Simon People Test

Education Activist & Youth Ambassador for Right to Learn
Gulafroz Akbari holds a degree in Economics and Management, as well as a diploma in Computer System Technology with a focus on Software Development. She is a dedicated education activist and human rights advocate. As a Youth Ambassador for the Rights to Learn initiative and a member of the Global Shapers community, she is committed to empowering women and promoting youth leadership on a global scale.
With over seven years of experience, she has facilitated workshops and seminars focused on peace, women’s rights, and youth empowerment in Afghanistan. Her previous roles include serving as an Ambassador for the Afghan Youth Peace Council, a leadership board member of the Contact Group for Peace and the White Assembly in Herat, Afghanistan, a delegate at the Pamir International Model United Nations, Chair of the International Student Community, and Deputy Country Coordinator for the International Youth Summit WSDA in New Zealand. Gulli also acts as a patient partner with PERC, providing expertise and advice to ensure primary health care is accessible and patient-centred, and that research in this area reflects patient priorities.

Additionally, she has completed various training programs in mental health, disability rights, and child protection. In recognition of her achievements, she received the Indian Speech as a Foreign Language award from the Indian Embassy in Herat in 2019.

Aref Alshaikhahmed worked as a Project Coordinator for UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment and served as a Field Social Services Program Manager for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in the Near East in Syria.

Aref completed the Leadership in Community Engagement in McMaster’s Continuing Education program. The coursework included a module about “A Primer on Evaluation, Community-based Research, and Persuasive Asks: Data Driven Community Work”. This course prepared co-learners to engage in community-based research and evaluation (R&E) projects, by introducing prevalent research and evaluation methodologies, and engaging learners in exploring the practical, political, cultural, ethical, and interpersonal dimensions of doing research and evaluation within diverse urban communities.

Aref is a member of the Hamilton City Senior Advisory Committee, as well as two of its subcommittees: the Elder Abuse Working Group and the Communication Working Group. In addition, Aref is also a member of the McMaster Discovery Program Advisory Committee.

Ms. Barker is currently senior advisor and clinical support to the provincial Emergency Measures Assistance Team (EMAT) and Aboriginal Mental Health Consultant to the Cree Nations of James Bay. As well, Ms. Barker provides clinical support for Feathers of Hope, an Aboriginal Youth Initiative through the Provincial Advocate for Children and Youth.

Ms. Barker started her career at Michigan State University where she worked with other practitioners to establish the St. Lawrence Hospital Geriatric Assessment Center.  The Center was one of the first in the US to focus on Geriatrics with a multi-disciplinary approach to senior’s health care.  As part of the Family Medicine department at MSU, Ms. Barker focused her research on caregiver stress and elder abuse. After moving to Canada in the late 1980’s, Ms. Barker focused her attention on Elder Abuse, Alzheimer’s and caregiver support.

Ms. Barker played a lead role is establishing the first provincial Elder Abuse Advocacy group and was instrumental in opening the first Abbeyfield House in Guelph.  She specialized in counselling caregivers to the elderly or persons with an Alzheimer’s diagnosis. After moving to the Canadian Arctic, Ms. Barker moved her focus to Aboriginal and Indigenous Issues.  For five years, she provided mental health counselling and support to Inuit in Nunavut.  She then moved south to James Bay in Ontario where she provided clinical and mental health support to the residents of First Nations Communities along the James Bay Coast for over twenty years. Ms. Barker was also a member of the clinical support team for the Truth and Reconciliation commission.

Lorraine Bayliss is a qualified teacher at both secondary and elementary levels with additional qualifications as a teacher of the gifted and learning disabled. Also served as a board wide resource teacher for the second largest board in North America, and later as a school administrator. Her motivation for getting involved with patient oriented research is having lived with juvenile onset diabetes for 48 years.

She has been invited to serve as the chair of the Citizens’ Panel with the Ontario Drug Policy Research Network. Being in education led Lorraine to being actively involved as (SPOR) Masterclass faculty member co-presenting with the faculty from the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry the Western Centre for Public Health and Family Medicine on the Conduct and use of Patient Oriented Research.

Lorraine has acted as a presenter for the current online Masterclass Webinar, a presenter at TUTOR – Transdisciplinary Understanding and Training on Research – Primary Health Care (TUTOR-PHC) Western University.  She also serves on the OSSU Patient Partnership Working Group PPWG and as a member of Patient Advisors Network (PAN).

Lorraine has co-presented at Primary Health Care Research Day on the success of a Partners in Research course for patients and researchers; and for an award winning poster at the North American Primary Health Care Conference.  She has helped organized a support group at Women’s College Hospital and later Toronto General for Type 1 diabetics. Lorraine also serves as an advisory member for the Type 1 Diabetic Think Tank (T1DTT). In her younger days she actually worked with Dr. Charles Best, co-discoverer of insulin.

Ron is an experienced family caregiver to his late father that lived well with Alzheimer’s for over 10+ years while partnering with his senior mother during their journey. He is an advocate in the dementia and aging communities with expertise in technology, aging in place, caregiving, and patient engagement. Ron is the co-chair for AGE-WELL NCE’s Older Adults and Caregiver Advisory Committee, which is Canada’s aging and technology network where he received their honorary fellows award for 2020. He is an advisor and presenter for groups such as the Alzheimer and Dementia Societies locally and internationally, the Centre for Aging &Brain Health Innovation at Baycrest, SE Health, and a member of City of Toronto’s Senior Strategy Accountability Table.

Ron is a guest lecturer for universities and colleges in programs such as nursing, social work, occupational therapy, and aging. He is also a mentor in residence representing the caregiver and patient voice with University of Toronto’s Faculty of Medicine’s Translational Research Program and is on the Executive Board with the Ontario SPOR Support Unit (SPOR – Strategy in Patient Oriented Research). Further in his past, Ron was the Founder and Executive Director of a Youth Career and Employment Centre that served over 30,000 young people, immigrants and career seekers in the Toronto area.

Ron can be found at www.rb33.com/ron and on Twitter @rb33canada.

Post-Doctoral Fellow

Divya received her Ph.D. in Public Health from the Institute of Health Management Research University, India (a WHO Collaborating Centre for District Health System based on Primary Health Care). She currently works as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Bruyère Research Institute affiliated with the University of Ottawa.

Her postdoctoral research focuses on patient engagement in research. She also holds a post graduate diploma in Digital Health from Algonquin College, Ottawa. Prior to this, she gained valuable experience working as a Senior Research Officer at International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), India. In 2012, she received a ‘Young Researcher Grant’ award focusing on child health rights under the Future Health Systems (FHS) junior faculty and postgraduate student awards. FHS- a research consortium head quartered at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health with IIHMR University as one of the global partner.  Her research interests include effective patient engagement, interdisciplinary research, and social determinants of health.

Jennifer Boyle is an active patient partner in research and education. She is the Co-Chair of the Patient Advisory Committee for the Centre for Interprofessional Education at the University of Toronto. She became part of PERC because she sought to advocate for patient engagement in both education and research initiatives. Primary health care addresses the health needs at the individual patient and community levels. It integrates care, prevention, promotion and education. Ideally, primary health care is delivered by an interprofessional team with the patient being central. Likewise, individuals and the community should be engaged in primary health care research in meaningful ways with the aim to improve health care outcomes. By being an active member of PERC, Jennifer hopes to facilitate patient engagement in primary health care research.

Ashley Chisholm is a PhD Candidate at the University of Ottawa. Her doctoral research focuses on the intersection of health services and policy research with health professions education and aims to investigate the role of health professionals in health system transformation. Her research as a PERC-TUTOR Patient Engagement Fellow will involve partnering with patients to develop future direction for research and curricula development on health system transformation. In addition to her academic background, Ashley works in health policy at Canadian Medical Association. Ashley has contributed her expertise to developing policies and strategies that address various health-related issues both in Canada and globally.

Clare has been an active volunteer in community agencies for almost 20 years. Over that time, she has a garnered a wealth of experience and knowledge leading or being a member of committees related to disability, mental health, and sexual assault. In 2020, her focus shifted to improving the quality of life of people living with chronic health issues, and she became a patient advisor with Ontario Health-Cancer Care Ontario and the Canadian Cancer Society.

Research Advisor (Primary Health Care Research)

Simone Dahrouge is a Scientist at the Bruyere Research Institute and Vice-Chair Research for the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Ottawa. She is Deputy Chair for the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Ottawa. Her current research is in the area of population health and primary care, more specifically focusing on organization of primary care health services research and its effects on quality and equity of care.

(PAN), a national community of practice for patient and family advisors/partners. PAN is focused on building the capacity for advisors/partners to become more effective in their engagements.

Bachelor of Science, School of Nursing, McMaster University

Research interests: Access to healthcare, social determinants of health, health equity

Dr. Rebecca Ganann is a Registered Nurse and Assistant Professor in the School of Nursing at McMaster University. Dr. Ganann is Co-Scientific Director of the Aging, Community and Health Research Unit, Acting Lead of the OSSU-funded McMaster Collaborative for Health and Aging, and a researcher with the McMaster Institute for Research on Aging. Dr. Ganann also Co-Leads OSSU’s Early Career Researcher Community of Practice. Her research explores intersecting themes of patient-oriented research, primary health care, health promotion, and health equity. Dr. Ganann’s research program is currently focused on integrated health and social service delivery innovations to promote physical and mental health, and mobility among community-dwelling older adults. Her previous research has explored mental health and health services accessibility for immigrant women.

Ian is Senior Scientist in the Clinical Epidemiology Program of the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute and Professor in the School of Epidemiology and Public Health, and Nursing at the University of Ottawa. He is an Adjunct Professor in the School of Nursing at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario and an Honorary Professor in the School of Nursing and Midwifery at Deakin University, Melbourne Australia. Ian obtained a Ph.D. in medical sociology from McGill University.

His research focuses on knowledge translation research (the process of research use) and conducting applied research on strategies to increase implementation of evidence-informed practice and policy. His research program also includes studying how partnerships between researchers and knowledge users (including patients) work and their impact.

Mary Huang graduated from University of Waterloo for Systems Design Engineering and has MBA from INSEAD in France.  Mary lived the first 10 years of her life in Taiwan and has also lived and worked in Europe for 10 years with 2 years in London, 1 year in Paris, 1 year in Fontainebleau in France and 6 years in Prague in addition to short periods in Auckland, NZ and Malaysia.

Mary is a consultant specializing in big data, data warehouses and building planning and forecasting systems for clients such as eBay, Apple, J&J, Sandoz, OfficeMax, Fountarra (NZ Dairy) among others and have spoken at conferences in her field.   Having worked often in multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural teams, Mary is a strategic and out of the box thinker focused on solutions. With her father being diagnosed with MCI then dementia in 2014 which was refined to mixed Alzheimer and Vascular Dementia in 2015 and her mother diagnosed with Vascular Dementia in 2017, Mary have been increasingly involved in advocacy.  There should be more person-centric care and more options for patients and families including creative ones  that involved out the box thinking.  In addition to some research projects, Mary has participated in the National Dementia Conference and has been involved with AGE-WELL and CABHI more recently since she believe strongly in research and technology.

Caron Leid, author of Alzheimer’s: What they forget to tell you. Caron is a dedicated mother and passionate student. Born in Swindon, England to George and Marlene Leid, immigrated to Canada in 1971 and then spent her formative years in Trinidad W.I. attending Holy Name Convent in Port of Spain. Her parents then moved back to Canada, to Brampton, Ontario where she currently resides. Caron pursues her passion for education by pursuing her Doctorate in Education. Her book has been featured on Chapters, Amazon, Barnes & Noble and international book stores. Caron received her undergraduate degree from University of Windsor, majoring in Psychology and minoring in Sociology. Her career and passion surrounded educating others and believes in the pay it forward principle. As the primary caregiver to her mother for the last 18 years and counting, Caron hopes that her story can inspire people that struggle with Alzheimer’s disease and the various aspects surrounding the disease.

Claire’s passion for patient engagement evolved following diagnosis and treatment for a serious illness. During the acute treatment and maintenance phases of her illness, Claire had the opportunity to work as a patient advisor on research projects related to cancer symptom management. Claire is also a PhD candidate at the School of Nursing, University of Ottawa. Her illness and treatment had such an impact on her worldview that she has harnessed these experiences and focused her doctoral work on patient engagement, specifically engaging frail and/or seriously ill patients as partners in research. In her professional life, Claire is a senior health care leader in the home and community care sector and understands first-hand the importance of developing health services in collaboration with patients and caregivers in order to better serve their needs in the communities in which they live.

Maggie’s background as a policy analyst in the Minister of State for Seniors Support Unit, Employment and Social Development Canada has informed her research interests in health and social issues relevant to older people.

Maggie received her Ph.D in Aging, Health and Wellbeing from the University of Waterloo, and her MA in Public Policy and Public Administration from Concordia University. Maggie’s BA is in Sociology, Anthropology and Urban Studies from Concordia University. Maggie’s post-doctoral fellowship is focused on evaluating a community co-design initiative with older people and community health and social service providers.

As a patient advisor, Alies Maybee brings her experience as patient and caregiver plus her professional background as business analyst for technology companies and as partner in a brand consultancy. At her local hospital, Alies was the initial co-chair of the newly formed Community Engagement Council.  And she is one of two initial PFAs (patient and family advisors) in the hospital. At the system level, she has participated on many projects and panels on various aspects of healthcare.

Alies works with Health Quality Ontario developing performance measures from the patient perspective.  And she is a member of the inaugural Citizens Panel for the Toronto Central LHIN and the West Sub Region group. In the area of research, Alies spent three years on the Research Management Committee of CFN (Canadian Frailty Network) and a year on the ARTIC (Adopting Research to Improve Care) Operational Committee in the same role. She is a patient partner for BeACCoN, the Ontario PIHCI and is on the operational committee for INSPIRE. She was a member of the CFN citizen engagement working group looking at how best to involve patients and families in research.  She has been a partner in over 10 research projects.

Alies has been trained by CIHR (Canadian Institutes for Health Research) to deliver their patient oriented research curriculum. She also conducts workshops on partnering with citizens in research. The workshops were developed together with fellow patient partners as part of the Ontario SPOR Demonstration project she led. She is a co-founder of the Patient Advisors Network.

Dr. Vivian R Ramsden, a Registered Nurse, is Professor & Director of the Research Division, Department of Academic Family Medicine at the University of Saskatchewan. She is also the Chair-Elect and soon to be the Chair of the Section of Researchers, College of Family Physicians of Canada- the first time that a non-physician has held this role.

As a participatory health researcher in primary health care settings, she is a passionate advocate of authentic engagement, co-creation and action research. Primary health care research also involves strategies to engage individuals, organizations and communities in identifying and addressing locally-relevant issues that impact health and wellness. Thus, in collaboration with several Indigenous communities in northern Saskatchewan and a number in South India, she is engaged in research that is co-created, co-designed, co-developed, co-presented and co-authored with the communities.

Peter Sheffield (he/him) is a Social Worker and PhD student at the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work at the University of Toronto, and the recipient of one of the inaugural PERC/TUTOR-PHC Patient Engagement Fellowships. His research interests are interdisciplinary primary care, how providers and patients conceive of thriving and well-being, and how healthcare organizational policies and practices protect against provider burnout.

JoAnn joined the PERC Advisory Board as a research partner to support the well-being of patients and their families. She has experience participating in a Pain Management research project, which led her to become involved with PERC. She experienced the benefits of a group of patients to learn, share experiences, research and giving back. JoAnn has the knowledge and experience with Mental Health and the issues that surround it. She worked for many years as a nursing assistant, providing care for all ages in health care with physical and intellectual limitations. She also worked as a supervisor and auditor in the printed plastic industry. JoAnn is passionate about reading, learning, resourcing and assisting others to find the answers they are looking for. She is still actively involved with helping others.

Master of Science in Nursing

Research Interests: Peri-operative care, patient-oriented research, and knowledge translation and exchange

Julie Vizza is a fourth year PhD Candidate at Ontario Tech University. Overall, her research interests surround utilizing the experience of patients to improve the delivery of care across various levels of the health care system. Julie’s current dissertation research explores patient engagement among older adults with multimorbidity and within team-based care settings. She is co-supervised by Dr. David Rudoler (Ontario Tech University) and Dr. Agnes Grudniewicz (University of Ottawa). Julie’s lived experience as an individual with complex care needs has strengthened her conviction that understanding the perspectives of patients is a necessary component of supporting improvements to health outcomes.