Dr. Franco Carnevale

Dr. Carnevale is a nurse, psychologist and clinical ethicist. He completed his undergraduate nursing degree, and three master's degrees in nursing, education, and bioethics, as well as a doctorate in counseling psychology at McGill University. He also completed a master’s degree in philosophy at Université de Sherbrooke and a second doctorate in moral philosophy at Université Laval. In addition, he completed graduate studies in health law, anthropology, and cultural psychiatry. Dr. Carnevale's primary research interests include a wide range of concerns in pediatric ethics. Dr. Carnevale is the founder and principal investigator for VOICE (i.e., Views On Interdisciplinary Childhood Ethics); a McGill-based international initiative to advance knowledge and practices relating to ethical concerns in childhood. Dr. Carnevale’s current academic appointments include (all at McGill University): Full Professor, Ingram School of Nursing; Associate Member, Faculty of Medicine (Pediatrics); Adjunct Professor, Counselling Psychology; Affiliate Member, Biomedical Ethics Unit. His clinical appointments include: Co-Chair of the Pediatric Ethics Committee, Nursing Advisor, and Associate Member of Pediatric Critical Care, all at the Montreal Children's Hospital-McGill University Health Centre; as well as Clinical Ethicist for Child, Adolescent and Family Services at the Douglas Mental Health University Institute and Clinical Ethics Consultant at Le Phare, Enfants et Familles (pediatric hospice and respite care).

Dr. Mark Keboa

Dr. Keboa has experience in qualitative and mixed methods research, knowledge synthesis and translation, teaching, public health, project design, implementation and evaluation, and clinical dentistry. He started his professional career as a dentist in Nigeria before moving to Cameroon where he practiced dentistry and public health for over a decade. In the past eight years, he has acquired additional training and skills in health research that enabled him to work as a post-doctoral researcher (McGill University Faculty of Dentistry), researcher and policy analyst (Public Health Agency of Canada) and currently, Program Officer (Migration Health Branch, IRCC).

Dr Keboa holds a Bachelor's degree in Dental Surgery (BCh.D), a Diploma in Tropical Medicine and Public Health (DTMPH), a Master's in International Health (MSc.IH) and a PhD in Craniofacial Health Sciences. His doctoral studies focused on understanding oral health and dental care experiences of humanitarian migrants in Montreal, to inform oral health policy on this population in Canada.

Dr. Mary McNally

Dr. McNally is a professor and researcher in the Faculties of Dentistry (Clinical Sciences) and Medicine (Bioethics) at Dalhousie University. The first decade of her dental career was spent as a general dentist in rural Nova Scotia where she witnessed large gaps in care for priority populations, particularly for older adults who are dependent on others for care. These experiences have shaped her academic career. A hallmark of her research program is building interdisciplinary teams that involve community partners and knowledge-users to inform research priorities and processes. Provincial and national funding has supported Mary’s research in personal mouth care of frail older adults, applied ethics, and more recently to support community-based research to address oral health challenges facing Inuit and First Nations people in Atlantic Canada.

Dr. Nathalie Morin

Dr. Morin graduated from Montreal University in 1990 and since then she continues practicing General Dentistry. She completed a Master Degree in Dental Public Health from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research in Bethesda Maryland, from 2002 to 2004.

In 2008 she worked with the Office of the Canadian Chief Dental Officer, as one of the two Gold Standard Examiners for the dental component of the Canadian Health Measure Survey. For this new challenge, she was calibrated to the WHO standards, and was responsible to maintain and ensure the calibration among dental examiners, while traveling to examination centers in the country.

Dr. Morin is currently working as Associate Dean, Clinical Affairs for the McGill Faculty of Dentistry. She manages the dental clinics of the Faculty, and is also involved in the teaching of dental caries’ diagnosis and management.

Dr Herenia P Lawrence

Dr. Lawrence is an Associate Professor in the Discipline of Dental Public Health in the Faculty of Dentistry at the University of Toronto. Dr. Lawrence’s research explores population-based and preventive clinical and behavioural interventions that seek to improve the oral health of marginalized populations. Through excellence in research and outstanding academic leadership, she has been a vocal advocate for the oral health of Indigenous Peoples. She recently led the Canadian arm of a tri-nation study aimed at reducing early childhood caries and oral health inequalities in Indigenous communities. Dr. Lawrence is presently the Nominated Principal Applicant for a Team Grant under the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Pathways to Health Equity for Aboriginal Peoples Signature Initiative, with a quarter of a million dollars coming from in-kind contributions from partnering Indigenous organizations through collaboration agreements and the remainder from the CIHR.

Dr. Lawrence is also the Nominated Principal Applicant for a recently awarded Team Grant titled: “Impact of Cannabis Use on Indigenous Peoples’ Oral Health,” which is being funded by the CIHR. The study will be looking at multiple measures of oral health status, including clinical indices, saliva constituents, the oral microbiome, and orofacial somatosensory function, collected from self-identified cannabis users and non-users of different ages over a three-year follow-up period. The goal of the study is to fill the gaps in knowledge on the potential impact of cannabis use on the oral health of Canadians as a whole, and Indigenous youth and adults in particular. Saliva and urine analyses will be used to assess cannabis exposure. The Indigenous Learning Circle model also will be used throughout to share knowledge on the oral health risks of cannabis consumption and the drug’s impact on Indigenous communities.

Paramount to Dr. Lawrence’s research program is the training of a new generation of Indigenous oral health researchers with the goal of improving oral health care delivery across Canada. This work is being carried out in tandem with collaborations to improve oral health care delivery for newcomers to Canada. Dr. Lawrence is the primary supervisor of a number of Masters students who have investigated the role of acculturation, social capital, and oral health literacy on the oral health and access to dental care among South Asian immigrants, and Arabic- and Portuguese-speaking immigrants in the Greater Toronto Area. Dr. Lawrence co-leads, with investigators at McGill University, the CIHR-funded study titled: “The Oral Health and Dental Care Pathways of Humanitarian Migrants: Advancing a mixed methods program of research,” which is assessing the oral health status and dental care pathways of asylum seekers and refugees who have settled in Ontario and Quebec in recent years.

Dr. Lawrence’s areas of expertise include: Dental Public Health, Dental Health Services Research, Oral/Dental Epidemiology, Indigenous Oral Health, Immigrant and Migrant Oral Health, Population Oral Health, Oral Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, Community- and Individual-Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) for Early Childhood Caries Prevention.

Dr Nazik Nurelhuda Suleiman

Dr. Suleiman is the Migrant Oral Health Project’s research associate at the Faculty of Dentistry (University of Toronto). She is a member of the Faculty of Public Health (Royal Colleges of Physicians UK), Fellow of the Foundation for Advancement of International Medical Education and Research Institute (USA) and holds a PhD in Community Dentistry from the University of Bergen (Norway). She has over 9 years of working experience in public health practice and research and a demonstrated history of working in higher education, government sector and the World Health Organization. Dr Suleiman was able to branch out in her career from dental public health to the promotion and protection of general human health and as a result has developed interests in health system development, medical education, migration health and social justice.