People

Alayne Adams

Alayne Adams, Associate Professor and Population and Global Health Program Director, Department of Family Medicine, McGill University, Professor at the BRAC James P. Grant School of Public Health and Adjunct Scientist at the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research in Bangladesh.

Alayne Adams is Associate Professor and Director of Population and Global Health in the Department of Family Medicine, McGill University. An applied social scientist, her research spans issues of heath and healthcare inequities, their social and systems-related determinants, informal providers, and community-engaged, and youth-led approaches to increasing access to responsive, and integrated health and social services. She has decades of experience leading large interdisciplinary research projects and multi-institutional collaborations spanning Africa, South Asia, Europe and North America, and involving researchers, policy makers, practitioners, and community members. She holds adjunct appointments at the BRAC James P. Grant School of Public Health and the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research (icddr,b), an international health research centre, both in Bangladesh.

alayne.adams [at] mcgill.ca

Jura Augustinavicius

Jura Augustinavicius is an Assistant Professor at the School of Population and Global Health at McGill University. Dr. Augustinavicius is also affiliated with the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and serves as a Research Advisor and Lead on Climate Change at the MHPSS Collaborative hosted by Save the Children Denmark. Using applied psychiatric epidemiology and mixed-methods approaches for mental health research and practice, Dr. Augustinavicius’ research focuses on mental health assessment and intervention among populations living in humanitarian settings and settings heavily impacted by climate change.

jura.augustinavicius [at] mcgill.ca

Tracie Barnett

Tracie Barnett, Associate Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at McGill, and researcher at the CR du CHU Sainte-Justine.

Tracie Barnett is scientific director of the Qc Unité de Soutien SSA (Expertises complémentaires) and co-director of the McGill Partenariat patient/public antenna. Trained in epidemiology and health promotion, her research focuses on the natural history of obesity and related behaviours, and their metabolic consequences. In addition to identifying salient characteristics and creating meaningful indicators within built environments and social networks, and monitoring how these evolve over time, she is developing strategies with collaborators including clinical and patient partners to promote cardiovascular health by leveraging individual and environmental resources in primary care settings and in the community.

tracie.barnett [at] mcgill.ca

Chris Barrington-Leigh

Chris Barrington-Leigh, Associate Professor, jointly appointed in the Institute for Health and Social Policy and School of the Environment.

Chris Barrington-Leigh is a recognized global leader in the “economics of wellbeing”. He is an economist interested in empirical and quantitative assessments of welfare, and their implications for economic, social, and environmental policy. In particular, his research makes use of subjective well-being reports to address the relative importance of social and community-oriented aspects of life as compared with material consumption.

https://wellbeing.research.mcgill.ca

chris.barrington-leigh [at] mcgill.ca

Lisa Bornstein

Lisa Bornstein, Associate Professor, School of Urban Planning, Associate Member, Institute for Health and Social Policy, and Associate Member, Department of Social Studies of Medicine, McGill University.

Prof. Bornstein’s work is focused on international planning, economic development, environmental policy and planning, and institutions and governance. She is particularly interested in deliberative processes around 'sustainable development plans'; critical perspectives on equity, justice and resiliency in the face of crises (environmental, conflict, economic); and mental health and the city.

Suparna Choudhury

Suparna Choudhury, Assistant Professor and Co-Director of the Culture, Mind & Brain Program at the Division of Social & Transcultural Psychiatry, McGill University.

Trained originally as a neuroscientist, Suparna Choudhury has worked as a researcher in London, Paris, Berlin and Montreal developing interdisciplinary approaches to examine the implications of the new brain sciences for health and society. She is a founder of the research program of Critical Neuroscience, which brings to bear perspectives of science studies and medical anthropology to examine how neuroscientists construct their objects of inquiry, and how research findings are transformed into popular knowledge and public policy. Her current research is focused on social cognitive development and the adolescent brain taking a critical neuroscience approach to study the model of 'the adolescent brain' and situate it in its social, cultural and historical contexts. Her research looks at impacts of social inequality on trajectories of neurocognitive development; legal, educational and mental health policy implications of knowledge on adolescent brain; dignity and mental wellbeing among adolescents. She is a member of the Educational Ecologies Collective, where she studies youth engagement in climate activism, and co-founder of the Family Care Collective, a community-based initiative supporting maternal mental health and family wellbeing in Montreal.

suparna.choundhury [at] mcgill.ca

Tara Collins

Tara Collins, Associate professor in the School of Child and Youth Care at Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson), and honorary associate professor at the Children’s Institute, University of Cape Town, South Africa.

Tara Collins is passionate about children's rights research, policy, and practice. Principal Investigator for the International & Canadian Child Rights Partnership (ICCRP; ryerson.ca/iccrp). Research in child and youth participation; child protection; monitoring and child rights impact assessments (CRIAs); child rights education; rights-based approaches; business; anti-violence in schools; and the right to play.

Nicole D’souza

Nicole D’souza, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute of Community and Family Psychiatry at the Jewish General Hospital and Research Associate at the Institute of Community and Family Psychiatry.

Nicole D’souza’s research is embedded in community-based mental health implementation and evaluation research with children and youth, paying attention to the processes shaping the implementation and outcomes of mental health interventions and services in LMIC settings. She specializes in applied qualitative, participatory and ethnographic research in the fields of global mental health and Indigenous mental health. She received her B.Sc in Psychology from the University of Toronto, and her M.Sc and Ph.D in Psychiatry from McGill University.

nicole.dsouza [at] mail.mcgill.ca

Frank Elgar

Frank Elgar, Associate Professor, cross-appointed to the Institute of Health and Social Policy and Department of Psychiatry at McGill University, and Canada Research Chair in Social Inequalities in Child Health.

Frank Elgar is a developmental psychologist with expertise in social inequalities in mental health and wellbeing. He has worked in university and government settings in Canada and Britain, including the Cardiff Institute for Society, Health and Ethics (Cardiff University), Welsh Assembly Government, University of Manitoba, and Carleton University. His research is a blend of health psychology and social epidemiology. International collaborations in the WHO Health Behaviour in School-aged Children study focuses on psychosocial and economic determinants of adolescent health including income inequality, relative deprivation, food insecurity and neighbourhood social capital.

frank.elgar [at] mcgill.ca

Alan Evans

Alan Evans, James McGill Professor of Neurology and Psychiatry, uses “big data’ strategies to combine imaging, behavioral and genetic data in the study of neurodegeneration and neurodevelopment. He has 673 publications (Google Scholar h-index=202) and is a Highly Cited Scientist (169,565 citations ; top 1%) for Neuroscience and Behavior. He is Scientific Director of McGill’s Healthy Brains for Healthy Lives (HBHL) initiative and the Canadian Open Neuroscience Platform (CONP). He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He received the 2014 Margolese Human Brain Disorders Prize, the 2016 Wilder Penfield Prix du Québec, the 2017 Senate of Canada 150 Medal, the 2019 OHBM Glass Brain Award and was ranked #6 of most influential modern-era brain scientists by Science magazine. In 2020, he was awarded the Izaak Walton Killam Prize. In 2021, he won the Royal Society of Canada McLaughlin Medal.

alan.acehigh [at] gmail.com

Charlotte Evans

Charlotte Evans, Population Health Sciences MPhil candidate at the University of Cambridge in the Department Public Health and Primary Care.

Charlotte Evans is a Canadian citizen but was raised in France, Bangladesh, and Singapore. Her interest in harnessing local wisdom and knowledge in the design and transformation of health systems stems from experiences working alongside communities in South America and the Canadian North. During her undergraduate degree she collaborated with FONASA (the Chilean National Health Organization) to design and implement a study evaluating their public health system for depression care. Since graduating from Dartmouth College with a BA in Geography, Charlotte has worked as a research assistant in the Northwest Territories. During her time in Yellowknife, she worked closely with Elders and Indigenous communities and governments to develop and conduct translational research projects to understand the nexus of colonization and healthcare delivery systems. After her MPhil, Charlotte intends to return to continue to aid the development of culturally safe systems of care in the North, that are inclusive of the knowledge, and needs of all communities.

evans.charly [at] gmail.com

Grace Gatera

Grace Gatera, Advisor, Wellcome Trust Mental Health Priority Area; Commissioner, Lancet Commission on Gender Based Violence and the Maltreatment; Young Leader, Lancet Commission for Global Mental Health and Sustainable Development

Grace Gatera is a lived experience mental health and NCDs advocate, living in Kigali, Rwanda. She works as an advisor for the Wellcome Trust Mental Health Priority Area, is a commissioner on the Lancet Commission on Gender Based Violence and the Maltreatment and is also a young leader for the Lancet Commission for Global Mental Health and Sustainable Development. Grace is passionate about meaningful youth involvement particularly for underresourced, underrepresented and least heard populations in the world.

Zeinab Hijazi

Dr. Zeinab Hijazi (MSc, PsyD), Senior Mental Health Technical Advisor at UNICEF NYHQ). 

Zeinab Hijazi is a Global Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Specialist atUNICEF, New York Headquarters. Zeinab has 14 years of experience supporting MHPSS programs globally, and was in an advisory role with International Medical Corps providing guidance and oversight in the development, monitoring, evaluation and running of culturally appropriate MHPSS activities in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Turkey, Palestine, Iraq, Tunisia, Libya and Yemen. At present, Zeinab is the MHPSS specialist and technical lead at UNICEF, and provides program guidance and technical support to enhance UNICEF's approach to the provision of mental health & psychosocial support for children and families in humanitarian settings, this includes supporting UNICEF country teams in designing and implementing locally relevant, comprehensive and sustainable MHPSS strategies that (1) promote safe, nurturing environments for the recovery, psychosocial well-being and protection of children; and (2) engage children, caregivers and families, community systems and service providers at all levels of the social-ecological framework.

zhijazi [at] unicef.org

Selima Sara Kabir

Selima Sara Kabir is currently working as an Assistant Research Coordinator at the BRAC James P Grant School of Public Health, where she gets to put her different skills at work in collaboration with her passion for anthropological research. She is currently overseeing a project on Gender and COVID-19.

selima.kabir [at] bracu.ac.bd

Alissa Koski

Alissa Koski, Assistant Professor, jointly appointed in the Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Occupational Health and the Institute for Health and Social Policy. https://www.alissakoski.com/

Alissa Koski is a social epidemiologist. She is particularly interested in gendered behaviors that affect adolescent health. Her recent work focuses on child marriage as a public health and policy issue.

Lucyna Lach

Lucyna Lach, Associate Professor in the School of Social Work and an Associate Member of the Departments of Pediatrics, Neurology and Neurosurgery, McGill University.

Lucyna Lach’s research focusses on documenting social determinants of living a life of quality among neurodivergent individuals and their caregivers. She is co-lead on a CHILD-BRIGHT SPOR team conducting a randomized control trial that is evaluating a parenting intervention entitled Parents Empowering Neurodiverse Kids: The Strongest Families Neurodevelopmental Program to Help Parents Manage Challenging Behaviour. She is also co-leading a project to implement systems changes that may alter how parents experience navigating access to services and support for their children, youth, and young adults. She has expertise in policy and knowledge translation and is the former Director of the McGill Centre for Research on Children and Families.

Claudia Mitchell

Claudia Mitchell is a Distinguished James McGill Professor in the Faculty of Education, McGill University and an Honorary Professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. At McGill she is the Director of the Institute for Human Development and Well-being and the founder and director of the Participatory Cultures Lab, a research and training unit in the Faculty of Education funded through the Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI). Her research focuses on participatory visual and arts based approaches to working with young people and communities in relation to addressing critical social issues such as gender equality and gender-based violence and in a wide range of country contexts in West Africa, Southern and Eastern Africa, and East Asia Pacific. She leads several funded projects working with Indigenous youth and focusing on arts-based approaches to address sexual violence, and is currently heading up a project funded the Ministry of Health and Security (MSSS) on Canadian Youth Talking about Pandemic Experiences (CYTAPE). She is the co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of the award-winning journal Girlhood Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal.

Shelley Phipps

Shelley Phipps, the Maxwell Professor of Economics at Dalhousie University.

Shelley Phipps research focuses on the health and well-being of Canadian children, the economic vulnerability of Canadian families with children, and international comparison of public policies to reduce poverty and inequality experienced by families with children.

Jennifer Proudfoot

Jennifer Proudfoot is the lead for knowledge exchange and partnerships at the McGill Department of Equity, Ethics and Policy (DEEP), a multidisciplinary department for research, training and dialogue on healthy social policy, and the McGill School of Population and Global Health (SPGH). Jennifer plays a strategic leadership role in partnership development and knowledge mobilisation planning and implementation, and facilitates dialogue and collaborations with policy, community and academic partners in Canada and internationally. She has extensive experience working across disciplines and sectors for policy and practice change.

jennifer.proudfoot [at] mcgill.ca

Mónica Ruiz-Casares

Mónica Ruiz-Casares is Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and at the Centre for Research on Children and Families, McGill University. PhD in Policy Analysis and Management/Human Services Studies from Cornell University and Postdoctoral training in Transcultural Child Psychiatry and at the Institute for Health and Social Policy at McGill University (FRSQ and Tomlinson Scholar). Her primary research is on the wellbeing and protection of orphan, separated, and unsupervised children and adolescents across cultures; ethics in global research with children; and social policy and program evaluation. Prof. Ruiz-Casares leads multi-disciplinary, mixed-methods investigations with an ecological orientation that privilege the voices of children and youth and aim to inform the development of effective policies and programs. She is a member of the Standing Committee of the International Society for Child Indicators and Lead on Namibia Children’s World survey of children’s well-being. She is a former advisor to the international Ethical Research Involving Children project.

monica.ruizcasares [at] mcgill.ca

Jai Shah

Jai Shah is Associate Professor of Psychiatry, a youth psychiatrist and a clinician-scientist based at McGill University, and has been deeply involved in and committed to early intervention efforts in youth mental health. He has engaged in an array of clinical research projects from neurobiology to health services and policy, with a particular focus on populations in the earliest phases of psychotic illness, clinical staging and stepped care models of mental illness, and youth mental health service transformation. In all cases, he is concerned not just with research but also implementation in services and broader health systems. He trained in medicine, health policy and economics, bioethics, and genetics before coming to mental health.

jai.shah [at] mcgill.ca

Keiko Shikako-Thomas

Keiko Shikako-Thomas, Associate Professor, School of Occupational and Physical Therapy at McGill, Canada Research Chair in Childhood Disability: Participation and Knowledge Translation.

Keiko Shikako-Thomas’s research focuses on the creation of healthy communities and the promotion of human rights for children with disabilities and knowledge translation science and practice. Her research program adopts a participatory approach to engage different stakeholders, including policymakers, children and their families in finding solutions to change the environment, inform policymaking and promote the participation of children with disabilities in different life roles and activities. Prof. Shikako engages extensively with local, provincial, national and international policymakers on issues of human rights and participation of children with disabilities.

keiko.thomas [at] mcgill.ca

Valerie Steeves

Valerie Steeves, Professor, Department of Criminology, University of Ottawa.

Valerie Steeves has written and spoken extensively on online issues, and has worked with a number of federal departments, including Industry Canada, Health Canada, Heritage Canada, the Department of Justice and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, on online policy. She is also a frequent intervener before parliamentary committees, and has worked with a number of policy groups, including the International Council on Human Rights Policy, the House of Lords Constitution Committee on The Impact of Surveillance and Data Collection upon the Privacy of Citizens and their Relationship with the State, and the Children’s Online Privacy Working Group of the Canadian Privacy and Information Commissioners and Youth Advocates. Her main area of research is human rights and technology issues. She is the PI of the eQuality Project, a 7-year SSHRC funded partnership initiative focused on the ways in which big data practices contribute to a discriminatory environment that sets young people up for conflict and harassment. She was also the lead researcher on MediaSmart’s Young Canadians in a Wired World Research Project from 2004-2020.

valerie.steeves [at] uottawa.ca

Eran Tal

Eran Tal is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at McGill University and Canada Research Chair in Data Ethics.

Eran Tal's current research projects include: developing guidelines for responsible measurement in clinical psychology; improving the measurement of youth mental health by training clinicians in the principles of psychometric questionnaire design; studying the ethical implications of using big data and machine learning to assess mental health risks; and developing an epistemology of patient-reported outcome measures.

eran.tal [at] mcgill.ca

Khandideh Williams

Khandideh Williams, PhD student in the Department of Family Medicine at McGill University.

Khandideh Williams has a passion for community engagement and advocacy, and her research interests include healthcare equity and social epidemiology within marginalized populations. Her thesis research is a mixed-methods study focusing on the impacts of race and intersectionality on primary healthcare accessibility in Canada. She aims to offer innovative solutions and strategies to promote health and healthcare equity within racialized and other marginalized populations. Within ListenUp!, she is currently leading various projects, including a scoping review on youth mental health and wellbeing initiatives in Canada, and a narrative review on the diverse approaches used to define youth. She is also co-leading a 2-day, SSHRC-funded, national youth mental health forum aimed at engaging diverse youth across Canada in discussions surrounding their concerns, priorities, and solutions to improve youth mental health and wellbeing.

khandideh.williams [at] mail.mcgill.ca