Members of the TRP community
We're currently populating this list!
Come back soon for a more comprehensive list.
One of the most important parts of the TRP is the diversity of the people you will meet. From your cohort to committee members, mentors and patients, one of the key skills you will build will be the ability to network and collaborate with people from very diverse backgrounds.
Some of the people you may meet while in the program are listed below. These are all people who have played a role in the website such as discussants, who come in to talk to students and discuss ideas, to mentors and those who play a role in capstone research projects. We also list, where able, our alumni.
Adrianna Ieraci, CEO and Founder of Conveyor Built
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Adriana Ieraci is the founder and CEO of Conveyor Built, a product and service design firm that uses human-centred design to develop new product and service ideas using emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and robotics.
She is currently leading the research and development of a wearable medical device to prevent muscle loss due to inactivity during hospital stays.
Ms. Ieraci has worked with startups and research institutions developing commercialization strategy, business models, service and experience designs. She is a human-centred design, service design and technology entrepreneurship lecturer at the Faculty of Medicine, and the Faculty of Information, University of Toronto. Adriana's passion for technological literacy and open innovation inspired her to start the GYBO Robotics Network, a network of over 850 roboticists and robot enthusiasts in southern Ontario. She is a member of the board of the Parametric Human Project. Adriana has a Masters of Engineering from the University of Toronto.
Agnes Wong, Physician, Chaplain, Professor, Author
"I am a physician, chaplain, scientist, university professor, writer, artist, translator, and mom. I live in Toronto, Canada, where I am Professor of Ophthalmology, Neurology, and Psychology at the University of Toronto and a staff physician and senior scientist at The Hospital for Sick Children. I am the former Ophthalmologist-in-Chief at The Hospital for Sick Children and the former Vice-Chair of Research in the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Toronto, where I held the inaugural John & Melinda Thompson Chair in Vision Neuroscience for a decade.
In addition to clinical and academic activities, I received lay ordination as a chaplain and Dharma Holder (empowerment to teach) in the Soto Zen lineage from Roshi Joan Halifax, Ph.D., Abbott of the Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA. I am a lead faculty of the Mindfulness and Compassion Training for Health and End-of-Life Care Professionals program at the Sarana Institute in Toronto. As a surgeon and clinician, I also give talks and run workshops on physician well-being at many professional organizations, universities, and hospitals worldwide, with the goal of enhancing physicians' skills in mindfulness, compassion, self-reflection, and systems thinking.
My literary and artistic work includes poetry, photography, and translation of ancient Chinese classics (Tao Te Ching). My work speaks to love, loss, vulnerability, healing, femininity, and spirituality—dimensions of human existence that are not often acknowledged in our modern busy lives.
One of my most recent books is ""The Art and Science of Compassion, A Primer,"" which provides a conceptual framework and practical approaches to cultivating compassion by presenting a wealth of scientific evidence supporting that compassion is both innate and trainable.I am a physician, chaplain, scientist, university professor, writer, artist, translator, and mom. I live in Toronto, Canada, where I am Professor of Ophthalmology, Neurology, and Psychology at the University of Toronto and a staff physician and senior scientist at The Hospital for Sick Children. I am the former Ophthalmologist-in-Chief at The Hospital for Sick Children and the former Vice-Chair of Research in the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Toronto, where I held the inaugural John & Melinda Thompson Chair in Vision Neuroscience for a decade. In addition to clinical and academic activities, I received lay ordination as a chaplain and Dharma Holder (empowerment to teach) in the Soto Zen lineage from Roshi Joan Halifax, Ph.D., Abbott of the Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA. I am a lead faculty of the Mindfulness and Compassion Training for Health and End-of-Life Care Professionals program at the Sarana Institute in Toronto. As a surgeon and clinician, I also give talks and run workshops on physician well-being at many professional organizations, universities, and hospitals worldwide, with the goal of enhancing physicians' skills in mindfulness, compassion, self-reflection, and systems thinking. My literary and artistic work includes poetry, photography, and translation of ancient Chinese classics (Tao Te Ching). My work speaks to love, loss, vulnerability, healing, femininity, and spirituality—dimensions of human existence that are not often acknowledged in our modern busy lives. One of my most recent books is ""The Art and Science of Compassion, A Primer,"" which provides a conceptual framework and practical approaches to cultivating compassion by presenting a wealth of scientific evidence supporting that compassion is both innate and trainable."
Alan Moody, Professor and Chair at Department of Medical Imaging, University of Toronto
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has rapidly established itself as a major imaging technique for the visualization of vascular diseases. In particular, magnetic resonance direct thrombus imaging (MRDTI) provides a closer, more in-depth look into occluded arteries, providing information never seen before, and has the potential to change the standard of imaging everywhere. This new MRI technique aims at early diagnosis and intervention to prevent strokes and heart attacks by detecting vulnerable plaques in arteries of patients who are asymptomatic.
Dr. Moody and his team are interested in developing and incorporating such imaging techniques in a comprehensive effort to identify and stabilize vulnerable plaques in one integrated procedure. Applications of MRDTI in the coronary and renal arteries and aorta are also underway. The following areas are also under investigation using MRDTI: ischemia treatment of occlusive vascular disease atherosclerotic plaque in the coronary and neurovascular circulations.
Albert H.C. Wong, Research Scientist, Psychiatrist Centre for Addiction and Mental Health
Dr. Wong is a Research Scientist in the Neuroscience Department and Staff Psychiatrist in the Schizophrenia Division at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, and an Associate Professor, Pharmacology at the University of Toronto.
His lab uses preclinical models to investigate genetic, cellular and developmental mechanisms underlying psychiatric symptoms, and his area of clinical expertise is schizophrenia.
Allan Kaplan, Senior Clinician Scientist CAMH
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Dr. Kaplan has focused his research on the psychobiology of anorexia nervosa (AN) and bulimia nervosa (BN). This has included research on the medical complications of AN and BN as well as the neuroendocrinology of these disorders, including neurotransmitter abnormalities in both the serotonergic and dopaminergic systems in BN and AN.
Dr. Kaplan has also developed and rigorously evaluated innovative treatments such as day hospitalization and community-based treatments for eating disorders, and examined predictors of outcome in AN and BN. He has also conducted randomized controlled trials evaluating relapse prevention strategies for AN utilizing cognitive behaviour therapy and fluoxetine.
More recently, Dr. Kaplan has focused on innovative pharmacologic approaches to anorexia nervosa and on the genetics of anorexia and bulimia nervosa. This includes conducting research as part of a large multi-site consortium evaluating the genetics of AN and BN utilizing linkage analyses, candidate gene analyses and genome wide association studies. In collaboration with other investigators at CAMH, Dr. Kaplan’s research has examined genetic factors in weight regulation and caloric intake in obese and non-obese binge eaters.
Allan L. Coates, Senior Scientist Emeritus at The Hospital for Sick Children
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Dr. Coates' areas of research have been pulmonary drug delivery in children with a focus on cystic fibrosis and some work in asthma. He has been involved in developing standards for lung function testing with international societies and is currently working with Statistics Canada interpreting the lung function outcomes of the recent Canadian Health Measures Survey.
Andrea Furlan, Physician, Physiatrist, Senior Scientist and Professor of Medicine, University of Toronto
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Dr. Andrea Furlan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto and staff physician and scientist at the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute. She is also Associate Scientist at the Institute for Work & Health in Toronto.
She completed a PhD in Clinical Epidemiology from the Department of HPME of the University of Toronto and has extensive experience in reviewing the scientific literature for the Cochrane Collaboration and for clinical practice guidelines. She received a CIHR New Investigator Award and her research focus is on treatments of chronic pain including medications, complementary and alternative therapies, and rehabilitation.
She was the team leader for the development of the Canadian Opioid Guideline, and is now involved with Guideline's National Faculty in dissemination and implementation of the guideline across Canada. She developed the Opioid Manager, a point-of-care tool for physicians using opioids for chronic pain, which is available in many EMR platforms and as an App for iPad/iPhone. Dr. Furlan is a co-Chair of Echo Ontario for Pain and Opioid Stewardship.
Azam Khan, Co-Founder and CEO at Trax
Azam Khan is the Co-founder and CEO of Trax, a cloud-based building code and standards platform. He founded the Symposium on Simulation for Architecture and Urban Design (SimAUD) in 2010, was Adjunct Professor of Computer Science at the University of Toronto, and has been the Velux Guest Professor at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture and Design. Azam received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Computer Science at the University of Toronto and his Ph.D. in Computer Science at the University of Copenhagen.
Azam has been the Director of Complex Systems Research at Autodesk Research where he led an international multidisciplinary team of 25 people including researchers, software developers, architects, and engineers. Previous to that, he was Research Scientist at Alias Systems.
He has co-authored over 90 articles in modeling and simulation theory and practice, visual analytics, visual cognition, Human Bayesian inference, human-computer interaction, sensor networks, and architectural design. The core of the simulation research has been published as SyDEVS, an open source project implementing a multi-paradigm, multi-scale systems simulation framework to support modeling of complex natural and artificial systems.
Berge Minassian, Staff Neurologist, The Hospital for Sick Children
Dr. Minassian has the rank of Professor and directs a lab with nine trainees and technicians at SickKids.
His lab has helped discover seven disease genes, including four for epilepsy. His most active research area is the unraveling of the pathogenesis of Lafora disease. His lab has disclosed a novel pathway of regulation of glycogen synthesis involving the Lafora disease genes.
Dr. Minassian’s group has made seminal contributions to Rett and Angelman syndromes, the most common forms of mental retardation with epilepsy. His lab also discovered the first two canine epilepsy genes.
Dr. Minassian holds the University of Toronto Michael Bahen Chair in Epilepsy Research and co-directs a nationwide epilepsy project funded by Genome Canada involving whole genome sequencing of 2000 epileptic patients to identify the genetic bases of epilepsy and intractable epilepsy.
Bernard Le Foll, Head, Translational Addiction Research Laboratory, CAMH Lead, Clinical Research Innovation Service, CAMH; Vice President Research and Academics and Chief Scientific Officer at Waypoint Centre for Mental Health Care
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Dr. Bernard Le Foll is a clinician-scientist specialized in drug addiction. He is Head of the Translational Addiction Research Laboratory, Campbell Family Mental Health Research Institute, CAMH.
He is also Lead of the Clinical Research Innovation Service within the Addiction Division of CAMH and Head of the Alcohol Research and Treatment Clinic at CAMH. He received specialized training in drug addiction and behavioral and cognitive therapy at Paris University in France. He has written treatment guidelines and has been coordinator of clinical trials. He obtained a PhD in Pharmacology at INSERM and has performed a Fogarty Visiting Fellowship at the National Institutes of Health.
The goal of the research is to improve treatment of drug addiction. For this purpose, various approaches are used such as preclinical models, genetic and brain imaging approaches. The goal is to develop novel therapeutic strategies in clinical populations.