Researchers

As a medical doctor and public health specialist, he has led randomized trials to change clinical practice and make impacts at the policy level in areas of antimicrobial resistance, tuberculosis control and diabetes/ hypertension care. He currently leads a pragmatic trial to investigate the effect of employing telemedicine to improve care for diabetes, hypertension and COVID-19 in rural Pakistan.

Her research program is focused on investigating and understanding determinants of outcomes in type 1 diabetes, to ultimately inform novel management strategies. She is the recipient of the 2020 Banting & Best Diabetes Centre New Investigator Award and the 2021 Banting-CANSSI Ontario Discovery Award. As part of her research program in type 1 diabetes, she is leading the development of a new province-wide database.

Dr. Diane Wherrett is the Centre Director of the Canadian site of the NIH multicentre clinical trial group, Type 1 Diabetes TrialNet, and a member of the TrialNet Steering Committee. Dr. Wherrett leads a Canadian research consortium, Canadian Population Screening for Risk of Type 1 Diabetes Research Consortium, CanScreen T1D, funded by CIHR and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation to assess the acceptability and feasibility of screening for type 1 diabetes risk in Canadian children, supporting the development of a pilot screening program.

As a certified psychiatric and mental health nurse, Dr. Whitmore’s research focuses on optimizing care and care delivery for those living with chronic conditions and co-morbid mental health challenges. Using applied health research methods, Carly’s research examines the role of relationships as a mechanism for integrating care and improving health-related outcomes for individuals, families, and communities.

With an interdisciplinary background in human factors engineering and social sciences, her research is about how we can achieve human-centredness in health-related domains, including a focus on how best to adapt digital health technology to people rather than expecting people to adapt to technology. She specializes in human-computer interaction in health education, risk communication and decision making, including design methods and system changes to support inclusive user-, human- and patient-centredness.

Dr. Wong is a vitreoretinal surgeon and member of the Canadian Ophthalmology Society, the American Academy of Ophthalmology, the American Society of Retina Specialists and the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology. Numerous awards have been given to him locally and internationally including the American Society of Vitreoretinal Surgeons (ASRS) Senior Award.

Dr. Jane Yardley’s research focuses on exercise (most often weight-lifting) and how it affects people with type 1 diabetes. Exercise is known to make people with diabetes live much longer, much healthier lives. The biggest issue is that it generally complicates blood glucose management and brings with it an increased risk of hypoglycemia (low blood glucose – which can be very dangerous). Fear of going low is the biggest barrier to exercise in this population. She aims to achieve finding a safe and effective way for people with type 1 diabetes to exercise. Lately this has also included some studies on high intensity interval training and fasted exercise, and studies examining the menstrual cycle in an exercise context in women with type 1 diabetes. She has included some work with islet transplant recipients, and people with type 2 diabetes.

She is an academic endocrinologist with special interest in diabetes quality improvement. Her aim is to co-create interventions and improved care processes for preventing and reducing the burden of diabetes in partnership with people with lived experience of diabetes, health care team members, and other system stakeholders.

Dr. Yu research interests focus on the role of patient and clinician behaviour change within knowledge translation for chronic disease management. She is particularly interested in the development of innovative strategies for continuing professional development and patient engagement in diabetes care.

Dr. Ian Zenlea leads a community-based participatory research program that co-designs, implements and evaluates health and social solutions to improve the health and overall well-being of children and families. As a father of three boys and a clinician working alongside children with chronic disease and their families, he appreciates the challenges with our current healthcare system and the impacts of the social and structural determinants of health on the well-being of children and families. Dr. Zenlea envisions a community-driven and community-centred learning health system that fosters thriving and flourishing families in their local communities.