Dr. Mary Ellen Macdonald 

Dr. Macdonald is a medical anthropologist with postdoctoral training in Pediatric Palliative Care. In addition to her appointment as Associate Professor in the Faculty of Dentistry at McGill University she is also affiliated with the Departments of Pediatrics and Oncology, the Ingram School of Nursing and the Biomedical Ethics Unit. She chairs the McGill Qualitative Health Research Group http://www.mcgill.ca/mqhrg/. Her main research interests include oral public health; death, dying and bereavement; Indigenous wellbeing, and health professions education.

Dr. Belinda Nicolau

Dr. Nicolau is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Dentistry at McGill University. She obtained her DDS degree from the Federal University of Paraná, Brazil and an MSc in Dental Public Health from Barts and The Royal London School of Medicine and Dentistry, London, UK. Dr Nicolau completed her PhD degree in Epidemiology and Public Health at University College London, London, UK under the supervision of Aubrey Sheiham. After a brief stint with Paul Speight, also at University College London, she pursued a postdoctoral fellowship with Paul Allison and Eduardo Franco at McGill University, Canada. In the spring of 2005 Dr Nicolau took up a faculty position as an Assistant and then as an Associate Professor at INRS-Institut Armand-Frappier, after which she moved to McGill University in December 2011.

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.