Speakers

Dr. Maria J. Santana

Dr. Maria J. Santana is a health services researcher, patient and family-centred care scientist, Professor in the departments of Pediatrics and Community Health Sciences at the Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, Canada.

She is the provincial director, Patient Engagement for the Alberta Strategy for Patient-oriented Research (https://absporu.ca/patient-engagement-2/ ). She is the principal investigator for the Person-centred Care Research Team, https://cumming.ucalgary.ca/research/person-centred-care and the academic director of the Patient and Community Engagement in Research, PaCER, https://www.ucalgary.ca/patient-community-engagement-research .

Email: mjsantan@ucalgary.ca

Elder Jackie Bromley 

 Elder Jackie Bromley is a dedicated member of the Kainai Blood Tribe in southern Alberta and she is involved in several social initiatives helping to improve the lives of Indigenous people and preserving culture. She serves as a Rural Communication Outreach Support Worker and Cultural Advisor with the Awo Taan Healing Lodge Society in Calgary. Jackie is also involved with 113 Pathways to Justice, Alberta Health Services, Calgary Board of Education, and the University of Calgary. She is currently working on the Indigenous Elder’s Lodge, Calgary’s first urban Indigenous seniors living facility. 

Jackie has received numerous awards, including the Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Medal, the 2018 Esquao Award, and the 2017 Arthur Smith Award, recognizing her 30 years of community work and commitment to empowering Indigenous people. She has dedicated her life to supporting the vulnerable and advocating for those in need. 

Sadia Ahmed

Sadia Ahmed is a Research Associate with the AbSPORU Patient Engagement Team. As part of her role, she carries out patient-oriented research projects, oversees and supports student projects, and supports researchers and patient-partners to work together in health research teams. She has experience with qualitative research methods, evaluation of patient engagement, patient-reported experience and outcomes measures (PREMs, PROMs) research, and co-facilitating digital storytelling workshops.

Email: sadahmed@ucalgary.ca

Sandra Zelinsky

Sandra Zelinsky, Lead Patient Research Partner, AbSPORU Patient Engagement Team 

Sandra is a graduate of the Patient and Community Engagement Research (PaCER) program from the University of Calgary, and she is a trained Digital Storytelling facilitator from The Story Center, USA. She believes in the importance of bringing lived experience partners as experts to health research teams and has seen the direct impact on the conduct and outputs of research. She helps to support research teams in working together in patient engagement and patient-oriented research for the AbSPORU Patient Engagement Team. She also conducts qualitative patient-led research with an interest in arts-based approaches, specifically Digital Storytelling. It is her lived experiences as a person living with chronic disease and a cancer survivor that motivates her to work collaboratively in health research. 

Dorothy Nelson

A Patient Research Partner since 2016.  A lifelong learner with working experience in Behavioural Psychology, Lifeskill's Coaching and Environmental Sciences.  As of 2022, now a Patient and Community Engagement Researcher, PaCER, with the University of Calgary and the Abspor platform.  

Her lived experience includes Diabetes, Cardiovascular and Eye disease. These conditions have shaped how she views the healthcare system. 

Now celebrating 54 years as a Type 1 diabetic.  This has come with other health complications.  Regardless, she is looking to push this aging number, actively.  

She is retired from the normal workforce, with new skills online.  

She is exploring opportunities in research, as a Patient Partner.  An opportunity she looks forward to. 

In her spare time she is a beekeeper. To her, the world of the honeybee is captivating.

Dr. Ewa Wasniewski

Dr. Ewa Wasniewski is the Director of Domestic programs at UCalgary's Continuing Education, where she oversees the development and delivery of various market-relevant programs that include technology, business, adult learning, professional development, personal interest, Indigenous, and Patient and Community Engagement Research (PaCER). Dr. Wasniewski completed a degree in Physical Education and Education followed by a Master and PhD in Educational Psychology from the University of Alberta. Dr. Wasniewski’s areas of specialization focus on program development specifically educational technologies and their impact on teaching and learning. Current research interests include examining the impact of AI on job-related skills, online programming support needed for diverse learners, and international student mobility post-graduation

Paul Fairie

Paul Fairie is a Senior Research Associate on the Person-Centred Care Team in the Department of Community Health Sciences at the University of Calgary. He conducts research to understand the patient experience, and provides guidance to the AbSPORU Patient Engagement Team.

Mary McGuire

Mary McGuire a co-chair on the Albertan’s4HealthResearch (AB4HR) Collaborative Council. She is also a Project Manager with the Rural Development Network having managed projects related to building capacity within the gender-based violence (GBV) sector, aging in place and dementia-inclusivity. Mary graduated from MacEwan University’s Social Work Program and most of her career has focused on community engagement, project coordination, and front-line work within the GBV sector.

Lateef Habib

Lateef began his career in the helping field over 25 years ago, and his work has spanned community, acute care, private and public sector, outpatient, Intensive Outpatient program (IOP), Day Hospital and training others. 

Lateef has extensive clinical experience in addictions and mental health in a wide range of settings as a Clinical Supervisor, Clinician, Educator and Trainer. His therapeutic work focuses on balancing acceptance and change with clients while developing skills to enhance capacity for both. His therapeutic approach is one of compassion, collaboration and recognizing the people are resilient, having inherent wisdom about their lives, and are hardwired for connection with others.  

In addition, he is an Assistant Professor (Teaching), Faculty Field Instructor, Field Faculty External Supervisor with the University of Calgary Faculty of Social work, where he continues to inspire and be inspired by students and colleagues. 

In addition, Lateef was the recipient of the 2022 University of Calgary Faculty of Social Work Student Supervision, Mentorship and Support Teaching Excellence Award. In addition, Lateef Habib is a skilled psychotherapist, he provides Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Dialectal Behavioral Therapy (DBT), Mindfulness, Motivational Interviewing, Seeking Safety, Individual, Family Based Treatment (FBT) and Group therapy.  He has treated many patients with Anxiety, Addictions, Eating Disorders and Mood Disorders. Lateef is a Clinical Supervisor for Recovery Alberta’s Community Addictions & Mental Health – NW Clinic and Women’s Mental Health Clinic

Kyle Kemp

Kyle Kemp is Director of Data, Analytics, and Methods at the Health Standards Organization, and is a Senior Research Associate with the Patient Engagement Platform of the Alberta SPOR Support Unit at the University of Calgary. Kyle has over 15 years of experience in research and analytics, including over a decade with Alberta Health Services and the Health Quality Council of Alberta. He holds a PhD from the University of Calgary, where his work was focused on the hospital experiences of Albertans who require cardiac surgery. Kyle has authored over 35 peer-reviewed publications and has presented over 80 conference abstracts. His research has been recognized in awards from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), Alberta Innovates, the Canadian Association for Health Services and Policy Research (CAHSPR), and the International Society for Quality of Life (ISOQOL).

Matthew Luzentales-Simpson

Matthew is a bench-trained scientist with previous work in the field of human immunology and experimental medicines. His passions lie in quality improvement in health systems and health policy, and exploring innovative methods to improve the patient experience in primary care in Alberta.

Dr. Kimberly Manalili

Dr. Kimberly Manalili is an Implementation Scientist with the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Calgary. She is interested in studying and supporting the implementation of person-centred and collaborative approaches to care, as well as innovations to improve population health and  address health inequities.

Safa Ahmed

Early on in her medical career, Safa became known for demonstrating compassion and empathy for others. She volunteered with not-for-profit mobile clinics providing healthcare to underserved communities.

Solutions-oriented and results-driven, she collaborated with authorities to designate a special ward that offered a month’s worth of care for abandoned newborns. This initiative resulted in a significant decline in infant mortality among orphans.

Safa has a deeply rooted values system, is highly ethical, and advocates for dignity and respect for all individuals. She has a strong interest the field of research.

In her free time, Safa enjoys reading, cooking, and sharing recipes with others.

Dr. Erin McCabe

Dr. Erin McCabe is an Assistant Professor in the department of Physical Therapy at the University of Alberta. Her research focuses on measuring health outcomes from the patient’s perspective and how to implement patient-reported outcome and experience measures in child and adolescent health services. Erin was a 2022 CIHR Health System Impact Fellow, where her project was the implementation and evaluation of patient-reported outcome measures in child and adolescent mental health. She graduated as a physiotherapist in 2008 and worked clinically in a variety of settings before returning to the U of A to complete a PhD where she developed a patient-reported experience measure for patient-provider relationship in physiotherapy.

Bishnu Bajgain

Bishnu Bajgain is a PhD Student in the Department of Community Health Sciences at the University of Calgary. He is working as a Research Coordinator in the Department of Paediatric, primarily working on implementing and evaluating patient-reported outcome measures (Measurement-Based Care) in child and adolescent mental health program. His academic background includes an MSc in Health Services Research from the University of Calgary. He also holds an MSc in Healthcare Management. Prior to that, he was a faculty member of healthcare management at various universities in Nepal. Along with his academic career, Bishnu holds a wide range of healthcare experiences, working in various leadership positions in setting and managing corporate and community hospitals over 10 years. Honoring his academic and leadership commitment to excellence, Bishnu has received Teaching Recognition as well as leadership Awards time and again. Bishnu’s research interests include Health Services Research, with a focus on Learning Health Systems, Implementation, Family/Patient-Centered Care, and Primary Care.

Freeha Anjum

Freeha is a 4^th year undergraduate student studying Neuroscience, with a Certificate in Mental Wellbeing and Resilience. She has been involved in improving youth mental health systems in Calgary through her role as a crisis line responder at Distress Centre Calgary for the past 5 years, running a project to help high-achieving university students prioritize mental health, and as a member for the youth research advisory council at The Summit. She has also been directly involved in research projects including as a volunteer in the PsychPGx pharmacogenomic lab, as a research assistant for workplace mistreatment antecedents and consequences at the Haskayne School of Business, and on her own project analyzing the correlations between grey matter trajectories and ADHD symptoms in preschool children at Dr. Lebel's developmental neuroimaging lab. Freeha has been an active part in advising on the measurement-based care program at The Summit, in a systematic review on the use of measurement-based care in youth mental health clinics, and as an advocate for the use of measurement-based care in mental health clinics across the city.

PaCER Team: WeCMV

Dr. Castillo's PEP-C (Protecting Every Pregnancy - Canada) Lab at the University of Calgary's Cumming School of Medicine strives to protect pregnant people, babies, and their families from preventable morbidity and mortality caused by infectious diseases, like cytomegalovirus. Dr. Castillo and the WeCMV PaCER team sought to understand parental preferences regarding newborn universal screening for congenital cytomegalovirus.