Our Team

Nominated Principal Applicant

Monica Parry

University of Toronto

Monica is an Associate Professor at the Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing and a Nurse Practitioner in the Cardiac Program at Kingston Health Sciences Centre. Monica’s program of research focuses on reducing the burden of cardiovascular disease and its complications. She is interested in patient-oriented research (POR) and sex/gender influences on health and wellbeing. Monica is also an investigator with the Toronto Health Economics and Technology Assessment (THETA) Collaborative, a multidisciplinary research collaboration based at the University of Toronto. She is an investigator with Diabetes Action Canada and the Banting & Best Diabetes Centre. Monica is also a co-investigator in GOING-FWD (https://www.mcgill.ca/going-fwd4gender/), an international consortium aimed to integrate and evaluate sex and gender dimensions in applied health research in noncommunicable diseases (e.g., diabetes, CVD)

Co-Principal Applicants

Ron Beleno

Patient Partner (Caregiver)

Ron is an active advocate in caregiving, dementia, aging, and research communities. As a caregiver to his father who lived with Alzheimer’s for 10+ years to age in place at home until January 2018, Ron utilized technology, community, creative strategies and access to research to support his family’s life to live well and as best as possible.

Rinat Nissim

Princess Margaret Cancer Centre

Rinat is a staff psychologist and the Co-Director of the Caregiver Clinic at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health Network and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto. As a clinician-researcher, her research program is aligned with her clinical focus on the psychosocial needs of family caregivers of individuals with a cancer diagnosis. Her research has been funded by both the Canadian Cancer Society and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

Elizabeth Peter

University of Toronto

Elizabeth is a Professor at the Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing and the Chair of Public Health Ontario’s Ethics Review Board. Her interdisciplinary academic background in nursing, philosophy, and bioethics has framed her scholarship over the past 30 years with a key component of her work focusing on the importance of paid and unpaid caregiving.

Rinat Nissim

Princess Margaret Cancer Centre

Co-Applicants

Deborah Baiden

University of Toronto

Deborah is a PhD Candidate at the Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing at the University of Toronto. Her research interests are focused on improving health outcomes for women of African descent in Canada. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree from the University of Ghana and a Master of Science in Nursing degree from Western University. She also volunteers as Director of Research and Policy of the Canadian Black Policy Network.

Pamela Baxter

McMaster University

Pamela is an Associate Professor in the School of Nursing at McMaster University. Currently, Pamela is examining the issue of resident-to-resident aggression in long-term homes in Canada. Her research is focused on the impact of health policy on health service delivery for older adults living with dementia in long-term care or in the broader community. Using various research designs, she is investigating resident, caregiver and leadership issues. Pamela’s overall goals are to support, challenge and inform policies in order to promote quality care, healthy aging and improve the lives of older adults.

Raquel Betini

interRAI

Raquel has a PhD in Aging, Health and Wellbeing from University of Waterloo, where she started her research on unpaid caregivers. The main focus of her research thesis was the wellbeing of family and friends as caregivers and the use of health assessments to better understand and address their needs. Raquel joins our team as a researcher from interRAI.

Ann Kristin Bjørnnes

Oslo Metropolitan University

Ann Kristin is an Associate Professor in the Department of Nursing and Health Promotion at the Faculty of Health Sciences at OsloMet in Norway. Her research interests are in gender and women perspectives, chronic pain, pain research, women’s health, and self-management support using both quantitative and qualitative research methods.

Heather Burnside

University of Toronto

Heather is a PhD Candidate at the Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing at the University of Toronto. The focus of her research is on Type 2 Diabetes in Indigenous men, women and two-spirited individuals. Heather is also a registered nurse and has worked in a variety of clinical settings including community health, critical care, and emergency.

Daniel Gaetano

Patient Partner (Caregiver)

Daniel was the fulltime caregiver for his wife who had early onset Alzheimer’s Disease. He learned to deal with unexpected changes in behaviour and learned how to navigate the system and deal with inconsistent homecare services. He was with her almost every day to help with caregiving, including but not limited to personal care, meal assistance and companionship for both. Daniel will help us understand the struggles for male caregivers and ways to support them during the caregiving journey.

Louise Pilote

Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre

Louise is a Professor of Medicine at McGill University where she holds a James McGill Chair position. She is also Deputy Director at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre. She is a practicing general internist and led the McGill division of general internal medicine from 2006-2016. She has had the privilege to be a clinician scientist at Research Institute of the McGill University Health Center for the past 25 years. Louise is an internationally recognized sex and gender scientist, a leader in cardiovascular research, and a pioneer in comparative effectiveness of cardiovascular drug and devices using Big Data with a focus on sex differences. She has developed novel methodologies for measuring gender to evaluate its impact on health outcomes. Louise leads the Gender Outcomes International Group to Further Well-being Development (GOING-FWD), a data science and personalized medicine project. She brings expertise in sex and gender sciences to bridge basic to epidemiological sciences through a translational outlook through the life span and strives to build capacity not only from a scientific discovery standpoint, but also through advocacy and engagement with policy makers, and as a mentor to the next generation of scientists.

Jane McCarthy

Ontario Caregiver Organization

Jane oversees the planning, development, and implementation of an array of programs and resources aimed at educating and supporting unpaid caregivers in Ontario in her role as the Director, Programs and Services, at the Ontario Caregiver Organization (OCO). Prior to joining the OCO in 2019, Jane’s 30+ year career included working in management roles for disease specific non-profits such as the ALS Society of Canada, as a health educator for a Family Health Team, a Health Link patient navigator, and a project manager for a large California-based managed care organization. Jane earned her Bachelor and Master of Science in Health Studies from the University of Waterloo and her Master of Public Health in Behavioural Sciences and Health Education at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and is pleased to use her current position, caregiving knowledge, and interest in research to contribute to the Mental Health and Well-Being of Unpaid Caregivers project.

Mats Nylén-Eriksen

Oslo Metropolitan University

Mats is a registered nurse and has collaborated with unpaid caregivers working through struggles with mental health and wellbeing. As a father, taking care of his child during the pandemic provided first hand experience of the increased caregiver needs and burdens. Mats is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Health Sciences, Department of Nursing and Health Promotion at Oslo Metropolitan University in Norway.

Salima Hemani

University of Toronto

Salima is a registered nurse and has been a caregiver for her mother and father-in-law, attending to their medical and personal need for past thirty years. Salima recently graduated with a PhD from the Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing at the University of Toronto. The focus of her research is on the cardiovascular health of South Asians. She is contributing to this caregiver study by being able to share her experiences and contribute to strategies to support unpaid caregivers.

Nicole Nickerson

Patient Partner (Caregiver)

Nicole is involved with numerous committees and councils involving woman’s heart disease. She is passionate about patient-oriented research and patient-centred care, and advocates in her community for local heart health services including heart clinics and cardiac rehabilitation centres. She has worked on sex- and gender-related issues, including with Gender Outcomes INternational Group: to Further Well-being Development (GOINGFWD). She is part of a patient advisory team helping to measure and understand sex and gender-related determinants of health outcomes contributing to patients’ well-being and health system sustainability. Nicole is also a mother of young children, a cardiac patient, and lives in Eastern Canada.

Kyle Warkentin

Patient Partner (Caregiver)

Kyle is the primary caregiver for his mother, who suffers some extreme mental and physical illness. He has experienced the pandemic and its challenges, including access to primary care and mental health care services. He was a part of our initial caregiving project focused on family caregivers during COVID-19. This was a rapid integrated mixed methods systematic review and he was able to advise about knowledge translation and dissemination of the results. Kyle is interested in caregivers in diverse communities, including the male caregiver role and its unique challenges; as well as members of the LGBTQ2S+ community as unpaid caregivers.

Colleen Norris

University of Alberta

Colleen is a Professor at the University of Alberta. She is the Scientific Director for the Cardiovascular Health and Stroke Strategic Clinical Network (SCN) and has collaborated with researchers locally, nationally and internationally from various health care disciplines in Women’s Heart Health and sex and gender health outcomes research. Colleen is also a Co-Principal Investigator in GOING-FWD, an international consortium aimed to integrate and evaluate sex and gender dimensions in applied health research in noncommunicable diseases (e.g., diabetes, CVD).

Kyle Warkentin

Patient Partner (Caregiver)

Collaborators/Partners

Amy Coupal

Ontario Caregiver Organization

Amy is the CEO of the Ontario Caregiver Organization, a non-profit funded by the Ministry of Health that was formed in 2018 to support Ontario’s 4 million caregivers through a range of programs and services for caregivers and professionals who engage them. A family caregiver and visionary leader with 20 years of experience in the not-for-profit sector, Amy is honoured to be leading the Ontario Caregiver Organization through its early days of growth.

Shan Mohammed

University of Toronto

Shan is a lecturer at the Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing at the University of Toronto. He has previous experience as a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Psychosocial Oncology and Palliative Care at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre at the University Health Network in Toronto. His research interests include palliative care, family caregiver supports, homecare, neoliberalism and health, and critical ethics at the end of life. His clinical background is in hematological oncology.

Samya Hassan

Council for Agencies Serving South Asians (CASSA)

Samya is the Executive Director at Council of Agencies Serving South Asians. Her Masters work was in Public Policy and her undergraduate focus was in sociology and political science. She has written policy papers on transportation, immigration and race relations, child care, housing, international development, economic development and innovation, and health care. CASSA is an umbrella organization that provides services to South Asians living in Canada. They strive to elimination discrimination and marginalization and are focused to define Canada’s political, economic, social, and cultural future.

Mabel Ho

Yee Hong Centre for Geriatric Care

Mabel is the Director of Education and Research of Yee Hong Centre for Geriatric Care. Mabel is a social worker with over 20 years of experience working with older adults and their families, particularly with stroke survivors, individuals living with dementia, and other chronic conditions. Mabel is currently pursuing her PhD in Social Work at the University of Toronto’s Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work. Her research interests include aging, health, and well-being.

Wendy Wu

Patient Partner (Caregiver)

Wendy is a Chinese immigrant from Taiwan. She was the primary caregiver for her in-laws and had first-hand experience in caring for seniors. Her lived experience sparked Wendy into volunteering at various community and healthcare organizations as a Patient Family Advisor. She is passionate about building a better integrated healthcare services for the diverse residents in the Chinese community and believes this study is critical to gaining a deeper understanding of the needs of unpaid caregivers from different culture backgrounds.

Olivia Kulbak

Canadian Cancer Society

Olivia is a Policy Analyst at the Canadian Cancer Society, currently leading work in caregiving and health policy. The Canadian Cancer Society has been advocating for better support for caregivers for more than 15 years. Appropriate support for caregivers will allow our healthcare system to deliver more services at home or in the community, an approach that is often preferable to patients and families and that can lower the high costs associated with hospital care. Olivia has a Masters of Public Administration and Bachelors of Science in Kinesiology, both from Queen’s University.

Laura Mullaly

Mental Health Commission of Canada

Laura is the Manager of Knowledge Mobilization at the Mental Health Commission of Canada, currently leading work in knowledge translation, youth mental health and the mental health of older adults. Laura has a Masters of Public Health from the University of Alberta and a Bachelors of Interdisciplinary Health Sciences from the University of Ottawa.

Jenny Theriault

Caregivers Nova Scotia

Jenny is the Executive Director of Caregivers Nova Scotia (CNS). She has a Bachelor of Arts in Gerontology from Mount Saint Vincent University. She has 14 years of experience working in the non-profit community-based sector. Jenny spent many years working in community programming, specifically with seniors and their caregivers. She has been with CNS for two years and brings her own personal caregiving experience and a commitment to supporting, recognizing, and advocating for caregivers as essential partners in care.

Eunice K. Yeboah and Nancy Wayne

Canadian Black Policy Network

Eunice and Nancy are co-executive directors of The Canadian Black Policy Network (CBPN). CBPN is dedicated to addressing policy issues affecting Black communities, and anti-Black racism across the country.
Nancy is a bilingual public policy professional with cross-sector experience in the public service, energy industry, and non-profit sectors.
Eunice is a co-Founder of the CBPN and also the Anti-Racism Policy Consultant at the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC). She has over 5 years of experience working in varied roles with municipalities and the Province of Ontario.

Sarah Brennenstuhl

University of Toronto

Sarah is a health researcher and data analyst at the University of Toronto. She provides methodological and data analytic support to faculty and PhD students and will provide data and statistical oversight for this project. Sarah completed her PhD at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, at the University of Toronto. Her research focuses on women, health inequalities, and social policies, with a particular interest in mothers of young children.

Research Assistant

Tasneem Owadally

University of Toronto

Tasneem Owadally is a Master of Nursing student at the Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing at the University of Toronto. As a member of an ethnic minority group, Tasneem feels refreshed to be part of a project that is so committed to cultural representation and diversity. Through this study, she hopes that we can learn to better support individuals and their families to lead longer, healthier lives within their communities.

Kyle Warkentin

Patient Partner (Caregiver)