Members
Dr. Maria Santana
Principal Investigator
Dr. Maria Santana is a health services researcher, and patient and family-centred care scientist. She is an Associate Professor in the departments of Pediatrics and Community Health Sciences at the Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary. Dr. Santana has received training in clinical pharmacy, public health, and clinical epidemiology. Her research focuses in developing novel methods to integrate the voice of patients and family caregivers in health care and health service research to improve health and health care. The methods advance person-centred care and patient-oriented research.
She is the Provincial Lead, Patient Engagement, for the Alberta Strategy for Patient-oriented Research (AbSPORU). She is the academic leader of the Patient and Community Engagement in Research. In 2022, Dr. Santana was appointed Scientific Advisor for the University of Gothenburg Centre for Person-centred Care.
Staff
Dr. Paul Fairie
Associate Director, AbSPORU Patient Engagement Team
Senior Research Associate
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.
Dr. Erin McCabe
Post-doctoral Fellow
Dr. Erin McCabe is a physiotherapist and post-doctoral fellow focusing on integrating patient-reported outcome measures into Alberta’s pediatric health system. She is focused on implementing and evaluating patient-reported outcome and experience measure use in the new Centre for Child and Youth Mental Health in Calgary. In 2023, she was awarded a fellowship for Measuring outcomes for children, youth and their families in mental health services.
Kalpana Thapa Bajgain
Research Assistant
Kalpana Thapa Bajgain is a second-year student at the University of Calgary of Community Health Sciences, where she is pursuing a degree in science, specializing in Health Services Research. She also had a Master’s degree in Primary Health Care Management from Mahidol University, Thailand. Besides, she cultivated her professional skill set in the healthcare industry with over 8 years of experience as a lecturer, researcher, and program coordinator in Nepal.
Kalpana’s research interests include health service research, with an emphasis on patient-centered care, child and youth mental health, prevention, and immigrants’ health. Currently, Kalpana is focusing her research on Patient-reported outcome measures in child and youth mental health services.
Matthew Luzentales-Simpson
Research Coordinator
Matthew Luzentales-Simpson (BSc, MSc) 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.
Tiffany Barbosa
Research Coordinator (Speciality: Community Partnerships)
Tiffany Barbosa holds a bachelor’s in business management and a master's in community economic development. Having most recently made notable contributions to AbSPOR's patient engagement and provincial community engagement. She has repeatedly focused on the importance of maintaining meaningful relationships with different levels of the provincial government, the private sector, stakeholders, NGOs, community leaders, and community members alike.
She has substantial experience as a community-based researcher and has continually developed various strategies from strategically derived initiatives to reduce and prevent poverty through her written contributions-internationally, and tangibly through projects and initiatives both in Alberta and Manitoba. Human rights and social justice are two of Tiffany's biggest passions.
Bishnu Bajgain
Research Coordinator
Bishnu Bajgain is a Research Coordinator with the team, primarily working on implementing and evaluating patient-reported outcome measures (Measurement-Based Care) in child and adolescent mental health. 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, including the Grande International Hospital and the Medicare National Hospital & Research Centre, Nepal. 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.
Sadia Ahmed
Research Associate
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.
Iqmat Iyiola
Research Assistant
Iqmat Iyiola is an undergraduate student at the University of Alberta and a graduate of the Patient and Community Engagement Research (PaCER) program from the University of Calgary. Her research interests include health policy, person-centred care, and child & maternal health.
Ambar Ortega Pinto
Research Operations Assistant
Ambar Ortega Pinto is a Research Operations Assistant for the AbSPORU Patient Engagement Team. She holds a Bachelor's Degree in Communications. She is motivated by her firm belief in the power of communication to drive positive change. She aims to contribute to the enhancement of healthcare systems by supporting patient-oriented research.
Ambar's interests are social justice, mental health, and women’s health.
Dr. Kyle Kemp
Senior Research Associate
Dr. Kyle Kemp is a Senior Research Associate with the team. He completed his PhD at the University of Calgary (Community Health Sciences, Health Services Research specialization), and is the Director of Methods, Analytics and Reporting with the Health Standards Organization (HSO). Kyle’s research focuses on improving the experiences of hospitalized Albertans through linkage of survey data with administrative data sets. His research has been recognized by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), Alberta Innovates, the Canadian Association for Health Services and Policy Research (CAHSPR), the International Society for Quality of Life (ISOQOL), and the International Population Data Linkage Network (IPDLN).
Dr. Kimberly Manalili
Senior Research Associate
Dr. Kimberly Manalili (MPH, PhD) is a Health System Impact Postdoctoral Scholar with Alberta Health Services Provincial Population and Public Health and the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Calgary. In addition, Kimberly maintains a role with the Alberta Strategy for Patient Oriented Research Patient Engagement Platform as a Senior Research Associate. Her research is focussed on implementation science, with an emphasis on health equity and intersectoral partnerships with patients, communities, as well as healthcare providers, staff, and policymakers. She is also interested in the development of innovative approaches to engaging diverse patients and communities in research and policy. In 2023, she was awarded a fellowship for Data-sharing and co-ordination of care to prevent chronic disease.
Dr. Marina Rosa Filezio
Post-doctoral Fellow
Dr. Rosa Filezio is a Post-Doctoral Fellow supported by the Charlie Fischer Fellowship in Advancing Patient- and Family-Oriented Research.
She completed a clinical and surgical Pediatric Spine Fellowship at the Alberta Children’s Hospital, as well as a Master’s degree in Population and Public Health from the University of Calgary.
She received the support of the Surgeon Scientist Program to pursue her Master’s degree, which focused on improving the surgical consent prior to spinal surgeries for pediatric patients and their families by using a family- and patient-centred approach and multimedia tools.
She is the preceptor for AbSPORU's Patient Engagement in Patient-Oriented Research Certificate Course. Dr. Rosa Filezio also has a deep interest in improving information delivery and patients’ and guardians' education, as well as exploring ways to improve access of care and patient-oriented research.
Ingrid Nielssen
Patient Engagement Coordinator
Specialty: Education & Training
PaCER Instructor
Ingrid Nielssen holds a graduate degree in Gender and Social Justice from the University of Alberta. She is the Patient Engagement Coordinator for the Alberta SPOR SUPPORT Unit Patient Engagement Team and the instructor for the Patient and Community Engagement Research (PaCER) program. She believes strongly in multi-faceted ‘together we are better’ approaches to accessibility and equity in health research. This means continually advancing more inclusive participatory research methodology and praxis, and consistently exploring more universal approaches to disseminating research results.
Brian Steele
Research Assistant
Brian Steele is a research assistant with the Person-Centred Care Team and an MSc student in epidemiology at the University of Alberta. His work with the PCC Team focuses on patient experience surveys and health services utilization.
Sandra Zelinsky
Lead Patient Research Partner, AbSPORU Patient Engagement Team
Research Coordinator
Sandra Zelinsky 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.
Stacy Boehner
Administrative Coordinator
Students
Jacqueline Wilson
PhD candidate (Supervisor: Dr. Karen Benzies), Registered Nurse
Jacqueline Wilson (RN, BN) is a PhD Candidate in the Faculty of Nursing at the University of Calgary. Clinical experiences locally and abroad have fuelled Jacqueline's interest in exploring patient and family engagement in health services research, decisions, and evaluation.
Jacqueline's CIHR-funded doctoral research addresses a call-to-action by Alberta parents and involves co-developing a patient-reported experience measure to examine parents' experiences with family-centred care in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. The instrument is being co-developed by a research team of parents, researchers, and healthcare professionals.
As an aspiring nurse clinician-scientist, Jacqueline hopes to establish a research program that exemplifies how health system gaps and solutions can be identified and addressed by research teams co-led by patient and family partners.
Seema King
PhD student
Seema King is a PhD candidate at the University of Calgary in the Department of Community Health Sciences, Cumming School of Medicine. She completed her Masters in Social Work at the University of Calgary, and a Masters in Science at the University of Alberta. Seema’s research interests focus on improving the lives of seniors and caregivers in a variety of clinical contexts. Her PhD thesis aims to improve the supports available for substitute decision-makers of seniors living with dementia.
Farwa Naqvi
MSc student
Farwa Naqvi has had a keen interest in researching gaps within the health care system for many years. As a Master's student, she is reaching the end of her study on Immigrant Youth Mental Health. Farwa loves to explore what priorities patients have for their enhanced quality of life and she further delves into what can be done to address their issues. Apart from academics, Farwa loves kayaking and hiking just like many Albertans do! Farwa is eager to make connections with people who can increase her knowledge on youth mental health and would like to further study the topic after completing her Masters.
Alessandra Paolucci
PhD candidate
Alessandra Paolucci holds a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the University of Calgary (UofC). She is a first-year PhD student in the Community Health Sciences Program specializing in Health Services Research (HSR) at the UofC and is supervised by Dr. Maria Santana. Her doctoral research aims to explore why family caregivers’ needs are unmet across the patient’s entire disease trajectory, to improve the provision and utilization of palliative care services. Alessandra is also the preceptor for Canada’s first and newly developed Patient Engagement in Patient Oriented Research Online Certificate Course at the Alberta Strategy for Patient Oriented Research Unit (AbSPORU).
Sarah Rabi
MSc student
Sarah Rabi is an MSc student in Community Health Sciences. She received her BSc Honours degree in Life Sciences from Queen’s University in June 2022. Her undergraduate thesis work entitled, “Post-discharge opioid use following lumbar spine surgery in older adults in Ontario,” used provincial administrative data to identify potential risk factors for long-term opioid use among older orthopedic patients. For her Master’s thesis, Sarah will we employ qualitative research methods to collect patient perspectives on Patient Navigation; exploring their conceptualizations of the service and the health care gaps it addresses. A secondary objective of her thesis will also be to evaluate the potential role, benefits, and/or unintended consequences of virtual approaches to Patient Navigation.
Huzaifa Kamal
Honours Student
Huzaifa Binte Kamal is a fourth-year international student from Bangladesh, pursuing a Bachelor of Health Sciences at the University of Calgary. She is currently engaged in navigating cultural competency in healthcare systems at the Person-centered Care lab under the supervision of Dr. Maria Santana. Her research interests include healthcare systems, mental health, immigrants, vulnerable populations, and EDI-related research. She is enthusiastic about her position at the lab and hopes to contribute towards promoting equitable healthcare.