York Faculty appointed to the School of Health Policy and Management
(Associate Professor, and Graduate Program Director, Health; PhD in Public Health, University of Toronto)
Extension: 33898
Email: farahmad@yorku.ca
Website
Dr. Farah Ahmad holds the CIHR New Investigator Award (2014-19), the Early Researcher Award (2014-19) from the Ministry of Economic Dev & Innovation, and York U Research Leaders of 2015 recognition. She is appointed as Research Scientist at the North York General Hospital since 2013. Her training includes medical degree from Punjab University and master’s degree from Harvard University. She conducts interdisciplinary research with a focus on primary care settings, psychosocial health, vulnerable communities, access to care and eHealth innovations for health promotion and disease prevention. She uses mixed-method research designs which range from randomized controlled trials to in-depth interviews, focus groups and concept mapping. She has published peer-reviewed papers and chapters on the issues of intimate partner violence; mental health; gender, migration and health; and under-screening of cancer.
Research Interests: Primary care settings; psychosocial health; vulnerable communities; eHealth innovations.
(Assistant Professor, PhD, Rutgers University, 2016)
Extension: 22635
Email: Lora.Appel@yorku.ca
Address: Room 346, Stong College
Website
Dr. Lora Appel is thrilled to return, and give back, to her alma matter - eleven years after graduating from Schulich School of Business. She holds a position as Research Scientist at OpenLab, and innovation Centre housed at University Health Network, the largest medical research organization in Canada where she leads “Prescribing Virtual Reality (VRx)” a collection of studies that introduce and evaluate AR/VR/MR interventions for patients, caregivers, and healthcare providers. She received several grants from the Centre for Aging in Brain Health innovation to pursue this work in aging and dementia care. Lora received her PhD from the School of Communication and Information at Rutgers University and was awarded the Gerald Miller Outstanding Dissertation award in 2017 for her work defining clinician anonymity and designing “Face-2-Name” a tool to improve interprofessional communication in clinical settings. Lora has published in premier journals like the American Journal of Medicine and the International Journal of Medical Informatics, she has given talks at Harvard Medical School and the Royal College of Physicians in London, and her work with VR has resulted in several national media appearances. Lora’s expertise is in applying design thinking and science methodologies to healthcare innovation; she is passionate about designing new technological interventions that provide care in the pursuit of a cure.
Research Interests: Virtual Reality, Aging and Dementia
Associate Professor; PhD, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne, PhD, Université de Montréal)
Extension: 44205
Email: aberthel@yorku.ca
Website: https://agnesberthelotraffard.com
Dr. Agnès Berthelot-Raffard is an Associate Professor in the Critical Disability Studies graduate program in the School of Health Policy and Management at York University. She holds her Ph.D. in Political Philosophy/Social Ethics.
Dr. Berthelot-Raffard works in public health philosophy, feminist political theory, feminist ethics and critical disability studies.
In feminist political theory and feminist ethics, Dr. Berthelot-Raffard's research is a francophone expert on Black Feminist thoughts. Her research also focuses on care ethics. In her Ph.D., she analyses the ethical and political stakes of caring for an elderly or someone living with a disability, a chronic illness or a cognitive impairment. She works now on gender injustices in the globalized care economy.
In the health field, Dr. Berthelot-Raffard's work focuses on Black Health Studies/Black Disability Studies. She analyses the impact of racism and racialization on all dimensions of health and well-being. She also examines the consequences of epistemic injustices in the healthcare system for those on the margins. Dr. Berthelot-Raffard is leading a Pan-Canadian project on the socio-determinants of Black Students' Mental Health (funded by the Public Health Agency of Canada). She is also the principal investigator of a partnership research project on Black women's reproductive health (with Relais Femmes, a feminist community partner in Quebec).
Before joining York, she worked as an advisor in the ethics of research board (Direction de santé publique de Montréal). She taught bioethics, medical ethics, and ethics of public health. She was also an Assistant Professor of Feminist and Gender Studies at the University of Ottawa. Knew as an expert on Black feminism, Dr. Berthelot-Raffard created the first accredited university course in the francophone world devoted entirely to this political thought (UQAM, Montreal, Quebec).
Dr. Berthelot-Raffard is a member of the Faculty of Graduate Studies in Health, Critical disability studies, Women's and gender studies, and Philosophy. Therefore, Professor Berthelot-Raffard can supervise master's and Ph.D. students in these departments.
(Associate Professor; MD University of Buenos Aires; PhD Sociology/Notation Philosophy, University of California Santa Cruz)
Extension: 22134
Email: cchaufan@yorku.ca
Address: Room 312, Stong College
Website
Dr. Claudia Chaufan's interdisciplinary background spans medicine, sociology and philosophy. She practiced medicine in her native Argentina before shifting to a career in sociology with a focus on critical genetics, comparative health policy and the history, geopolitics and political economy of health. Her research deconstructs dominant narratives around inequalities in the global diabetes epidemic to redirect attention to the political and social determination of health. It also addresses the policy and equity implications of neocolonialism and capitalist globalization with particular attention to Latin America. Other interests include the history, philosophy and sociology of science, language/power/discourse, and the scholarship of teaching and learning.
Current projects include active pedagogy in health/global health policy instruction, a critique of dominant narratives on fetal alcohol syndrome and the geopolitics of Canadian sanctions and refugee policy. Prof. Chaufan’s expertise is on Latin America but she has also conducted research on other selected regions in the Global South. She is also a former Fulbright Scholar and Public/Global Health Specialist, editorial board member and reviewer of several journals, and long-time supporter/activist of US Physicians for a National Health Program as well as of a range of antiwar organizations opposing US/Western intervention in the Global South.
Prof. Chaufan is the current Graduate Program Director of the York Graduate Program in Health.
Research Interests: Corporatization of global health governance; global health instruction.
(Associate Professor, Global Health; PhD, University of Toronto)
Extension: 22039
Email: adaftary@yorku.ca
Address: Room 5022, DB Building
Website
Research Interests: Tuberculosis, drug-resistant TB, HIV/AIDS; Social determinants of health; Health services research and evaluation; Qualitative methods, mixed methods; Implementation science, e-health interventions; South Africa, Lesotho, Ethiopia, India, Canada
(Professor PhD, University of Toronto)
Extension: 30522
Email: dalyt@yorku.ca
Address: Room 354, Stong College
Website
Dr. Tamara Daly is a political economist and a health services researcher, a CIHR Research Chair in Gender, Work and Health, an Associate Professor in the School of Health Policy and Management at York University, and the Director of the York University Centre for Aging Research and Education (YU-CARE). She holds a PhD from the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, University of Toronto, an MA in political economy from Carleton, and an undergraduate degree in political science, history and economics from Trinity College, University of Toronto. Her scholarship highlights paid and unpaid care; gender and health; health care working conditions; and it promotes promising practices, principles and policies to improve access and health equity for older adults and for those who provide their care. She has authored numerous academic publications and policy reports, is the recipient of several teaching, research and career awards, and actively supervises graduate and postdoctoral students in research and publication. Her ethnographic, survey and intervention research is tri-council funded by SSHRC, CIHR as well as by ERA. As an expert in care work — including paid, unpaid and voluntary care -- Dr. Daly is frequently invited to speak at research and policy conferences held locally and internationally.
Research Interests: Paid and unpaid care; gender and health; health care working conditions; health equity for older adults and those who provide their care.
(Associate Professor; PhD, University of Toronto)
Extension: 22115
Email: gorman@yorku.ca
Address: Room 352, Stong College
Dr. Rachel da Silveira Gorman is Associate Professor and Graduate Program Director in the Critical Disability Studies at York University, and an artist working in dance theatre, performance, and curating. Da Silveira Gorman’s research engages theory and method from fine arts, humanities, and sciences. Her writing has appeared in Auto|Biography Studies, American Quarterly, Somatechnics, thirdspace, and the Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies. Da Silveira Gorman has created and choreographed 14 dance-theatre and site-specific productions, ten of which have been remounted or screened at festivals.. Since 2009, she has been on the curatorial committee at A Space Gallery in Toronto, where she has curated four exhibitions. In 2017, she received a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts for a performance-based research-creation project Year Five of the Revolution. Da Silveira Gorman spent the nineties working in social services and as a feminist and union organizer; and the aughties in anti-occupation organizing and in disability and queer arts scenes.
Research interests: transnational social movements; anticolonial and revolutionary aesthetics; anti-racist disability theory; institutional ethnography and critiques of ideology in corrections, health, community, and social service sectors.
(Associate Professor; PhD, University of Bucharest, Romania)
Extension: 22635
Email: serband@yorku.ca
Address: Room 351, Stong College
Website
Dr. Serban Dinca-Panaitescu has a multidisciplinary background with an emphasis on biomedical engineering and health informatics. Dr. Dinca-Panaitescu has worked for many years in the area of medical informatics focusing on computer processing of physiological signals. His major research contributions address the field of cardiovascular disease prevention by developing decision support tools aiming at detecting the cardiovascular dysfunction in the subclinical phase. He has published numerous articles and one book in this field. Dr. Dinca-Panaitescu’s research is also employing statistical modeling techniques to untangle the complex relationship between socio-economical factors and different diseases such as diabetes. Other research interests include medical equipment, health information systems and e-health.
Research Interests: Biomedical engineering; health informatics; cardiovascular disease prevention; medical equipment; health information systems; e-health.
(Associate Professor and Health Informatics Certificate Coordinator; PhD in Biomedical Engineering, Compiègne University of Technology, France)
Extension: 22580
Email: elmorr@yorku.ca
Address: Room 350, Stong College
Website
Dr. Christo El Morr is an Associate Professor of Health Informatics, and the Health Informatics Certificate Coordinator at the School of Health Policy and Management at York University. His cross-disciplinary research covers health informatics and computer engineering.
His research interests focus on Health Virtual Communities, Mobile Communities, e-collaboration, particularly in the domain of Chronic Disease Management and health promotion: Peripheral Arterial Disease, Kidney Diseases and Mental Health.
His work in Global eHealth addresses Human Rights, Equity, and Gender Based Violence challenges. He also has research interests in Health Services and Patient Quality of Care (e.g. readmission patterns, dose reduction). He has published books, chapters, and articles in these areas including the “The first of its kind” book in Canada about Health Informatics from a Canadian perspective.
He is a Research Scientist at North York General Hospital and work with collaborators from Saint Michael's Hospital. In 2016, he received recognition as York U Research Leader.
Research Interests: Community-based research; health virtual communities; mobile communities; e-collaboration; chronic disease management; health promotion; hospital patient services; patient quality of care.
(Professor and Co-Chair School of Health Policy and Management; PhD, University of Toronto)
Extension: 33925
Email: lgins@yorku.ca
Address: Room 353, Stong College
Website
Dr. Liane Ginsburg is an Associate Professor in the School of Health Policy and Management at York University (Toronto, Canada) where she teaches Applied Research Methods in Health and Quality & Safety in Healthcare. Liane trained in healthcare organization and management at the University of Toronto. Her research interests focus on patient safety culture/ climate, learning from patient safety failures, and health professional education and training in patient safety. She is also involved in a large program of research based in Western Canada that focuses on nursing home quality and has an overarching interest in knowledge translation / implementation science. In 2016-2017 she spent her sabbatical at the World Health Organization doing a study of patient safety curriculum implementation in lower and middle income countries.
Research Interests: Healthcare organization and management; patient safety culture/climate; learning from patient safety failures; health professional education and training in patient safety; nursing home quality; knowledge translation / implementation science.
(Associate Professor; PhD, York University)
Extension: 30523
Email: leeatg@yorku.ca
Website
Dr. Leeat Granek, PhD, a critical health psychologist, joins us as an Associate Professor in the School of Health Policy and Management, Faculty of Health. During the 2018-2019 academic year, Dr. Granek was a visiting professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto in the Social and Behavioural Sciences Division. Her research expertise is in the areas of psycho-oncology, healthcare professional well-being, and grief and loss. Recent awards include the Sigmund Koch Award for Early Contribution to the Field of Psychology and Distinguished Early Career Contributions in Qualitative Inquiry Award, both awarded by the American Psychological Association. Dr. Granek has published more than 70 articles on her research in leading journals including Cancer, JAMA Archives, and Psycho-Oncology. She frequently writes about her research for the mainstream media in outlets such as The New York Times, Slate Magazine, and The Huffington Post. In 2017, Dr. Granek was named one of the top 40 under 40 researchers by The Marker.
Research Interests: Psycho-oncology; Women's health; History and theory of psychological diagnoses and practices; Psychological and social determinants of health; social processes that have an impact on relationships between health, culture, and gender.
(Associate Professor; PhD, Toronto Metropolitan University, Toronto)
Extension: 22056
Email: shillier@yorku.ca
Address: Room 348A, Stong College
Associate Professor & York Research Chair in Indigenous Health Policy & One Health, Associate Director, Centre for Indigenous Knowledges & Languages; PhD, Toronto Metropolitan University, Toronto
Dr. Sean Hillier is a queer Mi’kmaw scholar and a registered member of the Qalipu First Nation. He is an associate professor and York Research Chair in Indigenous Health Policy & One Health the Faculty of Health of York University. He is also the Associate Director of the Centre for Indigenous Knowledges and Languages and Special Advisor to the Dean of Health on Indigenous Resurgence. Additionally, Sean is a Board Member of the Native Canadian Centre of Toronto and the AIDS Committee of Toronto (ACT). His collaborative research program spans the topics of aging, living with HIV and other infectious diseases, and antimicrobial resistance, all with a concerted focus on policy affecting health care access for Indigenous Peoples in Canada. Dr. Hillier has been successful in receiving funding from each of the three federal granting agencies, with more than 10 external grants. Additionally, Dr. Hillier has been successful in securing an internal Academic Innovation Fund to construct a community based medicine and food garden on the York University Campus.
Research Interests: Indigenous health; Health Policy; One Health; Indigenous Peoples living with HIV; 2-Spirited & LGBTTIQQA rights; community-engaged research.
Associate Professor
Email: mhoben@yorku.ca
Address: 301E, Stong College
Dr. Matthias Hoben is an Associate Professor and Helen Carswell Chair in Dementia Care in the School of Health Policy and Management at York University. He is a registered nurse and health services researcher. He holds a doctoral degree (Dr rer medic, equivalent to a PhD) and an MSc degree in Health and Nursing Sciences, both from the Martin-Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany. During his PhD work, he was a fellow with the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program on Dementia, Network Aging Research, Heidelberg University, Germany. He also holds an undergraduate degree (diploma) in Nursing Management from the University of Applied Sciences, Esslingen/Neckar, Germany. His research aims to understand and improve the health and wellbeing (quality of life) of individuals living with dementia, their family and friend care partners, and their paid caregivers. He is an active co-investigator in the Translating Research in Elder Care (TREC) program of research, led by Dr Carole Estabrooks, University of Alberta. In his role as the Helen Carswell Chair in Dementia Care, he evaluates day care programs for older adults with dementia in the York region and beyond. To do this, he applies an integrated approach to knowledge translation – i.e., throughout the research process, he partners closely with individuals living with dementia, their family/friend care partners, paid care staff, continuing care settings, and decision makers. His research methods include advanced statistical analyses of large data sets (e.g., Alberta population level health data of long-term care and assisted living home residents); complex, pragmatic intervention studies; qualitative methods, such as semi-structured interviews or focus groups; mixed methods; and various types of literature syntheses. His research has led to numerous peer reviewed and invited publications and conference presentations, and it is funded by organizations such as CIHR, the Alzheimer Society of Canada, Alberta Innovates, or the Carswell Family Foundation. Dr Hoben actively integrates graduate and postdoctoral trainees in his program of research and supervises and mentors them in research, publication, and career development.
Research Interests: Health services research, quality of care and quality of life of individuals living with dementia, family/friend caregiving, nursing, quality of work-life in continuing care settings, knowledge translation/implementation science
(Professor, Nursing; PhD, University of Toronto)
Extension: 20926
Email: lum@yorku.ca
Address: Room 319, HNES Building
Website
Dr. Lillie Lum is an associate professor in the School of Health Policy and Management and also cross-appointed in the York School of Nursing, and is also a registered nurse with the College of Nurses of Ontario, Canada. She also holds graduate appointments for both the School of Health Policy and Management and the School of Nursing. She possesses over 20 years of experience in higher education in Canada and the U.S. in a variety of roles as an educator, researcher and administrator.
Her professional career has focused on actively contributing to academic excellence in health professions education and promoting quality care of nursing and other professions within the Canadian health care system.
Dr. Lum’s scholarly focus has been on the interdisciplinary interactions at local, national and global levels. She has been successful in supporting her program of research with Tri-Council and other external granting agencies. Her research program is characterized as being socially relevant, advancing social justice for vulnerable populations such as skilled immigrants, highly interdisciplinary, and based upon theoretically pluralistic frameworks. In particular, the major themes include promoting equitable access and participation in the health system through institutional change, removal of barriers, increasing the leadership capacities of international health professionals and enhancing educational opportunities for adult immigrant students.
Dr. Lum is the past chair of the governing board of the Ontario Centre for Excellence for Research on Immigration and Settlement. She has contributed to health policy and administrative law as a member of two, non-government health services appeal Boards.
Research Interests: Health human resources management; organizational justice in healthcare; administrative justice in healthcare; mental health nursing; distance education and learning communities.
(Professor, Graduate Program Director of the Critical Disability Studies Program; PhD in Community Psychology, OISE/University of Toronto)
Extension: 30325
Email: mmmorrow@yorku.ca
Address:
Website
Dr. Marina Morrow has a research focus in critical health policy that explores the following themes: 1) Mental health reform, service provision and access to health services, 2) Mental health and social inequity, 3) Mental health, citizen engagement and social justice, 4) Neoliberal reforms, gender and health and, 5) Intersectional theory and approaches in mental health. Before joining the School of Health Policy and Management Marina was a charter faculty member in the Faculty of Health Sciences as Simon Fraser University in BC. Marina is the lead editor of Critical Inquiries for Social Justice in Mental Health, forthcoming University of Toronto Press. Marina’s research strongly supports public scholarship and collaborative research partnerships with community-based organizations, health care practitioners, advocates and policy decision makers.
Research Interests: Critical health policy; mental health reform; service provision; access to health services; mental health and social inequity; mental health, citizen engagement and social justice; neoliberal reforms; gender and health; intersectional theory and approaches in mental health.
(Professor, Director, Dahdelah Global Health Research Institute, MD from McMaster University Medical School)
Extension: 20175
Email: orbinski@yorku.ca
Address: Room 2150, DB Building
Website
Dr. James Orbinski is a Canadian physician, writer, and humanitarian activist. Before joining the School of Health Policy and Management and being appointed Professor and Director of the Dahdelah Global Health Research Institute at York University, he was an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto and a Fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs, and was Chair of Global Health at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health University of Toronto. Dr. Orbinski has also served as CIGI Chair in Global Health Governance and Director of the Africa Initiative at the Centre for International Governance Innovation. He has also worked at Wilfrid Laurier University's School of International Policy and Governance in the Health Sciences Program in the Faculty of Science, and the Balsillie School of International Affairs. He was President of the International Council of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF, aka Doctors Without Borders) at the time the organization received the 1999 Nobel Peace Prize. Dr. Orbinski also is the co-founder and Chair of the Board of Directors of Dignitas International, a medical humanitarian organization working with communities to increase access to life-saving treatment and prevention in areas overwhelmed by HIV/AIDS. He is a strong advocate for increasing the availability of anti-retroviral drugs to combat AIDS in poor countries.
Dr. Orbinski has also received the Governor General's Meritorious Service Cross for his work as the MSF Head of Mission in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide. In 2009, Orbinski became an Officer of the Order of Canada and in the citation was recognized by the Governor General of Canada as an advocate for those who have been silenced by war, genocide and mass starvation.
Research Interests: Climate change and health; global health and humanitarianism; global health.
(Associate Professor, and SHPM Chair)
Email: vmago@yorku.ca
Website: https://datalab.science/
Dr. Vijay Mago joined the School of Health Policy & Management at York University as an associate professor with a specialization in health informatics and analytics. His current research interests include health informatics, text analysis, natural language processing, big data analytics, and modelling and simulation of complex health systems.
Research Interests: Ethical issues of large language model, Natural language processing, Machine learning & health care, Big data analytics, and Modelling and Simulation of health care processes
(Professor, PhD in Educational Theory, University of Toronto)
Extension: 22053
Email: draphael@yorku.ca
Address: Room 334, Stong College
Website
Dr. Dennis Raphael works in the area of public policy, political economy, and the social determinants of health The most recent of his over 300 scientific publications have focused on the health effects of income inequality and poverty, the quality of life of communities and individuals, and the impact of government decisions on Canadians' health and well-being. Dr. Raphael is editor of Social Determinants of Health: Canadian Perspectives, Tackling Health Inequalities: Lessons from International Experiences and Health Promotion and Quality of Life in Canada: Essential Readings, co-editor of Staying Alive: Critical Perspectives on Health, Illness, and Health Care and author of Poverty in Canada: Implications for Health and Quality of Life, all published by Canadian Scholars' Press. Two new books: Immigration and the Modern Welfare State and the 2nd edition of Health and Illness were published this past Fall. He is also co-author of Social Determinants of Health: The Canadian Facts which is a primer for the Canadian public that has been downloaded over 300,000 times from the Canadian Facts website.
He is also co-author of Social Determinants of Health: The Canadian Facts which is a primer for the Canadian public that has been downloaded over 700,000 times from the Canadian Facts website.
Research Interests: Human development; social determinants of health; the quality of life of communities and individuals, and the impact of government decisions on Canadians' health and well-being.
Geoffrey Reaume
(Associate Professor; PhD, University of Toronto)
Extension: 22058
Email: greaume@yorku.ca
Address: Room 347, Stong College
Website
Dr. Geoffrey Reaume has research interests in the following areas: mad people's history; history of people with disabilities; psychiatric consumer/survivor movement; class, labour and disability; archiving the history of psychiatric consumer/survivors; accessible history. His dissertation on the lives of psychiatric patients at the Toronto Hospital for the Insane was published in 2000 as "Remembrance of Patients Past: Patient Life at the Toronto Hospital for the Insane, 1870-1940" (Oxford University Press; reprinted University of Toronto Press, 2009, 2010). Part of this study was made into a play by a local theatre group involving psychiatric consumer/survivors in 1998-2000 and by a high school students' theatre group in 2016. His second book was published in 2007 "Lyndhurst: Canada's First Rehabilitation Centre for People with Spinal Cord Injuries, 1945-1998" (McGill-Queen's University Press). He is also a co-editor with Brenda LeFrancois and Robert Menzies of "Mad Matters: A Critical Reader in Canadian Mad Studies" (Canadian Scholars' Press, 2013).
Research Interests: Mad people's history, history of people with disabilities, medical history, psychiatric patients' labour history, archiving psychiatric survivor and disability histories, labels, terminology, activism and self-identity among psychiatric survivors/consumers, connecting the past with contemporary social justice struggles.
(Associate Professor; PhD, University of Toronto)
Extension: 22119
Email: schraa@yorku.ca
Address: Room 333, Stong College
Dr. Ellen G. Schraa teaches with a focus on health services financial management and evaluation. Her collaborative research work has most recently involved an economic evaluation of a new Health Canada approved medical device for improving the rates of central-line associated bloodstream infections. Dr. Schraa has also recently worked with Schools of Nursing across the province in performing a cost utility analysis of pre-simulation training preparation for nurses. Dr. Schraa has worked in the healthcare sector for over 25 years, involved in value for money auditing, business case analysis, funding formulae, and key provincial performance measurement initiatives.
Research Interests: Financial measurement of health care organizations for funding reform and performance evaluation.
(Associate Professor of Management; PhD, University of Toronto)
Extension: 22171
Email: tsasis@yorku.ca
Address: Room 418, Atkinson Building
Dr. Peter Tsasis (PhD, University of Toronto, 2004) is an Associate Professor of Management, jointly appointed to the Faculty of Health and the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies, and is a member of the Faculty of Graduate Studies at York University. In 2010, he received recognition for outstanding leadership as the undergraduate program director at the School of Health Policy & Management. In 2011, he was recognized as an outstanding professor with the Faculty of Health's Dean's Teaching Award in Excellence. As well, he was the recipient of the President's University Wide Teaching Award in 2013. He continues to receive recognition for teaching excellence in the Bachelor of Commerce Program at the School of Administrative Studies, and most recently also received recognition for Excellence in Research. His contribution to research collectively provides a paradigmatic shift in thinking about health and healthcare using complex systems science. His research focuses on interorganizational collaboration, learning health systems, and organizational change. He is recognized as a leader in the field with numerous authored academic publications. As an expert, Dr. Tsasis has been invited to speak at research symposiums and to serve as editor on book proposals. He is a founding member of the International Society for Systems and Complexity Sciences for Health. His latest research explores complexity within an interdisciplinary systems approach to chronic disease management. He most recently co-edited a book publication entitled, Innovative Healthcare Systems for the 21st Century which draws on econometric, system dynamics, and agent-based models as well as empirical studies. He actively supervises doctorate students in the field of health care management and engages undergraduate students in experiential learning. He has disseminated his work nationally and internationally and his research scholarship has been widely published in interdisciplinary academic journals. His work has also been supported by tri-council research funding. Dr. Tsasis is an advocate of patient-driven healthcare, characterized by the need for greater patient communication, transparency, customization of care, collaboration and patient choice. Dr. Tsasis has extensive expertise in the healthcare industry. He is a Fellow with the American College of Healthcare Executives, and is board certified with the Canadian College of Health Leaders.
Research Interests: Interface between interorganizational collaboration and patient outcomes.
(Professor Emeritus; PhD in Curriculum, Teaching and Learning, University of Toronto, 2002)
Email: nhalifax@yorku.ca
Website
Dr. Nancy viva davis halifax brings interdisciplinary and activist experience to her teaching and research which is located at the intersections of embodiment, difference, debility and disability, and intimate perspectives on violence and biomedicine. She has worked broadly in health research using the arts and documentary, participatory methods with economically displaced
persons in Canada. Her research uses the arts for sustaining and creating conversations around social change, self-determination, social auto/biographies, and for engaging communities in social development, and has been located in community and institutional settings; research has received funding from SSHRC as well as the arts councils. Her theoretical orientation uses the feminisms (new materialisms, crip, poststructural, affect) and experiments with the polyphonic. Her last book "hook" published by Hugh MacLennan Poetry Series, McGill Queen's Press was written to address the ongoing extremity of suffering within Canada, and the systemic violences sustained by those at the margins.
Research Interests: Arts-based research & research creation; crip arts praxis; critical auto/ethnography; body/s and embodiment/s; the more-than-human; theory/s in the feminisms (crip; poststructural; new materialism; affect); language and representation; imaginative ethnographies; social death and abandonment; intimate perspectives on biomedicine and psychiatry; polyphonic and lyrical theories.
(Assistant Professor; PhD Business Administration, Health Policy & Management, DeGroote School of Business, McMaster University)
Email: lyndavd@yorku.ca
Address: Room 338, Stong College
Dr. Lynda van Dreumel, PhD, O.T. Reg (Ont) is a registered Occupational Therapist with over two decades of experience in the healthcare system. Her research interests explore health professional regulatory models and their influence on interprofessional care in health systems, leadership in health systems, and implementation of quality improvement initiatives.
Dr. van Dreumel's professional career has spanned clinical, administrative, and policy-making roles across various healthcare sectors. Her teaching approach involves making healthcare policy and management concepts meaningful to students by drawing upon relevant examples from her clinical and professional experiences and providing impactful experiential learning opportunities. Two of Dr. van Dreumel's recent pedagogical projects (PATHS, Envision YU) involved developing curricular resources to support students in successful transition into undergraduate studies and then onwards to their next academic or career path.
Dr. van Dreumel is a Certified Health Executive with the Canadian College of Health Leaders (CCHL) and currently holds the Faculty of Health Distinguished Fellowship in Learning and Teaching Excellence (FLTE) 2024 - 2027.
(Associate Professor - Global Health; PhD School of Law, Queen Mary, University of London)
Extension: 30042
Email: amviens@yorku.ca
Address: Room 5022B, DB Building
(Assistant Professor; PhD in Critical Disability Studies, York University, 2017)
Extension: 22112
Email: jessvort@yorku.ca
Address: Room 354A, Stong College
Website
Dr. Vorstermans is an Assistant Professor in the Critical Disability Studies program in the School of Health Policy and Management, Faculty of Health at York University. Her research makes critical interventions into the field of international experiential and service learning and global citizenship, engaging plural ideas of human rights, disability and equity in our current neoliberal world. She uses Critical Disability theory and the lens of intersectionality to complicate North-South encounters engaging impairment and disablement. Her ongoing work engages community-based research, centers the perspectives and desires of those in the South and takes up equity, critical care in community, disability & North/South relations.
Before this appointment, she held a Postdoctoral fellowship on a large multi-partner longitudinal study at Ryerson University, The Inclusive Early Childhood Services System Project. The project uses institutional ethnography to map the experiences of families of disabled children in the institutional system in Ontario.
Throughout her PhD and as Executive Director of a small international experiential learning organization that is partnered with 10 partners in the Global South, her research has focused on centering the desires and perspectives of those in the Global South who welcome and host Northern volunteers to their small NGOs working in the fields of rights, disability, health equity, the environment and community work. She has deep and long-lasting relationships with these organizations and has collaborated on research with them to understand their experiences. Over the past fifteen years, she has lived, worked and completed research in Ecuador, Cuba, Guatemala, Paraguay, the Dominican Republic, and the Netherlands.
Research Interests: International experiential and service learning and global citizenship; Critical Disability Theory; Human Rights, Disability and Equity; Disability and North/South relations.
(Professor; Director and Special Advisor to the Dean (Faculty of Health) for Global Health, Community Partnerships and Strategic Projects; PhD, University of Toronto)
Extension: 22124
Email: mwiktor@yorku.ca
Address: Room 019K, HNES Building
Website
Dr. Mary Wiktorowicz is Professor of Health Policy, and Director and Special Advisor to the Dean for Global Health, Community Partnerships and Strategic Projects in the Faculty of Health. As Associate Dean, Community and Global from 2014 - 2017 she supported the launch of the Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research and served as its Interim Director (2016 - 2017). As Chair, School of Health Policy and Management from 2006 - 2014 she led the school through a period of growth including the development of the PhD Program in Health, Health Policy and Equity field, and guided the development of the interdisciplinary Global Health BA and BSc. She is a member of the Graduate Programs in Health (Health Policy and Equity) and Critical Disability Studies.
Professor Wiktorowicz adopts a comparative lens to study mental health, pharmaceutical and global health governance and policy. A recent study focused on mental health governance assessed the governance models ten local health networks used to coordinate mental health care across four provinces in Canada. The fragmented accountability underlying mental health policy and governance is a related research theme, including the legacy of the Canada Health Act in strengthening a prevailing institutional logic that limited the evolution of a system of comprehensive mental health care.
In her research on pharmacogovernance, Professor Wiktorowicz develops frameworks to enhance our understanding of the transnational governance models that guide the development of harmonized global standards for pharmaceutical safety and efficacy policy. Her research traces parallels in the governance framework of the International Council on Harmonization as a global medicines network to that of its member jurisdictions to clarify the nature of their distinctive governance approaches and the resulting dissonance they foster in post-market regulatory policy.
Professor Wiktorowicz's research in global health governance addresses the limitations inherent in the governance and accountability frameworks underlying global programs of financial aid, including social accountability frameworks. Her research on the governance in Indigenous communities in India and in the lake region of Benin assesses the systems of national and local governance and their limitations in supporting vulnerable women's and children's health.
She has advised governments on current policy including the Canadian Senate Standing Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health, the Ontario Local Health Integration Collaborative on Mental Health, and the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Care. She was a CIHR Best Brain advising on mental health policy.
Research Interests: Comparative health policy including mental health sector restructuring, the regulation of pharmaceuticals and the role of interest groups in shaping health policy.
(Associate Professor; PhD, University of Toronto)
Extension: 33186
Email: hjwong@yorku.ca
Address: Room 310, Stong College
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Dr. Hannah Wong has a PhD in Industrial Engineering. She utilizes statistical regression modeling techniques, in conjunction with system dynamics computer simulation, to study problems important to clinicians, health care managers and policy makers. These include issues related to the growing frail elderly population and the large variation that exists in the use of expensive diagnostic tools and therapies. The goal is to guide the better design of policies to improve appropriateness and quality of care. If we can approach the challenges facing our health care system as “systems problems”, where undesirable behaviours of the system are a direct consequence of the system’s own structure, we may have a promising way to fundamentally address pressing local and global health care challenges.
Research Interests: Statistical regression modeling techniques and system dynamics computer simulation for clinicians, health care managers and policy makers; elderly population health; diagnostic tools and therapies; quality of health care; systems problems of health care.
Administrative Staff at the School of Health Policy and Management
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