IAB Members Biographies (as of September 1, 2012)
Chair:
Joan L. Bottorff, PhD, RN, FCAHS
Professor and Chair in Health Promotion and Cancer Prevention
University of British Columbia Okanagan
Dr. Bottorff is a Professor in the School of Nursing, Faculty of Health and Social Development, and Director of the Institute for Healthy Living and Chronic Disease Prevention at the University of British Columbia Okanagan in Kelowna, British Columbia. Her research program focuses on health promotion and health behaviour change in the context of cancer control with a particular focus on gender-related influences. Current projects center on the relational issues embedded in tobacco reduction, and developing gender sensitive tobacco reduction interventions for both women and men. Her projects are supported by national grants, and involve partnerships with health professionals and other stakeholders in the community.
Dr. Bottorff supervises masters and doctoral students in nursing and interdisciplinary studies. She is Co-Leader of the Psychosocial Oncology Research Training (PORT) program, as well as a mentor with the Intersections of Mental Health Perspectives in Addiction Research Training (IMPART) program, and the Population Intervention for Chronic Disease Prevention (PICDP) research training program. Dr. Bottorff is an Affiliate Scientist with the BC Cancer Agency.
Elizabeth Banister, RN, PhD, R Psych
School of Nursing
University of Victoria
Elizabeth Banister is a Professor in the School of Nursing at the University of Victoria and Professorial Research Fellow, School of Nursing, Midwifery, and Health, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.
Dr. Banister's research interests include knowledge translation, health education and health literacy. She is lead editor of a book entitled: Knowledge translation in context: Indigenous, policy, and community settings, published in 2011 by the University of Toronto Press. Dr. Banister is well published in the areas of adolescent sexual health education and health literacy in Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities. She has research collaborations in Canada and New Zealand on topics related to adolescent reproductive health literacy.
Dr. Banister is the recipient of several awards including the US National Council on Family Relations Anselm Strauss Award for Best Paper in Qualitative Family Research in 2000, and the Canadian Association of Nursing Research Outstanding New Investigator Award in 2001.
Dr. Banister is a member of the UVic Human Research Ethics Board and is founding member of the Centre for Youth & Society at UVic. She was Chief Negotiator for the Faculty Association's 2007 negotiation to end mandatory retirement at UVic. Dr. Banister is a Registered Nurse and a Registered Psychologist in British Columbia and in New Zealand. She serves as a reviewer for several federal funding agencies.
Françoise Baylis, PhD
Professor
Canada Research Chair in Bioethics and Philosophy
Faculty of Medicine
Dalhousie University
Françoise Baylis is Professor and Canada Research Chair in Bioethics and Philosophy at Dalhousie University in Halifax. She publishes extensively on ethical issues relevant to women's reproductive health, research involving humans and novel technologies. Her current research focuses on innovative, responsible and accountable bioethics, with a view to developing and promoting ethical policy in the fields of health, science and biotechnology.
Professor Baylis contributes to national policy-making on assisted human reproduction via independent research, government research contracts, national committee work, and public education. This work dates back to 1991 when Baylis was a consultant to the Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies. More recently, from 2007 to 2010, Baylis was a member of the Board of Directors of Assisted Human Reproduction Canada. On the basis of her extensive and wide ranging academic research and national policy experience, Professor Baylis prepared an ethics expert report for the Government of Canada in response to the legal challenge by the province of Québec to the Assisted Human Reproduction Act. The Supreme Court of Canada released its decision in December 2010. Professor Baylis' expert report is cited in the decision.
Professor Baylis is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and an elected Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. Her service commitment to CIHR includes: Member, Gender and Health Institute Advisory Board, 2009-12; Member, Governing Council, 2001-2004; Co-Chair, Standing Committee on Ethics, 2001-04; Member, Priorities and Planning Committee, Institute of Genetics, Ethics, Legal and Social Issues, (ex officio) 2002-04; Member, Genetics Institute Advisory Board 2001; and Member, Ad Hoc Working Group on Stem Cell Research, 2000-01.
Yitzchak (Irv) M. Binik, PhD
Professor of Psychology, McGill University
Yitzchak (Irv) Binik is a Professor of Psychology at McGill University and director of the Sex and Couple Therapy Service of the McGill University Health Center. He received his B.A. from NYU, his BHL from the Jewish Theological Seminary and his PhD in clinical psychology/experimental psychopathology from the University of Pennsylvania. In 2003, he was awarded the Canadian Psychological Association prize for distinguished contribution to professional psychology. In 2006, he received the Masters and Johnson Award for lifetime achievement from the Society for Sex Therapy and Research. Dr. Binik is a member of the DSM-5 workgroup on sexual and gender identity disorders.
Guylain Boissonneault, PhD
Professor
Department in Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine
University of Sherbrooke
Dr. Guylain Boissonneault is a molecular biologist and full professor in the Department of Biochemistry at the Faculty of Medicine in the Université de Sherbrooke. Dr Boissonneault received his BSc in Medical Biology at Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières and obtained his PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology from Université Laval in 1990. Following his post-doctoral studies in Developmental Genetics at the University of California San Francisco, Dr. Boissonneault was appointed to a faculty position in 1993.
Over the past five years, he has studied spermiogenesis as a major determinant of the genetic integrity of the male gamete. One of his major contributions to the field was to demonstrate that endogenous DNA double-stranded breaks are part of the normal development program of spermatids. These DNA breaks must be repaired by an error-prone mechanism making this transition a very sensitive step able to transmit mutations from one generation to the next without exogenous genotoxic factors. New molecular biology tools have been created for such studies. Dr Boissonneault is also actively involved in both graduate and undergraduate teaching in molecular biology and genomics and is also involved several management committees at the Faculty of Medicine in Sherbrooke. He is currently commissioner for the academic programs evaluation of CREPUQ (Québec).
Dr. Boissonneault received studentship, fellowship and scholarship from le Fond Québécois de la Recherche sur la Nature et les Technologies (FQRNT), the Natural Sciences and Enginering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), and le Fond de la Recherche en Santé du Québec (FRSQ ). He currently holds research grants from both NSERC and CIHR for his work on reproductive biology and is regularly invited as external or internal referee for different funding agencies.
Sally Brown, MHSc
Sally Brown was the CEO of the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada from October, 2001, until her retirement in September 2010. Ms Brown came to HSFC from the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC) where she spent ten years as Vice-President responsible for national and international policy.
From 1989 to 1991 Ms. Brown was a special advisor in the Prime Minister's Office. From 1984 to 1989, she was a hospital administrator at the Toronto General Hospital becoming Assistant Vice-President, Diagnostic Services in 1987.
Ms. Brown has a Diploma in Nursing from the Toronto General Hospital School of Nursing, and a Bachelor of Arts and a Masters in Health Sciences from the University of Toronto.
Ms. Brown has served on a number of community and agency boards including that of the Royal Ottawa Hospital, the Canadian Health Services Research Foundation and the Council for Health Research in Canada, receiving the latter organization's Award of Merit in 2005. She has served as Chair of the Health Charities Coalition of Canada and was a member of the Board of the Canadian Stroke Network. In 2006 she was appointed co-chair, with Health Canada, of the federal Trans Fat Task Force, for which she received Health Canada's ADM's Excellence Award for Collaborative Leadership. Ms. Brown is currently on the Advisory Board of the Institute of Gender and Health of the CIHR, and was recently appointed to the Board of the InterAmerican Heart Foundation.
Alice Dreger, PhD
Professor of Clinical Medical Humanities and Bioethics
Feinberg School of Medicine
Northwestern University
Alice Dreger, PhD, is Professor of Clinical Medical Humanities and Bioethics at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine. Her work has been funded by institutions such as the Guggenheim Foundation and the Woodrow Wilson Foundation. Her scholarship and patient advocacy have focused on the social and medical treatment of people born with norm-challenging anatomies, including disorders of sex development (intersex). Dreger's published books include Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of Sex and Intersex in the Age of Ethics. For a total of 7 years, she served as the Chair of the Board of Directors and Director of Medical Education for the Intersex Society of North America (ISNA). She functioned as editor/coordinator for the Clinical Guidelines for the Management of Disorders of Sex Development in Childhood and the companion Handbook for Parents, available through Accord Alliance. Dreger has delivered over 200 invited lectures, including a TED talk entitled "Is Anatomy Destiny?" Her work has been selected for Norton's annual Best Creative Non-Fiction volume, and she writes for The Atlantic, Psychology Today, and the New York Times. In 2011 the UTNE Reader named Dreger a visionary for her work on intersex. She is currently on the Association of American Medical Colleges' Task Force for LBGTI patient care, and serves as a guest adviser for Dan Savage's internationally syndicated sex-advice column, "Savage Love."
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Gillian Einstein, PhD
Associate Professor of Psychology and Public Health
University of Toronto
Gillian Einstein is a neuroscientist who has published in vision, Alzheimer's and aging research, sex differences, and women's health. She has edited and annotated a book of classic papers in Hormones and Behavior called, Sex and the Brain (MIT Press, 2007).
She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology and The Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto, Senior Scientist at Women's College Research Institute, Member of the Scientific Staff of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Senior Fellow of University College, and a member of both the Institute for Life Course and Aging, and the Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies at the University of Toronto.
She is also founder and Director of the Collaborative Graduate Program in Women's Health at the University of Toronto, founding member of the Organization for the Study of Sex Differences, and a temporary advisor to WHO on the psychological effects of female genital cutting/mutilation. She served on the faculty of the Department of Neurobiology, Duke University where she founded and directed the first year program, Exploring the Mind and was the recipient of the Alumni Undergraduate Teaching Award. She has also been a Scientific Review Officer at the National Institutes of Health (US), and the Associate Director of the Centre for Research in Women's Health at the University of Toronto. She has been a mentor in the Institute of Gender and Health's Summer Institute (2009, 2010) and In the spring term of 2010 she was a visiting professor with the Committee for Degrees in Women, Gender and Sexuality at Harvard University.
Dr. Einstein's interests are in memory, sex/gender representations in the nervous system, mixed methods, and the bridge between our scientific understanding of the nervous system and larger concerns having to do with self, identity, feminism, and the nature of science. Her research program focuses on three major areas: 1) the neurobiological effects of such cultural practices as female genital cutting and 2) the effects of the ovulatory cycle on mood and memory; and 3) the representation of the female body in the brain. The key question underlying all these projects is how gender is instantiated on the body.
Her website is: http://psych.utoronto.ca/users/einstein
Gary Garber, PhD
Professor of Medicine
University of Ottawa
Dr. Gary Garber is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Ottawa and Vice Chairman of the Department of Medicine at the University and at the Ottawa Hospital. Born in Montreal, Dr. Garber attended McGill University (BSc) and received his Doctor of Medicine from the University of Calgary (1980). He then trained in Internal Medicine at the University of Toronto ('80-'83) and Infectious Diseases at the University of British Columbia ('83-86).
On staff at the University of Ottawa since 1986, he has been instrumental in developing the local Royal College training program in Infectious Diseases, and established a model of regional, bilingual, multidisciplinary HIV/AIDS care for eastern Ontario and West Quebec. Some of his current projects include development of a multidisciplinary care clinic for management and care of patients with Viral Hepatitis and a model of regional Infection Control services.
Dr. Garber's research interests are in the appropriate use of antibiotics, novel antimicrobial therapies particularly in the immune-compromised host, and the management of Sepsis and Septic Shock. His laboratory studies the pathogenesis of Trichomonas vaginalis, a sexually transmitted pathogen which causes vaginitis in women and doubles their risk of acquiring HIV infection. This basic science work is focusing on vaccine development and disease prevention as well as identifying markers of diseases.
Carol Herbert MD CCFP FCFP FCAHS FRCPS(Glasg) FRACGP(Hon)
Professor, Department of Family Medicine and Department of Pathology
Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry
Affiliate Member, Department of Women's Studies & Feminist Research
Western University
Carol Herbert is Professor of Family Medicine, cross-appointed to Pathology, in the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry at Western University, with affiliate membership in the Department of Women's Studies & Feminist Research and McGill's PRAM Centre (Participatory Research at McGill). She was Dean of the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry (1999-2010), Head of the UBC Department of Family Practice (1988-98), founding Head of the Division of Behavioural Medicine and a co-founder of the UBC Institute of Health Promotion Research. Carol is committed to social justice and access to health care. She was a pioneer in developing services for sexually assaulted adults and children in B.C. She has been a leader in inter-professional education and collaborative practice, women's health and mentorship of academic women. She is internationally known for her leadership in primary care research, particularly her participatory action research with indigenous communities. She has chaired or served on multiple task forces on health policy and health professional education. She is a founding Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, a Foreign Associate Member of the Institute of Medicine, U.S. National Academies of Science, and a Fellow of the College of Family Physicians of Canada.
Abby Hoffman
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister
Strategic Policy
Health Canada
Abby Hoffman is the Executive Coordinator, Pharmaceuticals Management Strategies, Health Policy Branch, Health Canada. In this capacity, she oversees the development and implementation of Health Canada's Therapeutics Access Strategy (TAS). The objective of the strategy is to improve the health of Canadians by enhancing access to effective, safe and affordable therapeutic products. The strategy supports initiatives aimed at: improving the transparency and timeliness of regulatory decision-making, strengthening assessment of safety and therapeutic effectiveness, and, better management and use of therapeutic products in the Canadian health system.
Abby Hoffman has held a number of senior executive positions in Health Canada, including the first Director General of the Women's Health Bureau, and, Director General, Health Care Strategies and Policy. Before joining Health Canada, for ten years she was the Director General of the federal government sport agency, Sport Canada.
Olga Kovalchuk, MD, PhD
Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Lethbridge
CIHR Chair in Gender and Health
Board of Governors' Research Chair
Dr. Olga Kovalchuk is a Professor and Board of Governors' Research Chair in Radiation Biology in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Lethbridge. She holds a CIHR Chair in Gender and Health.
Dr. Kovalchuk's research focuses on the effects of long-term exposure to radiation, and how that exposure changes cellular and molecular structures in animals and people. Her research interests include: sex differences in radiation responses and carcinogenesis, radiation epigenetics and role of epigenetic changes in genome stability and carcinogenesis, epigenetics of carcinogenesis, epigenetic regulation of the cancer treatment responses, and radiation-induced DNA damage, repair and recombination.
In 2010, Dr. Kovalchuk was voted one of Canada's Top 40 Under 40.
Jens Pruessner, PhD
Director, McGill Centre for Studies in Aging
Director, Aging and Alzheimer Research Axis, Douglas Institute
Dr. Jens Pruessner performed his graduate studies at Trier University in Germany in Psychoneuroendocrinology, completing his PhD in 1997. Continuing his postgraduate studies at McGill University (Douglas Mental Health University Institute and the Montreal Neurological Institute), he specialized in neuroimaging techniques.
Focusing his attention on studying stress, Dr. Pruessner and his team developed and validated the mental arithmetic task for stress induction, the Montreal Imaging Stress Task (MIST). They have since employed the task in functional magnetic resonance imaging and Positron Emission Tomography studies, investigating the effects of stress on brain activation changes in real time.
Appointed Assistant Professor at McGill University in 2002, Dr. Pruessner is a member of the Departments of Psychology, Psychiatry and Neurology & Neurosurgery. In 2004, Dr. Pruessner was appointed Director of the Aging and Alzheimer Research Axis of the Douglas Mental Health Institute. In 2008, he was appointed Director of the McGill Centre for Studies in Aging. In 2009, Dr. Pruessner was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor.
He has been a member of the International Society of Psychoneuroendocrinology since 2004, the International Society of Behavioral Neuroscience since 2002, and the Society for Neuroscience since 2001.
In 1998, Dr. Pruessner received the Postdoctoral Fellow Award and Stipend, and the University of Trier Alumni Group PhD Award. The Centre for Psychobiological and Psychosomatic Research in Trier, Germany awarded him the Innovation Award in 1997. He received personal support awards from NARSAD (Young Investigator 2000), FRSQ (Chercheur-boursier Junior 2002), CIHR (New Investigator Award 2005), and FRSQ (Chercheur nationaux 2011).
Finally, Dr. Pruessner was the recipient of the 2008 Curt Richter Young Investigator Award of the International Society of Psychoneuroendocrinology, and the 2009 Young Investigator Award of the Canadian College of Neuropsychopharmacology.