred and Joyce Posluns Chair in Women’s Brain Health and Aging; Professor in the Department of Psychology in the Faculty of Arts and Science at the University of Toronto; and Guest Professor, Gender and Health, Linköping University, Sweden.

Dr. Einstein is an Adjunct Scientist at Women’s College Research Institute and at the Rotman Research Institute in Toronto. She is a board member of the International Gender Medicine Society, Chair of the Canadian Institutes of Health’s Institute of Gender and Health Advisory Board, and Founder and President of the Canadian Organization of Gender and Sex Research. She is Lead of the Women, Sex, Gender, and Dementia cross-cutting program of the Canadian Consortium on Neurodegeneration and Aging.

Dr. Einstein’s current research is on the effects of early life ovarian removal on women’s memory, brains, and long-term risk of Alzheimer’s disease with the overarching question: How do both sex and gender mediate women’s brain health?

M. Natasha Rajah received her Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology from the University of Toronto in 2003 and did her post-doctoral training at the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California at Berkeley. She was hired as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Psychiatry, McGill University in 2005. Dr. Rajah is currently a tenured Full Professor in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at McGill University.

She has been the recipient of numerous awards and honours, including the CIHR New Investigator Award, the Haile T. Debas Prize for her leadership in equity, diversity, and inclusion, and the Women in Cognitive Science Canada’s Mentorship Prize.

She is Editor-in-Chief at Aging, Neuropsychology and Cognition, Associate Editor for Psychological Science, and Senior Editor at Brain Research. In 2020, she was named CIHR Chair for Sex and Gender Research in Neuroscience, Mental Health and Addiction. Dr. Rajah’s research examines sex and gender effects in brain aging and cognitive function, with a focus on women’s brain health at midlife.

Kim McGrail is Director of Research for UBC Health; Professor in the School of Population and Public Health and the Centre for Health Services and Policy Research at UBC; and Scientific Director of Population Data BC and the SPOR Canadian Data Platform.

Her research interests are quantitative policy evaluation, aging and the use and cost of health services, and the ethical and technical aspects of the development and operation of large linked data systems. Her research is conducted in collaboration with policy and decision makers, clinicians, and the public. 

Kim is a founding member of the International Population Data Linkage Network and founding Deputy Editor of the International Journal of Population Data Science. She was the 2009-10 Commonwealth Fund Harkness Associate in Health Care Policy and Practice, a 2016 recipient of the Cortlandt JG Mackenzie Prize for Excellence in Teaching, and 2017 recipient of a UBC award for Excellence in Clinical or Applied Research. She holds a PhD in Health Care and Epidemiology from UBC, and a Master’s in Public Health from the University of Michigan. 

As Director of Research for UBC Health, Dr. McGrail works to initiate and support collaborations among academic and clinical faculty and other stakeholders on relevant translational health research issues, and in partnership with UBC academic leaders and stakeholders, engage them in aligning the use of health data in translational research and in the application of knowledge to health systems.

Jeffrey Morgan is a Vanier Scholar and PhD student in the School of Population and Public Health at UBC. He is affiliated with the BC Centre on Substance Use, Centre for Health Services and Policy Research, and Community-Based Research Centre. His research uses community-based and participatory approaches that meaningfully involve community members and patient partners at every step of the research process, particularly on projects that advance health equity for people who use substances and sexual minority people. Jeffrey’s PhD research seeks to validate and utilize health administrative data in the context of substance use in order to better understand our system of addiction care.

Arjumand Siddiqi is a social epidemiologist and Professor and Division Head of Epidemiology at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, where she holds the Canada Research Chair in Population Health Equity. She also holds cross appointments in Public Policy and Sociology at the University of Toronto, as well as an adjunct appointment at the Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. 

Her research centres on understanding why health inequalities are so pervasive and persistent, and what can be done about this, with an emphasis on the role of societal conditions (policy, politics, economy, and so on). In recent years, she has focused on (a) evaluating of the impact of specific social policies on population health and health inequalities, (b) examining the causes of contemporary trends in population health and health inequalities (e.g., the recent, unusual decline in life expectancy in the liberal welfare states; the widening of racial and socioeconomic health inequalities in many societies; the social distribution of the COVID-19 pandemic), and (c) reflections on concepts and methods used in health inequalities research. 

Arjumand also engages with governmental and non-governmental entities, including the Government of Ontario, the Government of Canada, and the World Health Organization.

Michael Stepner is Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Toronto. His research examines the relationship between health and economic inequality, with a focus on how public policy can improve the health and financial security of low-income populations. He also serves as the network leader for Health Trends and Inequalities research at the NBER Center for Aging and Health Research, and as a guest editor for the COVID-19 special issue for the Canadian Public Policy journal. Michael received his PhD from MIT in 2019, and his dissertation research was awarded the top dissertation award from the National Academy of Social Insurance.