Researchers

Dr. Tara Kiran is the Fidani Chair in Improvement and Innovation and Vice-Chair Quality and Innovation at the Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of Toronto. Much of her research has focused on evaluating the impact of Ontario’s primary care reforms on quality of care. She has also developed a passion for quality improvement research including initiatives to improve cancer screening rates, measure and reduce care disparities, and support physicians to learn from data.

Dr. Stephen Kosar is a Sudbury Ontario ophthalmologist specializing in Retinal Diseases. He is past Chief of Ophthalmology at Health Sciences North. He is a Director on the Board of the Ontario Medical Association (OMA). Dr. Kosar worked as a Family Doctor in Northern Ontario from 1982 to 1986. He continues to carry on a busy practice in Sudbury while participating in various telemedicine projects involving remote screening for Diabetic Retinopathy.

Ms. Laberge is interested in the economic analysis and evaluation of health policies and services, and in particular the transformations that can improve the quality, efficiency and equity of services. His research interests include health systems performance, resource allocation and distribution, and population health outcomes.

Dr. Benoît Lamarche is Full Professor at the School of Nutrition and Scientific Director of the FRQS-funded Research Center on Nutrition, santé et société (NUTRISS). He has published more than 400 peer-reviewed papers on physiological, clinical, epidemiological and public health issues related to food and health. He has contributed the training of more than 70 MSc, PhD students and postdocs. He has received numerous awards, including awards from the Société Québécoise de lipidologie, nutrition et métabolisme (Prix des Fondateurs, 2013) and the Canadian Nutrition Society (Centrum New Investigator Award, 2011 and the Khursheed Jeejeebhoy Award, 2020). He has co-written two books with the acclaimed Chef Jean Soulard on the topics of nutrition, sport and health. Benoît Lamarche is an Olympian (1984, 1988) in long track speed skating.

Dr. Barry Lavallee is a member of Manitoba First Nation and Métis communities, and is a University of Manitoba trained family physician specializing in Indigenous health and northern practice. His clinical work has focused on the health and healing needs of First Nation and Métis communities. He has a Masters of Clinical Sciences from the University of Western Ontario. His research and clinical areas are chronic diseases, transgenerational trauma, impact of colonization on Indigenous communities and international Indigenous health.

Anita’s research focuses on the development and application of mathematical models to gain insights into the physiology and pathophysiology of the mammalian kidneys. In particular, she is interested in understanding the cardiovascular benefits of novel antiglyceamic therapies in diabetes and chronic kidney diseases, and in unraveling the mechanisms underlying the sex differences in blood pressure regulation. She is the Deputy Editor of the American Journal of Physiolog–Renal Physiology, an Associate Editor of SIAM Review Book Section, and an Associate Editor of SIAM Journal on Applied Dynamical Systems. Additionally, she serves as the Associate Dean, Research and International, for the Faculty of Mathematics, and chairs the Research Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Council at the University of Waterloo.

Dr. Lega is an endocrinologist and clinician scientist at Women’s College Hospital. Her diabetes research focuses on unique populations with multiple comorbidities. Currently her focus is on diabetes overtreatment and risks associated with hypoglycemia in nursing home residents. She currently co-leads a CIHR funded research program that aims to improve diabetes deprescribing and deintensification in nursing homes in Ontario. Dr. Lega’s research program focuses on epidemiology and pharmacoepidemiology. Her expertise in this area is recognized through her contributions to Clinical Practice Guidelines for Diabetes Canada where she led the chapter on Hypoglycemia, and as a National Editor at the Canadian Journal of Diabetes.

Dr. France Légaré’s research program is to contribute to sustaining health and well-being in society by supporting high-quality diabetes care. It will focus on scaling up shared decision making by applying it to decision contexts and on building shared decision making capacity among health professionals. More specifically, it will provide diabetes patients and their health professionals with the necessary skills to promote shared decision-making throughout the healthcare continuum. This research is expected to harmonize patients’ expectations with respect to professional practices within the Canadian healthcare system using the best knowledge and evidence available to improve patients’ outcomes while ensuring their safety.

The Lewis lab has had a long interest in the mechanisms of various aspects of diabetic dyslipidemia, including postprandial lipemia, HDL lowering and hypertriglyceridemia. We have also had a long standing interest in the mechanisms of type 2 diabetes. Previously we have performed both animal and human mechanistic studies but currently are focusing exclusively on the human.

Dr. Lipscombe is an endocrinologist and director of the Division of Endocrinology at Women’s College Hospital, as well as a scientist at the Women’s College Research Institute, a senior adjunct scientist at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences, and an Associate Professor of Medicine at University of Toronto. She completed her MD from McGill University in 1998, followed by Internal Medicine and Endocrinology training and an MSc in Clinical Epidemiology from the University of Toronto. Dr. Lipscombe’s research program focuses on the epidemiology, care and prevention of diabetes, with a specific focus on diabetes in women. She has extensive experience with the use of population-based databases to conduct diabetes research and is currently leading a large clinical trial to evaluate a diabetes prevention program for women with gestational diabetes.

Dr Lussier is a full professor in the Family Medicine and Emergency Medicine department at Université de Montréal. Until recently, she practised family medicine at the academic Family Health Team in Laval (Québec). She is the director of the RRSPUM (rrspum.umontreal.ca), the FM Department’s PBRN since 2012. Her main research interests are chronic disease management in primary care with a focus on healthcare provider-patient communication and the use of information technology. She has co-authored a number of scientific articles on this subject. She is co-editor of the only French language textbook on health communication “La communication Professionnelle en santé” (2005 and 2016) used in many health sciences faculties of French-speaking countries around the world.

Our goal is to develop a National Diabetic Retinopathy(DR) assessment program, registry, and clinical trials unit that will be accessible to all Canadians with diabetes. This program will define and implement a best practices approach for the early diagnosis and management of DR, preventing blindness and visual disability. Novel components of this program include a scalable National DR Registry, a patient-oriented research program, and an App to assist patients with managing their eye care.

Dr. Patrick MacDonald is Professor of Pharmacology at the University of Alberta, where he has studied pancreatic endocrine function since 2006 and holds a Canada Research Chair in Islet Biology. His laboratory, located within the Alberta Diabetes Institute, works to understand the cellular machinery that controls production of the important blood sugar controlling hormones insulin and glucagon by islet cells from human organ donors. Dr. MacDonald directs the Alberta Diabetes Institute IsletCore, one of the world’s largest sources of human pancreas research tissue, and co-founded the Canadian Islet Research and Training Network.

Dr. Donna Manca’s research is focused on obtaining and using data for research and to improve care through prevention, screening and better management. She is the Director of the Northern Alberta Primary Care Research Network (NAPCReN), a network contributing data to the Canadian Primary Care Research Network (CPCSSN).

Dr. Maureen Markle-Reid is a Professor in the School of Nursing and holds a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Person-Centred Interventions for Older Adults with Multimorbidity and their Caregivers in the School of Nursing at McMaster University. She is also the Scientific Co-Lead of the McMaster Institute for Research on Aging/Collaborative for Health and Aging, and the Co-Scientific Director of the Aging, Community and Health Research Unit. Her research program focuses on designing, implementing, evaluating, and scaling-up integrated, patient-oriented interventions to improve health outcomes and reduce health inequities in older adults with multimorbidity and their family caregivers, while reducing costs.

Robin Mason is committed to enhancing the understanding of, and commitment to, the integration of an intersectional sex and gender lens (SGBA+) in all health research. To this end, she has designed educational materials and activities to engage students, trainees, patients and other community members, as well as established researchers in considering the impact of sex, gender and other identity-related factors in their studies. Dr. Mason has been working on issues of gender-based violence and medical education for 20 years and has contributed to the development of relevant policies at the local, provincial and national level.

Dr. McGavock established his lab at the Children’s Hospital Institute of Manitoba in 2006 to study the treatment and prevention of type 2 diabetes in youth. He is a CIHR Applied Health Chair (2014-2019) and the lead for the DREAM and DEVOTION research teams that have secured over $22M in external funding to reduce the burden of type 2 diabetes in youth in Canada. He currently is the PI for a CIHR Pathways team grant that assembled Canada’s largest network of scientists and Indigenous communities focused on the prevention of type 2 diabetes among Indigenous youth.

Dr. Melamed is a family physician and researcher at CAMH. After completing her Family Medicine residency, she pursued further training in Addiction Medicine and Medical Psychiatry at the University of Toronto. Her primary research focuses on the integration of telehealth treatments for mental health and addictive disorders into everyday clinical practice. One of her key areas of interest involves investigating the incorporation of remote health coaching into the care of individuals with diabetes. Her goal is to provide support for healthy behaviors and emotional well-being in this population. Furthermore, Dr. Melamed has contributed as a co-author to the Mental Health chapter of the 2023 Clinical Practice Guidelines published by Diabetes Canada.

Andréanne Michaud (PhD, RD) is an Assistant Professor at Université Laval School of Nutrition and a researcher at the Quebec Heart and Lung Institute (IUCPQ), the Centre Nutrition, santé et société (NUTRISS) and the Institute of Nutrition and Functional Foods (INAF).

Dr. Mukerji’s primary appointment is in the Division of Endocrinology at Women’s College Hospital with cross-appointment to Division of Endocrinology at UHN/MSH. She has a Master’s degree in Quality Improvement and Patient Safety from the Institute of Health Policy and Management Evaluation at the University of Toronto and is the Clinician Lead in Quality at the Women’s College Institute of Health systems solutions and Virtual care. Her academic interests include: 1) system improvement efforts for those with complex chronic diseases such as diabetes 2) quality improvement in endocrinology in pregnancy care and transitional care populations, and 3) safety and quality care processes in the ambulatory setting. She is actively involved in the Young Adults Type 1 diabetes Transition Care program at WCH at the Diabetes amd Endocrine in Pregnancy program at Mt Sinai and WCH. She has a special interest in the care of patients with chronic, complex diseases and examining innovative models of care delivery including virtual models. She has co-developed a set of indicators that also encompasses patient-reported indicators to measure quality of diabetes care as part of an ambulatory scorecard.

Dr. Christine Murphy is a Registered Nurse and Nurse Specialized in Wound, Ostomy & Continence (NSWOC) with Canadian Nurses’ Association certification.

Ruth Ndjaboue is an assistant professor in the School of Social Work at Université de Sherbrooke (Quebec, Canada) in Canada and the Canadian Research Chair in Inclusivity and Active Ageing . She is a former post-doc fellow of Diabetes Action Canada (2017-2018 and 2019-2021). Dr. Ndjaboue holds a PhD in Epidemiology from Université Laval (Quebec, Canada), a master degree in Psychology (Université of Yaounde I, Cameroon) and a master in Public Health (Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium). In her current work, she is developing interdisciplinary approaches and tools to improve inclusivity and active ageing, especially in diabetes context. Her research interests include psychosocial determinants of chronic diseases care and management, patient engagement, knowledge synthesis and translation, quantitative and mixed methods.

Dr Jason Noble is an ophthalmologist and medical retina specialist based out of Toronto, Ontario. He completed his undergraduate and medical studies, as well as his residency training in Ophthalmology, at the University of Toronto. He then pursued a fellowship in medical retina and diabetic eye disease at the Joslin Diabetes Center, Harvard Medical School. He is board certified both in Canada and the United States.

Melissa Northwood is an Assistant Professor in the School of Nursing and early career researcher with the Aging, Community and Health Research Unit (ACHRU). The focus of her program of research is health- and social-care integration for older adults with clinical complexity and their caregivers.

Dr. Paul Oh is Medical Director, GoodLife Fitness Chair and Senior Scientist in the Cardiovascular Disease Prevention and Rehabilitation Program at the KITE Research Institute at University Health Network and Peter Munk Cardiac Centre of the University Health Network, and Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto. His academic focus is on the design, delivery and evaluation of exercise, lifestyle and educational interventions for the prevention and management of diabetes, heart disease and other chronic conditions.

Mathieu Ouimet is a professor in political science at Université Laval in Quebec City. His areas of expertise include (but is not limited to) the use of research evidence in policymaking and research methods, notably social network analysis, one of the methods used by the HTA & Network Analysis group to evaluate the Network.

Dr. Monica Parry is a Nurse Practitioner (Adult) with over 35 years of cardiovascular (CV) clinical experience. Her clinical expertise has laid the foundation for a program of research to reduce the burden of CV disease and its complications. Dr. Parry is a member of the Banting & Best Diabetes Centre and is Core Faculty and a Collaborating Investigator with the Collaborative Program in Resuscitation Science, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto. She is interested in sex and gender issues and is currently leading a research team to develop and test at heart: A WebApp for Women with Heart Disease.

Dr. Bruce Perkins’ research platform, research leadership, clinical practice, and advocacy work has focused entirely on strategies to improve the lives of those, like himself, living with type 1 diabetes. Using cohort and trial methods, his research has focused on 1) Early biomarkers and mechanisms of diabetes complications, and 2) complications prevention through artificial pancreas technologies and add-on-to-insulin drug therapies.

Marie-Ève is an Assistant Professor at Université de Sherbrooke (Saguenay campu). She graduated in Nursing in 2005, completed a PhD in Nursing Sciences at Université de Sherbrooke in 2016 and a PDF at U Laval with France Légaré in 2017. She is an expert in knowledge mobilization and patient engagement in the context of primary care of chronic diseases. She is a PI of the CIHR National Training Entity (INSPIRE) and is funded by several other sources.

Marie-Pascale Pomey MD-PhD is a renowned senior investigator in public health specialized in patient engagement in the healthcare system, with over 50 publications in that field. She is Professor in the Department of Management, Evaluation and Health Policy at UdeM. She is co-director of the Center of Excellence on Partnership with Patients and the Public that develops new practices that focus on dialogue and sharing knowledge to improve the patient experience and effectiveness of healthcare. She holds a Chair in Advanced Technology Assessment and Modalities focusing on engaging citizens and patients in the transformation of organizations and the healthcare system.

Dr. Presseau is a Scientist at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute and Associate Professor in the School of Epidemiology & Public Health and School of Psychology at the University of Ottawa. He leads the Psychology and Health Research Group (PaHRG) and is a core faculty member of the Centre for Implementation Research at the Ottawa Hospital. He holds a Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Aberdeen (UK). His research program operates at the intersection between health psychology and implementation science, focusing on developing and evaluate interventions to support changing healthcare professional behaviours and health behaviours of patients and the public.

Dr. Rémi Rabasa-Lhoret is an endocrinologist at the Montreal Clinical Research Institute (IRCM) and at Université de Montréal university hospital (CHUM), director of the diabetes clinic, the metabolic diseases research unit and Vice president (clinic & clinical research) at the IRCM as well as full professor at Nutrition Department of Université de Montréal. He holds two research chairs. He has published over 350 manuscripts and book chapters (H-index 72) and received multiple awards. He holds funding from multiple agencies including NIH, CIHR-foundation grant, Diabetes Canada & CIHR-JDRF-SPOR. The main research areas of the group are: Reduce the frequency and consequences of hypoglycemia for patients with type 1 diabetes (T1D) and Cystic fibrosis related diabetes.

Dr. Rac is a Lead of the Research Program in Health Technology Assessment (HTA) and Network Analytics for the Diabetes Action Canada working closely with other programs, in particular, Diabetic Retinopathy Program on the evaluation of the Pilot Tele-ophthalmology Screening Program for Diabetic Retinopathy. Dr Rac and her team lead the evaluation of the Diabetes Action Canada, collaborating with Drs Mathieu Ouimet and Maman Joyce Dogba and their teams from the Université Laval. Dr Rac`s research interests and expertise are in the area of health services research and the HTA focused on the design, implementation and evaluation of the complex interventions in the HTA research (technologies and services) and chronic disease management in the community (diabetes, heart failure, COPD, chronic kidney disease, chronic wounds). More recently her research is also focused on the system level effects of health technologies and how they impact healthcare delivery

Dr. Paula Rochon is the founding director and lead of Women’s Age Lab, the first research centre to focus on older women in the world, based at Women’s College Hospital in Toronto. Through a focus on sex and age disaggregated data collection, Women’s Age Lab aims to support the healthy aging of women by reimagining a system and society where older women and their distinct well-being and health needs are recognized and addressed

Dr. Ronksley’s research focuses on patients with multiple chronic conditions (multi-morbidity). Specifically, his program of research aims to improve our understanding of the subset of chronic disease patients that drive health care utilization and spending. Using novel data-linkage methodologies, his work explores the clinical (co-morbid) profiles of patients with multi-morbidity, how they engage with the health care system, and whether care pathways can be modified to improve health outcomes for patients.

Dr Rosolowsky is a pediatric endocrinologist with a major interest in type 1 diabetes and education at the University of Alberta. During her training she completed a research fellowship at the Joslin Diabetes Centre. She is an active participant in the Canadian Society of Endocrinology and Metabolism and has been a chapter author for the Diabetes Canada Clinical Practice Guideline chapter for management of type 1 diabetes in children.

Our research focuses on finding cures for Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes. From a biological perspective, we are interested in understanding how human cells respond to extracellular cues to maintain and ensure their function and survival. A central focus is to better understand how the pancreatic beta cell converts feeding cues into signals leading to insulin synthesis and secretion. We use high-throughput functional genomic imaging screens to identify novel players involved in cell signaling pathways that control human pancreatic beta cell proliferation. In addition, we are interested in the function and quality control of mitochondria, critical subcellular organelles essential for cell function and survival. In addition to Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes, our work impacts upon cancer and neurodegeneration.

Professor Ervin Sejdić, Research Chair in Artificial Intelligence for Health Outcomes at Research & Innovation, North York General Hospital, is an Associate Professor in the Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto. He received B.E.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Western Ontario in 2002 and 2008, respectively. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Toronto with a cross-appointment at Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital, Canada’s largest children’s rehabilitation teaching hospital. From 2010 until 2011, he was a research fellow at Harvard Medical School with a cross-appointment at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. In 2011, Professor Sejdić joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh as a tenure-track Assistant Professor, subsequently promoted to a tenured Associate Professor.

Dr. Selby’s research focus is on innovative methods to understand and treat addictive behaviours and their comorbidities. He also uses technology to combine clinical medicine and public health methods to scale up and test health interventions. His cohort of 240,000 treated smokers in Ontario is an example.

Dr. Sénéchal’s research interests focus on the impact of physical activity and exercise training on cardiometabolic health in individuals living with obesity. More specifically, his research program encompasses three pillars. The first pillar aims to understand why some people living with obesity experience benefits from exercise while other do not display these benefits from the same exercise intervention. A better understanding of these predictors as well as the mechanism of such an exercise response will help designing appropriates intervention for people living with obesity. The second pillar aims to identify predictors and understand why some people living with obesity remain healthy despite high adiposity levels. Therefore, understanding different obesity phenotype might offer a more comprehensive way to manage cardiometabolic health. The third pillar aims to develop community programs to increase physical activity among individuals, especially obese youth.

Dr. Peter Senior is a Professor of Medicine and Director of the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism at the University of Alberta. He is the Medical Director of the Clinical Islet Transplant Program and co-director of the Northern Alberta Diabetic Nephropathy Prevention Program. He is originally from the UK where he completed his specialist training in Diabetes and Endocrinology and received his Ph.D. in 2002. His clinical and research interests focus on type 1 diabetes, islet transplantation, hypoglycemia and diabetic nephropathy.He has been an investigator in a number of clinical trials in both diabetes and islet transplantation ranging from large multicentre studies (eg ACCORD) to smaller investigator-initiated trials. Dr. Senior is a popular speaker who has lectured in North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. He has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed publications. He has served as an associate editor for the journals Diabetic Medicine, Cell Transplantation and the Canadian Journal of Diabetes. He is Chair-elect of the Professional Section of the Canadian Diabetes Association

Dr. Baiju Shah is a health services researcher and clinician-scientist in endocrinology. He is a staff physician, Divisions of Endocrinology and Obstetric Medicine, Department of Medicine, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and Head of the Division of Endocrinology. He is a Professor at the University of Toronto and IHPME, a Scientist at Sunnybrook Research Institute and a Senior Core Scientist at ICES. His research seeks to understand and improve the quality of care and long-term outcomes of people with diabetes. He has national and international leadership in several areas of research, including diabetes care in ethnic, immigrant and indigenous populations; long-term cardiometabolic consequences for women following gestational diabetes; and novel models of healthcare delivery to improve outcomes.

Tom Sheidow is Associate Professor of the Department of Ophthalmology at Western University, London, Canada. Dr Sheidow’s major clinical and research interests are in AMD and macular diseases; he has been a participant in several of the major AMD and diabetes clinical trials over recent years. He was the co-chair for the current Canadian trials evaluating Lucentis vs Laser for diabetic macular edema (RESPOND) and the use of the Treat-and-Extend Regimen for Lucentis in AMD (CanTREAT). An active member of the Canadian Retinal Trials Group, Dr Sheidow’s current areas of interest are AMD and teleophthalmology and its application to patient screening and referral. Dr Sheidow is a Fellow of the RCPSC and a member of the Canadian Ophthalmology Society and is the current retina section editor for the Canadian Journal of Ophthalmology.

Diana Sherifali is an Associate Professor in the School of Nursing at McMaster, and a registered nurse. She is a clinical nurse specialist in the Diabetes Care and Research Program at Hamilton Health Sciences. She is also director of the McMaster Evidence Review and Synthesis Team, based in the School of Nursing at McMaster. Effective July 1, 2019, Diana was appointed the inaugural Heather M. Arthur Population Health Research Institute/Hamilton Health Sciences Chair in Inter-Professional Health Research. A McMaster alumna, Diana earned both her BScN (1999) and PhD (2006) from the university. She joined the School of Nursing in 2009. Diana’s research focuses on optimizing the management of diabetes and quality of life of people with diabetes across the lifespan. The broad goal of her research program is to engage individuals to effectively self-manage and mitigate the impact of diabetes on their life. Her research will examine health coaching and digital solutions to improve health-related outcomes and extend diabetes self-management.

Dr. Shulman’s research program is focused on developing and evaluating health services interventions to improve the health and quality of care for youth living with diabetes. Areas of focus include transition to adult care, preventing DKA at diabetes diagnosis, and reducing socioeconomic disparities in care and outcomes. She is particularly interested in developing and evaluating interventions that leverage existing population-level administrative datasets to inform health system change. Currently, an ongoing multi-site study, KiT (Keeping in Touch), has developed and is testing a text message-based algorithm to deliver just-in-time personalized transition education that will help young adults transition to adult care. In collaboration with the Canadian Pediatric Endocrine Group (CPEG), Dr. Shulman is leading an initiative to co-develop a national strategy to prevent DKA at diabetes diagnosis.

Aleksandra is a Scientific Associate within the Program for Health System and Technology Evaluation at the Toronto General Hospital Research Institute and Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto (IHPME). She is well trained in mixed methods and led the economic evaluation of the tele-retinopathy program. Aleksandra has developed a profound interest in the interplay of social theories and economics using the intersectionality framework guided by a health equity lens. Her goal is to mainstream how we conceptualize the impact of programs/interventions with respect to (in)equity and access to care on women, people from lower socioeconomic groups or people from certain cultures or racial backgrounds while remaining focused on economic analysis.

Metabolic complications of obesity and body fat distribution, with a particular emphasis on adipose tissue physiology. Experimental approaches combine cellular biology techniques with biochemistry, genomics, transcriptomics and clinical investigation in humans as well as the study of bariatric surgery.

Marie-Claude Tremblay is an Associate Professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Emergency Medicine at Université Laval (Québec, Canada). Her research expertise includes mixed methods and qualitative research, patient engagement and participatory research approaches. Her current research uses participatory approaches to make the health system more equitable and accessible to marginalized populations such as Indigenous communities. She leads various projects that address cultural safety of health care, racism issues in the health system, patient participation in research and health education, as well as reflexivity as a strategy for critical learning.

Health Informatics, Health Service Delivery, Electronic Medical Records, Administrative Databases, Quantitative Data Analysis, Chronic Diseases, Observational Studies