Biography:

Dr. Hamideh Bayrampour, PhD, MSc

 

 

Dr. Bayrampour is an Assistant Professor in Midwifery Program, Department of Family Practice, an associate member in the School of Population and Public Health and a faculty member in Reproductive and Developmental Sciences program at UBC. Dr. Bayrampour’s research interests are in the areas of maternal mental health and substance use and pregnancy outcomes. She is particularly interested in maternal anxiety and its assessment during the perinatal period. She has research expertise in conducting systematic reviews, quantitative and qualitative research, mixed methods studies, and concept and trajectory analysis.

 

Research Links:

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Hamideh_Bayrampour

 

 

Dr. Angela Kaida is an Associate Professor and global health epidemiologist in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University. She holds a Canada Research Chair in Global Perspectives on HIV and Sexual and Reproductive Health. Dr. Kaida has been awarded funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada, Grand Challenges Canada, Canada Foundation for Innovation, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH/NICHD) to lead a community-based research program focused on factors and environments that increase vulnerability or protect sexual and reproductive health. Dr. Kaida conducts mixed-method research among women living with HIV in Canada, safer conception intervention research among men living with HIV who desire children in Uganda, and inter-disciplinary HIV prevention research among adolescent girls and young women at high risk for HIV in South Africa. Her research provides evidence for developing effective social and health policies and programming to improve sexual and reproductive health and rights for HIV-affected individuals and communities. Throughout her career, Dr. Kaida has worked closely with community leaders and decision-makers to integrate research evidence into sexual and reproductive health policy and programming, using a social and gender equity lens. She has served in numerous institutional, national, and global leadership roles including with the WHO Department of Reproductive Health and Research, sub-Saharan African Network of TB and HIV research Excellence (SANTHE), the Canadian Association for HIV Research (CAHR), and the Women’s Health Research Institute (WHRI).  To read more about Dr. Kaida’s research contributions, please click here.

 

 

 

LIISA GALEA, PHD, Professor, Distinguished University Scholar, Director of Graduate Program in Neuroscience, Scientfic Advisor for Women’s Health Research Institute.

Galea is a world-renowned expert in neuroendocrinology, neuroplasticity, and detailed behavioural analysis of memory and affective outcomes that will ensure program success. Her extensive leadership experience spans 22 years with prestigious awards: e.g. 2-time winner of NSERC’s Discovery Accelenrator (2007, 2018) and Fellow for international societies (Kavli, IBNS). She has had 59 speaking invitations (37 international, 7 keynote) in the past 6 years. In 2019, she will give 2 keynotes and a further 10 speaking invitations. She is the Chief Editor for Elsevier’s Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology (5-year IF = 9.13) and reviewing editor for eNeuro (2014-) and Neuroscience (2010-16). She has reviewed grants as a standing member for CIHR, NSERC, NIH and the Wellcome Trust. She serves on CIHR’s IGH Scientific Advisory Board, on the Executive Committee for UBC’s Institute for Mental Health, is an elected council member of international conferences (IBNS, OSSD) and part of CCNA. Her major research contributions have stimulated new research fields with the discovery that previous motherhood impacts the hippocampus to middle age and her seminal work on developing the first animal models of postpartum depression that demonstrated the involvement of maternal hormones in depression.. Galea also works on sex differences in aging and depression in human populations and has shown greater neurogenesis in women with depression than in men, and stronger stress responses in men with mild cognitive impairment than women. Galea has an H-index of 55 and has published 150 documents that have been cited 10,290 times.

 

OR

Liisa Galea is a Professor in the Department of Psychology, a member of the Centre for Brain Health, Director of the Graduate Program in Neuroscience, and a Scientific Advisor at Women’s Health Research Institute at the University of British Columbia. My research investigates how sex hormones influence brain health and disease in both females and males. The main goal of my research is to improve brain health for women and men by examining the influence of sex and sex hormones on normal and diseased brain states such as depression and Alzheimer’s disease.

The facts: Dr. Galea obtained her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the University of Western Ontario and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Rockefeller University. She has been an invited speaker and a keynote speaker at numerous international conferences over the past 10 years. Dr. Galea is a Distinguished University Scholar, holds an NSERC-Discovery Accelerator Supplement (for the second time), won a Michael Smith Senior Scholar Award, Cattell Sabbatical Award and the Vancouver YWCA Women of Distinction award (Technology, Science and Research). She was recognized as a Fellow at International Behavioral Neuroscience Society (IBNS) and the Kavli Foundation. She has over 140 scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals and has over 7000 citations with over 600 citations per year since 2013. Dr. Galea is the chief editor of FiN (Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology IF: 6.875, ranked #1 in Endocrinology & Autonomic Systems), an editor of eNeuro, past section editor of Neuroscience and serves/served on the editorial boards of Endocrinology, Hormones and Behavior, and Neuroscience. Dr. Galea has served on peer review panels for National Institute of Health (USA), Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR), and NSERC. She has held operating grants from CIHR, NSERC, and Alzheimer Society of Canada and secured over $6.5M as the principal investigator and $3M as co-principal investigator in operating grants in total. She is an elected council member of international scholarly committees Organization for the Study of Sex Differences (OSSD) and International Behavioral Neuroscience Society (IBNS). Liisa Galea sits on the advisory board of Institute of Gender and Health at CIHR. She serves on the Advocacy and EDI committees of Canadian Association for Neuroscience

The Research: Although sex differences exist in many brain diseases, research targeting sex as a factor in brain health has been scarce. Dr. Galea’s research is vital in filling this knowledge gap, specifically in understanding how sex and hormones influence neuroplasticity in females as too often women’s health is ignored in research. This preclinical work is essential for developing tailored treatments for brain disease in both women and men. Her research examines the effects of hormones, stress and reproductive experience on neuroplasticity, including adult neurogenesis (the birth of new brain cells in the adult), and subsequent behaviour. Liisa developed the first animal models of postpartum depression, was among the first researchers worldwide to study hormonal control of adult neurogenesis and the impact of motherhood on the brain in later life. An understanding of how neurogenesis is regulated may provide clues for devising new therapeutic treatments for diseases that involve neuronal loss and show greater prevalence in women, such as Alzheimer’s disease and depression.

The fun stuff: When Liisa is not working on her research she dedicates her time to being a wife and mother of 2 adult (or seemingly so) children. Liisa is very proud of her Estonian/Maltese heritage and specializes in baking Estonian Kringle. She is most proud of her two greatest accomplishments, her two adorable ‘adult’ children, to whom she has passed on her love of science and cookie dough. She lives in North Vancouver and enjoys trail hiking with her very bad dog. Indeed you can find Liisa most weekends hiking on the Baden Powell trail.

 

Dr. Gillian Hanley, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology at the University of British Columbia.  She is a CIHR New Investigator and Michael Smith Foundation Scholar. She obtained her BSc at Dalhousie University where she did a combined Honours in Biology and Economics, followed by a MA at McMaster University in Economics with a concentration in health economics, and finally her doctorate studies at UBC in the School of Population and Public Health.  Her research focus combines her substantive interest in women’s health with her training in economics, health services research, and epidemiology to answer questions related to gynecologic cancer, primarily ovarian cancer prevention, as well as healthy reproduction and pregnancy. ​

Paul Yong, MD, PhD, FRCSC is a gynecologist with fellowship training in minimally invasive surgery, and Assistant Professor in the UBC Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.  Dr. Yong is Director of the UBC OB/GYN Residency Rotation in Chronic Pelvic Pain and Minimally Invasive Surgery,  and Co-Director of the UBC Reproductive and Developmental Sciences Graduate Program.  In addition, Dr. Yong is Research Director at the BC Women’s Centre for Pelvic Pain and Endometriosis (http://Womenspelvicpainendo.com), with his research focusing on endometriosis-associated sexual pain (http://Yonglab.med.ubc.ca).

 

 

 

Jeannie Shoveller, PhD, is a Professor at UBC’s School of Population & Public Health and a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. She is also the Associate Director and Director of Research at the Centre for Gender and Sexual Health Equity and the Director of Research at the BC Centre on Substance Use.

Her research on social inequalities and youth sexual health is recognized internationally. To date, Prof. Shoveller has supervised more than 70 Doctoral and Master’s students as well as Post-Doctoral Fellows. She also is the founder and lead investigator of the Youth Sexual Health Team, now located at the CGSHE and which includes interdisciplinary faculty, research staff, and students from universities across North America, Europe, Africa, Australia, and South America.

Prof. Shoveller is a member of the Governing Council of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). She also is a member of the CIHR College of Reviewers and has served on many review panels, including the CIHR Banting Post-Doctoral Fellowship. She also is the Chairperson of the Population Health Intervention Research Adjudication Committee at the French Institut National du Cancer. In 2008, she co-founded CampOUT!, a social justice summer camp for queer, trans, Two- Spirit, and allied youth from British Columbia and the Yukon.

Prof. Shoveller has held several other executive leadership roles, including the Director of the Epidemiology and Population Health and the Drug Treatment Program, located at the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS.

 

 

 

Dr. Laura Schummers is a reproductive and perinatal epidemiologist. After completing her doctorate of science in epidemiology from the Harvard School of Public Health, Dr. Schummers joined the Contraception and Abortion Research Team in the Department of Family Practice at UBC as a postdoctoral fellow. She holds a BC Ministry of Health-CIHR Health System Impact Fellowship and a Research Trainee award from the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research. Dr. Schummers’s research uses large population-based administrative health databases to examine health services, policy, and clinical research questions related to women’s reproductive and perinatal health.

 

 

Jerilynn C. Prior BA, MD, FRCPC is a Professor of Endocrinology and Metabolism at the University of British Columbia working in the area of women’s health. She has devoted her career to investigating women’s menstrual cycles, the population variability of ovulation, the physiology, hormonal change, experiences of and perimenopause treatment, menopausal hot flushes progesterone treatment and the important role progesterone plays in preventing and treating osteoporosis. She is the 2019 recipient of the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Aubrey J. Tingle Prize awarded to a BC clinician scientist whose work in health research is internationally recognized. She was honoured in 2017 by WHRI for Knowledge Translation in women’s health research. She founded (2002) and is the Scientific Director of the Centre for Menstrual Cycle and Ovulation Research (CeMCOR) with its website (www.cemcor.ca) providing practical plain-language evidence based information to 3,500-5,000/day.  She was a founder and 20-year scientist with the Canadian Multicentre Osteoporosis Study (CaMos) and is continuing to lead the BC CaMos Centre. In addition to authoring over 180 peer-reviewed papers (H Index 61), Dr. Prior is the author of the award-winning novel, Estrogen’s Storm Season: Stories of Perimenopause, written to inform and empower perimenopausal women.

 

 

Joanne Weinberg, PhD, WHRI

 

Dr. Joanne Weinberg is Professor and Distinguished University Scholar, Emerita, in the Department of Cellular & Physiological Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, UBC. She is also an Associate Member of the Department of Psychology and the Center for Brain Health, and is a member of the Women’s Health Research Institute Scientific Advisory Board.

 

Dr. Weinberg’s research expertise is in the areas of prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE), early experience, stress, and neuroendocrine-neuroimmune regulation, with a specific focus on mechanisms underlying prenatal alcohol effects on fetal programming. Her studies have demonstrated that alcohol, in addition to its teratogenic effects, is an early life insult that programs developing neurobiological systems, including neuroendocrine and immune systems, resulting in increased hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal or stress system tone, hyperresponsiveness to stressors, and a pro-inflammatory bias. Together, these alterations increase risk for diseases/disorders over the life course, the “Developmental Origins of Health and Disease” (DOHaD) concept.

 

In her research, Dr. Weinberg has developed rodent models to examine brain-biology-behavior relationships from prenatal life through adulthood, utilizing a broad multidisciplinary approach to tackle problems from the molecular to the behavioral level. Her recent studies have begun to translate her animal model findings to human populations. These studies have elucidated a link between maternal alcohol consumption, inflammation, alcohol exposure of the fetus, and child outcomes. Current research is examining health, immune function, and adaptive and functional outcomes in children from birth through adulthood who were exposed to alcohol in utero. Dr. Weinberg’s research is currently supported by grants from NIH/NIAAA, including a MERIT Award and an operating grant that is part of the Collaborative Initiative on FASD.

 

 

Kristin Campbell, BSc, PT, PhD is a licensed physical therapist and an Associate Professor in the Department of Physical Therapy at the University of British Columbia. She also holds appointments at the Centre of Excellence in Cancer Prevention and BC Cancer Cancer Control Program.  She is a member of the Oncology Division of the Canadian Physiotherapy Association and a Fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine.  She completed her PhD in exercise physiology at the University of Alberta and a Fellowship in Public Health at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre.  Her research focus is on the role of exercise in cancer prevention, rehabilitation and survivorship has been funded by the Canadian Cancer Society Research Institute, Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research and Physiotherapy Foundation of Canada and others.  She is currently the co-lead for the update of the exercise guidelines for cancer survivors from the American College of Sports Medicine and an associate editor for Physical Therapy, the journal of the American Physical Therapy Association.

 

 

Kristin Campbell, BSc, PT, PhD is a licensed physical therapist and an Associate Professor in the Department of Physical Therapy at the University of British Columbia. She also holds appointments at the Centre of Excellence in Cancer Prevention and BC Cancer Cancer Control Program.  She is a member of the Oncology Division of the Canadian Physiotherapy Association and a Fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine.  She completed her PhD in exercise physiology at the University of Alberta and a Fellowship in Public Health at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre.  Her research focus is on the role of exercise in cancer prevention, rehabilitation and survivorship has been funded by the Canadian Cancer Society Research Institute, Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research and Physiotherapy Foundation of Canada and others.  She is currently the co-lead for the update of the exercise guidelines for cancer survivors from the American College of Sports Medicine and an associate editor for Physical Therapy, the journal of the American Physical Therapy Association.

 

Sandesh Shivananda

From WHRI website

 

 

My clinical research has focused on Knowledge Translation (KT) and Quality improvement (QI) programs. Specifically my expertise lies in packaging context-specific, evidence-informed practices, developing decision-making products and, monitoring and evaluating large scale- KT programs. I have successfully led many KT programs including Resuscitation and Early Stabilization Improvement in Newborns (RESIN),Care Bundle to Improve Oxygenation and Minimize desaturation Events in newborns (CBIOME) and Patient at risk trigger huddles to improve neonatal outcomes (PARTiNeO).

 

From WHRI website  Dr. Mitchell-Foster joined the Northern Medical Program in 2014 as tenure-track faculty. Her clinical practice as an Obstetrician Gynaecologist at the University Hospital of Northern BC incorporates clinical teaching of undergraduate medical students, family practice and specialty residents. After finishing her residency training at the University of British Columbia she completed a Masters of Public Health at John Hopkin’s Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland and a Clinical Investigator Fellowship at UBC.

Her research focuses on reproductive health in marginalized and vulnerable populations both in the rural and remote geographies of Northern BC and globally in low- and middle-income countries. Cervical dysplasia and cervical cancer disproportionately impact women in low-income countries and those that have multiple barriers to care in Northern, BC despite the availability of highly effective both primary (HPV vaccination) and secondary (screening) options for prevention.

My research looks at barriers to engagement in care for women and developing innovative options for improving access to reproductive care. In pregnancy, women with problematic substance use often have limited prenatal care and high rates of neonatal apprehension due to complex care needs and challenges in engaging with care, the implications of which impacts generations of families and communities. Current studies aim to develop a model for care for perinatal substance use relevant to the cultural and geographical realities of Northern BC.

From WHRI website   Dr. Jehannine Austin is President of the National Society of Genetic Counselors. She is an Associate Professor in Psychiatry & Medical Genetics at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, where she holds the Canada Research Chair in Translational Psychiatric Genomics, and is Graduate Advisor to the UBC Genetic Counselling Training Program. Her research work is centered around using what we know from clinical genetics to develop interventions to improve outcomes for individuals with psychiatric disorders, and to support their families. She investigates the effects of genetic counseling for people with psychiatric disorders, and in addition to writing a book on this subject, founded the worlds first specialist psychiatric genetic counseling service, which has now helped about 500 families in British Columbia. She has received leadership awards from national and international genetic counselling organizations for her work.

 

 

From WHRI website   Gina Ogilvie, MD MSc FCFP DrPH is a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Global Control of HPV related diseases and prevention, and Professor at the University of British Columbia in the School of Population and Public Health. She is also Senior Public Health Scientist at BC Centre for Disease Control and Senior Research Advisor at the BC Women’s Hospital and Health Centre.

Dr. Ogilvie is currently principal investigator on over $13-million in research grants and she has received funding from PHAC, CIHR, Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research, Canadian Foundation for Innovation and private foundations including BC Women’s Hospital Foundation among others.

Her research is focused on both the public health and clinical aspects of reproductive health, sexually transmitted infections, HPV screening and the HPV vaccine, and her findings have been highly influential in setting and directing health policy both in Canada and globally.

She has published over 100 peer reviewed manuscripts and has provided advice and consultation to national and global institutions, including the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer, Public Health Agency of Canada, the World Health Organization and Ministries of Health globally on STI, HIV and HPV vaccine policy and programming.

She speaks widely at international and national research and education conferences, and has supervised medical students, residents, and graduate students throughout her career.

 

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Jehannine Austin

Kathryn Dewar