IHDCYH Institute Advisory Board Members – Biographies

Dr. Alan Bocking
Gordon C. Leitch Chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology,
University of Toronto

Dr. Alan Bocking is the Gordon C. Leitch Chair of the University of Toronto, Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and the former Chief of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Mount Sinai Hospital, the University Health Network and Women's College Hospital.

He is a professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and Physiology at the University of Toronto, Past President of the Association of Academic Professionals in Obstetrics and Gynaecology (APOG), and is a Fellow at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, the Society of Obstetrics and Gynaecology of Canada and the American Gynaecological and Obstetrical Society.

Dr. Bocking's main areas of study are the mechanisms underlying infection-mediated preterm labour. His other research interests include developing new diagnostics tests for pre-term labour, the role of oxidative stress in fetal alcohol syndrome, as well as developmental origins of health and disease.

Dr. Bocking has also contributed significantly to the enhancement of Clinical Care, Research and Teaching in the Department of Reproductive Health at Moi University School of Medicine in Eldoret, Kenya. As Co-Director of the AMPATH-RH (Academic Model for Provision of Access to Health Care – Reproductive Health) Program, he leads a team focusing currently on the clinical issues of cervical cancer and maternal and perinatal morbidity and mortality.

Dr. Bocking is Co-Director of the Canadian Birth Registry Cohort for the Maternal, Infant and Child Research Network (MICYRN), and is a member of the Board of Directors of MICYRN. He is the Vice-President of the Molly Towell Perinatal Research Foundation which funds basic and translational research in the field of Perinatal Medicine.

Mrs. Leanne Boyd
Director, Policy Development, Research and Evaluation
Healthy Child Manitoba Office (HCMO)

Leanne Boyd is the Director, Policy Development, Research and Evaluation at the Healthy Child Manitoba Office (HCMO), the staff and secretariat of the Government of Manitoba's Healthy Child Committee of Cabinet (HCCC), the only legislated Cabinet committee in Canada dedicated to the well-being of children and youth (prenatal to age 18 years). HCCC comprises the Ministers of Aboriginal and Northern Affairs; Culture, Heritage and Tourism; Education; Family Services and Consumer Affairs; Health; Healthy Living, Youth and Seniors; Housing and Community Development, Justice; and Labour and Immigration/Status of Women. Under the Healthy Child Manitoba Act (2007), HCMO is mandated to work across departments and sectors through integrated research, policy, practice, and evaluation to facilitate best possible outcomes for children, youth, family, and community.

Leanne represents Manitoba on several Federal, Provincial, Territorial (F/P/T) and national committees including: F/P/T Early Childhood Development (ECD) Working Group, now known as F/P/T Working Group on Social Development Research and Information (SDRI) and co-chairs its Committee on ECD Knowledge, Information, and Effective Practices; Directing Committee, Centre of Excellence for Early Childhood Development; the Strategic Knowledge Cluster on Early Childhood Development; National Monitoring Committee; Canadian Institute for Child Health National Advisory Group; Mental Health Commission of Canada / Evergreen Child and Youth National Framework Committee; Federal/Provincial/Territorial Sub Committee on the OECD Network on ECEC; as well as chairing many provincial cross-departmental committees.

Leanne has a BSW and MSW degrees from the University of Manitoba and an Advanced Community Child and Adolescent Psychiatry internship. Leanne has worked with the Province of Manitoba, for the last 35 years, as a policy analyst, therapist, instructor and director, focusing on improving the mental health of children, youth, families and communities.

Dr. Tammy Clifford
Chief Scientist, Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health (CADTH)

Dr. Tammy Clifford is the Chief Scientist at the Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health (CADTH), and an Adjunct Professor with both the Department of Pediatrics and the Department of Epidemiology & Community Medicine at the University of Ottawa. At CADTH, her responsibilities include aligning with best practices the methods and processes employed in conducting assessments on drugs and other health technologies, assuring the continued quality and timely delivery of CADTH reports, and building capacity amongst producers and users of evidence-based assessments by providing education, training, and outreach. At the University of Ottawa, Tammy teaches the graduate course in health technology assessment, serves as a member of the Graduate Studies Committee for the MSc program in Epidemiology and supervises students in both the MSc and PhD epidemiology programs. Dr. Clifford received her PhD in Epidemiology and Biostatistics from the University of Western Ontario and both her BSc and MSc(A) from McGill University. A dozen years ago, as a PhD student, Tammy participated in a workshop that developed an agenda dedicated to reproductive women's health, development and maternal, child and youth health research; this agenda formed the basis for subsequent creation of the IHDCYH.

Dr. Clifford's particular fields of interest relate to the methodological underpinnings of systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and rapid reviews, and in promoting the value of transparency in such research through initiatives such as PROSPERO. She continues to be actively involved in primary pediatric research through collaboration with colleagues at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO). Her doctoral work on infant colic received widespread acclaim, and she remains strongly committed to continued research into preterm birth, newborn screening, breastfeeding and children's mental health. Dr. Clifford is involved in a number of organizations, including Health Technology Assessment International (HTAi); she has served as a member of its Board of Directors and as Chair of HTAi's Scientific and Professional Programmes Committee. She also serves as a reviewer for The Lancet, Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, PLoS One, Health Policy, and the International Journal of Technology Assessment in Health Care.

Astrid Guttman, MDCM, MSc, FRCP(C)
Associate Professor
University of Toronto

Astrid Guttmann is an Associate Professor of Paediatrics and Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto, a General Paediatrician at the Hospital for Sick Children, and a Scientist at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences where she is the Program Head for the Health System Performance Evaluation Program. She is funded by CIHR New Investigator and Canadian Child Health Clinician Scientist Program career awards and holds multiple CIHR operating grants in the areas of child health services research. Her research interests include the development and use of quality of care performance measures for children, and the relationship of physician and other system-level resources on the quality of healthcare for children. She sits on a number of provincial policy committees including the Child and Youth Advisory Committee to the Ontario Provincial Council on Maternal, Newborn, Child and Youth Health.

Bonnie Leadbeater, Ph.D
Professor
University of Victoria

Dr. Bonnie Leadbeater is a clinical psychologist and professor in the Psychology Department and Director of the new Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Social Dimensions of Health at the University of Victoria. She has an interdisciplinary training background with an emphasis on health, education and psychology. She holds degrees in Nursing and Educational Psychology from the University of Ottawa, and in Developmental Psychology from Columbia University, New York. She did postdoctoral training in Clinical Psychology at Yale University's Child Study Center in New Haven CT and was a faculty member of the Yale Psychology Department from 1988 to 1997.

Dr. Leadbeater has made internationally recognized contributions to research in adolescent parenting, gender differences in adolescent depression, resilience in high-risk youth, the prevention of peer victimization and bullying, and knowledge transfer of mental health promotion programs for children. She is an author and evaluator of the WITS elementary programs for the prevention of peer victimization. Her publications include contributions to theory, research methodology, and ethics in these areas of study and she has been highly committed to efforts to translate theory and research into student training and into policy and program actions that can improve the lives of children, youth, and their families.

Dr. Noni MacDonald
Professor of Paediatrics and of Computer Science, Dalhousie University

Dr. Noni MacDonald is a Professor of Paediatrics and of Computer Science at Dalhousie University with a clinical appointment in Paediatric Infectious Diseases at the IWK Health Centre in Halifax Canada. She is a former Dean of Medicine at Dalhousie University. She was the first women in Canada to be a Dean of Medicine. She works in the Health Policy and Translation Group of the Canadian Centre for Vaccinology. Her major research interests have centered on vaccines particularly safety and health policy issues, sexually transmitted infections in children and youth and infections in children with underlying illnesses. She has published over 300 papers. She is the founding Editor in Chief of Paediatrics and Child Health, one of the most read Canadian specialty journals and a former Editor in Chief of CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). She co-founded MicroResearch in 2008 to help grow community focused research capacity in developing countries and is also involved in the application of health information systems in developing countries to improve health outcomes. She is an elected fellow of Canadian Academy of Health Sciences and serves on many professional organization, federal government and international advisory committees. She was a founding member of the World Health Organization's Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety and now serves as a consultant to the Department of Immunization, Vaccine and Biologicals.Dr. MacDonald has long been recognized in Canada, as an advocate for children and youth health and as a leader in paediatric infectious disease.

Gina Muckle, Ph.D
Professor
Université Laval

After two post-doctoral internships, one in developmental psychology at Wayne State University (Detroit) and the other in environmental health at the Centre de recherche CHUL-CHUQ, Ms. Muckle was a professor on grant in the Department of Social and Preventative Medicine at the Université Laval for five years before being hired with the School of Psychology in 2003, where she became a full professor in 2009. She is an investigator in the area of Population and Environmental Health at the CHUQ Research Centre. Dr. Muckle is specialized in the field of developmental and behavioural teratology, incorporating concepts derived from epidemiology and toxicology and touches on children's health, environmental health and Aboriginal health. The teratogenic substances on which Ms. Muckle is specifically focusing are alcohol and environmental contaminants such as organochlorines, mercury, and lead. Ms. Muckle has obtained scholarships and research grants from the FRSQ, the NIH, the Ministry of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, and CIHR.

Mrs. Elaine Orrbine
President and CEO
Canadian Association of Paediatric Health Centres

Elaine is the President and CEO of the Canadian Association of Paediatric Health Centres (CAPHC). In addition to her responsibilities as President & CEO of CAPHC, Ms Orrbine also serves as the Executive Director of the Paediatric Chairs of Canada (PCC). Over the past several decades, Ms. Orrbine has been an investigator on over 35 successful research grant applications and has co-authored 3 book chapters, 4 medical handbooks and over thirty peer reviewed publications. In 1997, she was appointed a Lecturer (VPT) with the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Ottawa. In 1998 she co-founded the Child and Youth Clinical Trials Network (CYCTN) at CHEO Research Institute in Ottawa. As Director of the CYCTN, between 1990 and 1999), she maintained a strong role as a hands-on-research practitioner, broadening the scope of clinical research into the maternal, child and youth health sectors nationwide. Between 1999 and 2001, Ms. Orrbine continued her work with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) as the inaugural National Liaison for the CIHR - Institute of Human Development, Child & Youth Health and the Institute of Nutrition, Metabolism and Diabetes. In August 2004, Ms Orrbine received the Federation of Medical Women of Canada, Honorary Member Award. This prestigious award recognized her distinguished career in the fields of psychiatric nursing, clinical research, child and youth health advocacy, paediatric patient safety, health administration, and her ongoing work and collaboration with multi-disciplinary child and youth health professionals nationwide.

Bernard Robaire, Ph.D
James McGill Professor McGill University

Bernard Robaire received his BA in Bacteriology from UCLA and his Ph.D. in Pharmacology and Therapeutics from McGill University. After doing a Postdoctoral Fellowship (NIH) at Johns Hopkins University, he returned to McGill in 1977 to take up a joint appointment in the Departments of Pharmacology & Therapeutics and of Obstetrics & Gynecology, where he has remained and is currently a James McGill Professor. In 1993, he was appointed for a five-year period as Associate Vice-Principal (Research) of McGill University. He is currently a member of Senate and a past President of the McGill Association of University Teachers.

Dr. Robaire's research interests focus on androgen action, the structure, function and regulation of the epididymis, aging of the male reproductive system, and reproductive toxicology. The results of his research activity have resulted thus far in over 180 journal articles and book chapters, as well as editing or co-editing ten books. Since opening his lab in 1977, his research has been funded continuously by MRC/CIHR, as well as by NIH, FCAR, National Foundation March of Dimes, and the FRSQ. He has served as President of the Canadian Fertility and Andrology Society, the North American Testis Workshop, the American Society of Andrology, and the Association francophone pour le savoir (Acfas). He is currently Co-Editor-in-Chief of Biology of Reproduction.

Dr. Reg Sauve
Professor
Paediatrics and Community Health Sciences
University of Calgary

Dr. Reg Sauve is a professor of Paediatrics and Community Health Sciences at the University of Calgary. His clinical work focuses on Neonatology and the follow-up care of Extremely Low Birthweight Infants. He is the former academic head of the Division of Neonatology and current Director of the Perinatal Follow-up Program, Alberta Children's Hospital.

His research interests focus on Perinatal Epidemiology and Neonatal Follow-up including both National and Provincial Perinatal Surveillance studies and the developing Canadian Neonatal Follow-up Network (CNFUN). He chairs the Canadian Perinatal Surveillance System of the Public Health Agency of Canada and provides ad hoc consultation to the Maternal and Infant Health Section, Epidemiology and Surveillance Branch, Public Health Agency of Canada. He is the past co-chair of the Alberta Perinatal Health Program Advisory Committee, Alberta Health and Wellness, and of the Health Technology Assessment, Assisted Reproductive Technologies.

He supervises several graduate students in Epidemiology in the Department of Community Health Sciences, University of Calgary and he currently teaches a graduate course in Perinatal Epidemiology and co-teaches courses in Clinical epidemiology and in Systematic Reviews and Meta-analysis.

His most satisfying professional accomplishments have come from being able to link together his clinical, educational, administrative, and research interests in mothers and infants.

Dr. Erik D. Skarsgard, MD, MSc, FRCSC, FACS, FAAP
Pediatric surgeon and Surgeon-in-Chief at British Columbia Children's Hospital

Dr Skarsgard is a pediatric surgeon and Surgeon-in-Chief at British Columbia Children's Hospital in Vancouver.

Following undergraduate medical training at UBC, Dr Skarsgard completed training in General Surgery (UBC), and Pediatric Surgery (Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto). After clinical and research fellowships in Fetal Surgery at the University of California San Francisco, Dr Skarsgard joined the Department of Surgery faculty at Stanford University, as Assistant Professor (Pediatric Surgery) at the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital in Palo Alto, CA in 1994.
In 2001, Dr Skarsgard returned to Vancouver and joined the UBC Department of Surgery, where he is now Professor and Associate Head of the Centre for Surgical Research. His research interests include experimental fetal interventions for structural and genetic birth defects, for which he has received funding from the Cystic Fibrosis Foundations (US and Canada). More recently, his research interests have focused on surgical birth defect outcomes research, and in 2005, Dr Skarsgard obtained CIHR funding to establish the Canadian Pediatric Surgery Network (CAPSNet). Funded continuously since 2005, CAPSNet is the second (after the Canadian Neonatal Network) of 4 integrated national perinatal networks which comprise the CIHR Team in Maternal Infant Care (MiCARE). To date, CAPSNet has targeted outcome improvement for two complex, structural birth defects: gastroschisis and congenital diaphragmatic hernia (CDH).
Dr Skarsgard serves as vice-Chair of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada Examination Board in Pediatric Surgery, Director of the Canadian Association of Pediatric Surgeons, and is on the Board of Governors of the American Pediatric Surgical Association and the British Columbia Children's Hospital Foundation.

Anne Snowdon, Ph.D
Professor
Odette School of Business
University of Windsor

Dr. Anne Snowdon is currently a Professor at the Odette School of Business and is cross-appointed to the faculty of Engineering at the University of Windsor. She holds an adjunct appointment in the School of Nursing at McGill University and is an Adjunct Research Professor at the Ivey School of Business where she is working with the Ivey Centre for Health Innovation and Leadership (ICHIL). Her role at Ivey focuses on building leadership capacity in the health sector to support innovation.

Dr. Snowdon is one of six Canadian researchers assuming the role of Theme Coordinator for a national Network of Centers of Excellence program (AUTO21) of research that focuses on Childrens' Safety in Vehicles. Formerly, Dr. Snowdon was the Vice President of Womens' and Childrens Programs at Windsor Regional Hospital and Chief Nursing Officer. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of Western Ontario, a Masters of Science from McGill University and a Ph.D. in Nursing from the University of Michigan. She is a Fulbright Scholar and was awarded the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council fellowship for her doctoral research on Parenting during childhood hospitalization.

More recently, Dr. Snowdon has an extensive program of research in the area of injury prevention for children. Dr. Snowdon and her team partnered with DaimlerChrysler Canada Inc. to develop and test an educational program, Bobby Shooster Rides Safely in His Booster, designed to help Canadian families to keep children safe in vehicles. In 2006, The Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR) awarded Dr. Snowdon and Dr. John Mann from DaimlerChrysler Canada the CIHR partnership award for this work. She has partnered with Magna Aftermarket Inc. to develop and commercialize the Clek Booster seat launched in Canada in September 2006 and the U.S. in June 2007, which was awarded 7 national awards in the U.S market.

Dr. Snowdon's injury research has lead to the use of advanced technologies such as Artificial intelligence (Agent Modelling) for modeling Canadian families and communities to examine the dynamic influence of social networks on health behaviors related to injury. She has also co-developed with Dr. Robert Kent in Computer Science, a unique software for data management and analysis of large national data sets. This software is now being tested in hospital settings as an innovative approach to documenting and analyzing patient falls events. Commercialization of this software is currently underway for the North American and global health markets.

Charlotte Waddell, MSc, MD, CCFP, FRCPC
Canada Research Chair in Children's Health Policy
Associate Professor
Simon Fraser University

Charlotte Waddell is a child psychiatrist with longstanding interests in health policy and population and public health. She holds the Canada Research Chair in children's health policy in the Faculty of Health Sciences at SFU, where she is also Associate Professor and Director of the Children's Health Policy Centre.

Dr Waddell's research addresses mental health disparities, starting in childhood, by improving the connections between research and policy. She also continues to work with children involved with the child protection and youth justice systems. It is working with these children that ultimately informs and inspires her research and teaching.

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