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TPS Knowledge Exchange - Speaker Information
Maxine Brown
Maxine Brown is a mixed First Nations and settler Research Coordinator at Ganawishkadawe the Centre for Wise Practices in Indigenous Health at Women’s College Hospital. Maxine is originally from Peterborough, Ontario, and has lived in the Toronto area for 7 years. She is a critical social scientist and holds a BA and MA in Social Anthropology from York University where her thesis focused on institutional policy, procedure, and discourse in academic institutions and settings. In her work, Maxine largely focuses on Indigenous data sovereignty and governance, and its operationalization in research settings and applies a rights and strength-based, anti-colonial approach to her work. Her other interests are Indigenous health and wellness, education, policy, and institutional systems. Maxine is now focused on exploring and upholding the importance of collaborative research projects with Indigenous communities across Turtle Island, ensuring that community wants and needs are at the forefront of all research design and implementation.
Hance Clarke
Dr. Hance Clarke is the Director of Pain Services, the GoodHope Ehlers Danlos Clinic and the Pain Research Unit at the Toronto General Hospital. He is the Knowledge Translation Chair for the University of Toronto Centre for the Study of Pain and an Associate Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine at the University of Toronto and holds the GoodHope Ehlers Danlos Chair in Translational Medicine. He has authored over 180 peer reviewed publications and has been invited to speak on pain control, cannabis and the opioid crisis to the House of Commons in Ottawa, Canada and elsewhere around the world. He is currently the president-elect of the Canadian Pain Society and the president of the Canadian Consortium for the Investigation of Cannabinoids.
Darlene Curci
Darlene was born and raised on the Nigigoonsiminikaaning First Nation in Northwest Ontario which is located on Treaty #3 territory of the Anishinaabeg. Developing connections and relationships is the premise and foundation of everything Darlene does in her walk of life, both professionally and personally. Her education began early in life as she grew up learning the traditional Anishinaabe ways of her ancestors to prepare her for her responsibility in life. She furthered her knowledge by studying Psychology at the University of Manitoba which helped her balance out the education. Outside of her professional role, Darlene keeps connected with her Anishinaabe culture, for she is a strong believer in bridging Traditional knowledge with western academics. Having this kind of background provides Darlene a well-rounded world view to articulate well in both worlds, as she continues to promote the seven teachings, health initiatives and internal wellness campaigns to assist family, friends and colleagues with effective well-being techniques.
Tania Di Renna
Dr. Tania Di Renna, BSc., FRCPC., Associate Professor at the University of Toronto, Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, completed her medical school and Anesthesiology residency training in Ottawa. She obtained a chronic pain fellowship at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto and has spinal cord stimulation training from Montreal Neurological Institute. She is currently the Medical Director of the Toronto Academic Pain Medicine Institute (TAPMI). TAPMI is the comprehensive interdisciplinary academic pain program serving as the hub for chronic pain care in Toronto. She practices anesthesiology and chronic pelvic pain at Women’s College Hospital. She served as the co-chair of the HQO Guidelines for Chronic Pain, is currently the co-chair of the Ontario Chronic Pain Network and Ontario Representative for Pain Canada.
Tara Gomes
Dr. Tara Gomes is a Scientist at St. Michael’s Hospital, Scientific Director of Urban and Community Health at Unity Health Toronto, and Program Director of the Ontario Drug Policy Research Network. She is also an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto and holds a Canada Research Chair in Drug Policy Research and Evaluation. Her research program focuses on drug safety and drug policy research, with a specific interest in developing evidence to inform policies that address the ongoing drug toxicity crisis across Canada and that integrate perspectives of impacted communities.
Tahir Janmohamed
Tahir Janmohamed is the CEO of ManagingLife, a Toronto-based digital health company dedicated to improving the lives of people with chronic pain. ManagingeLife's digital solution, Manage My Pain, has been collaborating with the Transitional Pain Service in 2016. Prior to ManagingLife, Tahir spent 8 years as a Management Consultant with IBM's Strategy & Analytics practice. Tahir is a Professional Engineer and MBA from the University of Toronto.
Salima Ladak
Dr. Salima Ladak is a results oriented and award winning Nurse Practitioner, and Quality Lead for the Acute Pain Program Toronto General Hospital. With more than 2 decades impactful patient care, advancement of clinical transformation and leadership at the UHN and internationally, she specializes in the management of pain across wide ranging health conditions - including pain in the context of substance use disorder. Her research interests include post-operative pain outcomes related to function, understanding health professional educational needs, as well as program outcomes and impact. Salima provides leadership to advanced practice nurses in the delivery of delivery of programs to improve knowledge of and practice of pain at the point of care. She regularly mentors medical and nursing learners and is cross appointed to the University of Toronto Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing. Salima was member of the founding team of the Toronto General Hospital Transitional Pain Service and remains with the program. She is the recipient of numerous leadership awards.
Karim Ladha
Dr. Karim Ladha is an anesthesiologist and clinician-scientist at the University of Toronto. Dr. Ladha received his undergraduate degree in Economics from Brown University and obtained his medical degree from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He then completed his residency training at the Massachusetts General Hospital and did additional fellowship training in Cardiac Anesthesia at Toronto General Hospital. Dr. Ladha leads a diverse research program and conducts innovative studies in several areas including acute and chronic pain, the use of anesthetic interventions to target mental health conditions and the impact of psychosocial factors in perioperative medicine. He has been awarded $15.6 million($7.8 million as PI or co-PI) in peer-reviewed grant funding from numerous agencies such as the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute. He has also received several awards including a Career Scientist Award from the Canadian Anesthesiologists’ Society, the International Anesthesia Research Society’s (IARS) Mentored Research Award and the IMPACT Award in Anesthesia. He has published over 130 manuscripts which have been cited ~2,500 times including first or last authorship papers in high-impact journals such as JAMA, BMJ, and Annals of Internal Medicine. His research has also been covered in both national and international media.
Jean-Francois Leroux
Jean-François Leroux is the Manager of the Chronic Pain Policy Team at Health Canada. In his role, Jean-François oversees the coordination of the federal response to the Canadian Pain Task Force recommendations. Prior to joining the Team in October 2021, Jean-François held many policy positions within the federal government, including in the Department of Finance Canada, Health Canada and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
Anna Lomanowska
Dr. Anna Lomanowska is a Scientific Associate in the Department of Anesthesia and Pain Management at Toronto General Hospital and a Knowledge Translation Specialist at the Transitional Pain Service. She received her PhD in Psychology and Neuroscience from the University of Toronto and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Cyberpsychology at Laval University. Dr. Lomanowska has extensive experience as a researcher and educator and has held the position of Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto Mississauga and Laval University. She applies her interdisciplinary training and experience to develop innovative knowledge tools and interventions to enhance access to evidence-based chronic pain management strategies and improve transitional pain care.
Miki Peer
Dr. Miki Peer is a Scientific Associate in the Department of Anesthesia and Pain Management at the University Health Network. She obtained her PhD in Medical Science from the Institute of Medical Science at the University of Toronto where her research focused on mind-body interactions as contributors to maternal and infant health. She is passionate about addressing health inequities through the inclusion of social indicators of health in research and clinical practice, and through inclusion of people with lived experience and community organizations in health research.
Lisa Richardson
Dr. Lisa Richardson practices General Internal Medicine at the Toronto General Hospital and is the Associate Dean, Inclusion and Diversity; as well as Acting Vice Dean, Strategy, at the University of Toronto’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine. She is an education researcher at the Wilson Centre with a scholarly focus on how to integrate Indigenous and critical perspectives from the social sciences into medical education. Dr Richardson is the Strategic Lead in Indigenous Health for Women's College Hospital where she founded Ganawishkadawe – The Centre for Wise Practices in Indigenous Health. She is on Council of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada and co-chairs the Royal College’s Indigenous Health Committee. Lisa is also a founding executive member of the National Consortium for Indigenous Medical Education and belongs to the Indigenous Physicians Association of Canada.
Emily Simmonds
Emily Simmonds is a critical scholar and PhD candidate in Science and Technology Studies at York University. As a member of the Ganawishkadawe, Center for Wise Practices in Indigenous Health’s circle, she co-leads several projects at the local and national level that support Indigenous wellness, foster accountability to communities and advances First Nation, Inuit, and Métis data sovereignty. She is an alum of several critical justice research collectives focusing on anti-racist and anti-colonial scholarship in the humanities and social sciences, including the Technoscience Research Unit (TRU), the Digital Research Ethics Collaboratory (DREC) and the Civic Laboratory for Environmental Action Research (CLEAR).
Max Slepian
Dr. Max Slepian is a Clinical and Health Psychologist and Lead Psychologist of the Transitional Pain Service and GoodHope Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome Clinic at Toronto General Hospital. He is also a Clinician Investigator aligned with the Krembil Research Institute and Assistant Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine at University of Toronto. Dr. Slepian came to Toronto after completing his PhD at Ohio University and psychology residency at the University of Washington in Seattle. His research focuses on the role of psychological factors, particularly resilience, in the experience of pain and the development of chronic pain. He also researches and practices psychological interventions for management of acute and chronic pain and to prevent the development of chronic pain.
Sanjho Srikandarajah
After attending medical school at Queen's University Dr. Sanjho Srikandarajah completed his residency training in Anesthesia at the University of Toronto. He then came on as a staff Anesthesiologist at North York General Hospital. He has a clinical interest in pain and pain research as well as quality improvement.
Aristotle Voineskos
Dr. Aristotle Voineskos is the Vice President, Research and Director of the Campbell Family Mental Health Research Institute at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), Canada’s largest academic hospital dedicated to mental health and addictions. Dr. Voineskos earned his MD and PhD at the University of Toronto, and completed a research fellowship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School. Dr. Voineskos founded the Kimel Family Translational Imaging-Genetics Laboratory at CAMH. He was also the inaugural Director of the Slaight Family Centre for Youth in Transition, and served as the Chief of the Schizophrenia Division. His scientific impact ranges from brain mapping to clinical trials to scaling system-level initiatives in mental health care. Dr. Voineskos has published nearly 300 papers many of which are in the leading journals of psychiatry, neurology, medicine, and neuroscience. In addition, he is known for his leadership on large-scale international multi-centre research initiatives across disciplines. He was won numerous awards for his research and mentorship. He is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto, holds a Canada Research Chair, and serves on the Scientific Council of the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation (BBRF).
Jeffrey Wieskopf
Dr. Jeffrey Wieskopf is a staff psychiatrist at the University Health Network and a Lecturer at the University of Toronto. Dr. Wieskopf is actively involved in the Toronto General Hospital Transitional Pain Service and is a consultation-liaison psychiatrist at the EW Bickle Centre for Complex Continuing Care. He also provides coverage at the Toronto Western Hospital Psychiatric Emergency Services Unit (PESU). Dr. Wieskopf's research background includes a variety of topics, ranging from learning and memory, to spinal cord injury, and genetics of chronic pain. He is a Vanier Canada Graduate Scholar, co-author on multiple high-impact journal publications, and trains medical students and residents at the Temerty Faculty of Medicine. His current research focuses on optimizing care for patients with chronic pain and concurrent psychiatric illnesses.
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