2015 Infectious Diseases Workshop - Speaker Biographies
Dr. George Pasut is the vice-president, science and public health, and provides executive leadership to the emergency preparedness, infectious disease, environmental and occupational health, health promotion, chronic disease and injury prevention programs, and to PHO’s knowledge services which provide educational, library, research, ethics and analytic supports to the public health system. Dr. Liane Macdonald is a public health physician in Communicable Diseases, Emergency Preparedness and Response at Public Health Ontario, and an assistant professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto. She holds a Master’s of Science in Public Health and is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada in Public Health and Preventive Medicine.
Melissa Helferty is a Public Health Advisor of Epidemiology in the Public Health Division of the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care and an Instructor in the School of Occupational and Public Health at Ryerson University. Prior to joining the MOHLTC in 2012, Melissa was employed as an epidemiologist at Montreal Public Health, the Public Health Agency of Canada and the Pan American Health Organization. She holds a Master’s degree of International Public Health and is a graduate of the Canadian Field Epidemiology Program.
Andrea Saunders is a nurse epidemiologist currently working as a Communicable Diseases Specialist with Public Health Ontario. Prior to joining PHO in 2014, Andrea worked for the Public Health Agency of Canada as an epidemiologist in the areas of hepatitis C, sexually transmitted infections and tuberculosis surveillance, as well as in the role of Training Coordinator for the Canadian Field Epidemiology Program. She holds a Master’s degree in Epidemiology and Biostatistics from McGill University, as well as a post-graduate diploma in Tropical Nursing and Public Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the UK.
Alex Marchand-Austin completed his HBSc at the University of Toronto, specializing in cell and
molecular biology and just recently completed his MSc in laboratory medicine and pathobiology also at the University of Toronto. Prior to joining PHO as the manager of laboratory surveillance and data management in 2013, Alex held positions with the Public Health Agency of Canada as well as a private food testing laboratory. His current role focuses on facilitating the use of laboratory data for supporting laboratory operations, surveillance, and research endeavours.
Dr. Frances Jamieson is a medical microbiologist and medical lead for Laboratory Surveillance, and the TB and Mycobacteriology laboratory. She obtained her MD from the University of Toronto, and RCPSC fellowship in Medical Microbiology. She holds an appointment as Associate Professor, Dept. of
Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, and as assistant scientific staff, Dept. of Microbiology, Mount Sinai Hospital. With the public health laboratories for 19 years, Frances has been involved in and managed several large outbreaks, including Walkerton and SARS, and is the provincial co-chair for the Canadian Public Health Laboratory Network.
Dr. Erika Bontovics holds a medical degree from Hungary where she worked as a family physician in a rural community for 7 years. In Canada, her public health career started at York Region Public Health Services. She joined the Ministry in 1998, and prior to her role managing the Infectious Diseases Section of the Public Health Policy and Programs Branch, she led the Prevention and Control Section with responsibilities for VPDs, CDs and IPC. She is certified in Infection Control and Epidemiology, a member
of the Community and Hospital Infection Control Association of Canada (CHICA), and past president of the Toronto and area Professionals in Infection Control (TPIC). She is a Fellow of the Public Health Faculty of the Royal Colleges of Physicians of the United Kingdom. As an ex officio member for many years of the Provincial Infectious Disease Advisory Committee, Subcommittee on Infection Prevention and Control, she contributed to many of the PIDAC Best Practices Documents. Erika is the Ontario representative on the Communicable and Infectious Disease Steering Committee (CIDSC), a group that reports to the Public Health Network Council (PHNC) and informs decision making at the PHNC table. Dr. Bryna Warshawsky is a Public Health Physician in Communicable Diseases, Emergency Preparedness and Response at Public Health Ontario. Prior to joining Public Health Ontario, she worked as the
Associate Medical Officer of Health for the Middlesex-London Health Unit. She is the former chair of the National Advisory Committee on Immunization and is cross-appointed in the department of
Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Western University.
Dr. Maureen Cividino completed her MD and family medicine residency at McMaster University. In 1998 she received both her certification with the Canadian Board of Occupational Medicine and Diploma in Occupational Health and Safety. She has maintained her Certification in Infection Prevention Control and Epidemiology originally obtained in 2008, and provides IPAC Physician support to Public Health Ontario and is a member of the PIDAC Infection Prevention and Control Committee. Dr. Cividino is Co-Chair of the OHA/OMA Communicable Disease Surveillance Protocols Committee, Past-Co-Chair of the OMA Section on Occupational and Environmental Medicine and Past- President of the Occupational and Environmental Medical Association of Canada.
Tim Cronsberry serves as a Regional Manager in the Infection Prevention and Control Department at Public Health Ontario. Tim has experience as Manager of Communicable Disease and Immunization at the Perth District Health Unit, as well as in the hospital and community care setting. Tim is a Registered Nurse with degrees from Western University, Queen’s University, and Wilfrid Laurier University.
Brenda MacLean completed a Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree and a Master of Education at the University of Ottawa. She worked for a number of years in both the adult and neonatal intensive care units at The Ottawa Hospital as a staff nurse and as a clinical instructor. For the past 17 years, Brenda has worked for Ottawa Public Health, initially in Family Health and for the past eight years as the Program Manager of the Communicable Disease Control and Outbreak Management Section, which includes a team of both public health nurses and public health inspectors. Brenda has functioned on a number of occasions as the manager of operations during several large scale public health
investigations, including the investigation of a community infection control lapse in a local endoscopy clinic in 2011-2012.
Dr. Michael Finkelstein was raised in Ottawa and completed undergraduate degrees in organic chemistry and biochemistry before entering the University of Ottawa’s medical school. Michael interned in Ottawa at both campuses of the Ottawa Hospital before moving to Toronto to complete specialty training in Public Health and Preventive Medicine. While completing his specialty training, Michael completed a master's degree in epidemiology at the University of Toronto. He joined Toronto Public Health as an Associate Medical Officer of Health in July 2001. Since then he has assisted TPH in its response to the 2003 SARS outbreak, the arrival of West Nile Virus in 2002, a large Legionnaire's
supporting their response to the introduction of the HPV vaccine and lead the response to a large measles outbreak in 2008. Michael's current focus is on continuous quality improvement and building a better relationship with Toronto long term care homes focusing on surveillance of resident infections. Monali Varia is the Manager of Infection Prevention and Surveillance at Peel Public Health. As an epidemiologist with Certification in Infection Control (CIC), Monali has had the opportunity to work in public health at the local, provincial, federal, and international level. She is a former federal field epidemiologist who was placed at Toronto Public Health, during which time she was one of the investigators during the 2003 SARS outbreak. Monali also went to Eritrea, Africa as part of the STOP polio program. Monali’s current portfolio includes communicable disease surveillance, emergency response, vaccine management and distribution, and infection prevention and control. She has also just completed a 2-year fellowship program with the Executive Training and Research Application program (EXTRA), focusing on developing public health capacity to use health data for decision-making.
Dr. Shelley Deeks is currently the Medical Director of Immunization and Vaccine Preventable Diseases at Public Health Ontario (PHO) and an Associate Professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health,
University of Toronto. Shelley is a member of the National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI), the Scientific Lead of Ontario’s Provincial Infectious Diseases Advisory Committee on Immunization and past chair and current member of the World Health Organization’s Immunization Practices Advisory Committee. Shelley holds fellowships in Public Health at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada and the Australasian Faculty of Public Health Medicine and completed the Canadian Field Epidemiology Program.
Dr. Vanessa Allen is Chief of Medical Microbiology at Public Health Ontario with an interest in the science, clinical and public health aspects of sexually transmitted infections, enteric and foodborne microbiology, and Clostridium difficile. She is also an infectious diseases consultant at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. She completed her MD at McGill University and her residency in internal medicine, infectious diseases and microbiology at the University of Toronto and has a Masters of Public Health from Johns Hopkins University. Her research interests include the molecular epidemiology and mechanisms of resistance of Neisseria gonorrhoeae, the use of genomics to understand the original and control of food borne infections and novel strategies to combat antimicrobial resistant organisms. Margaret McIntyre is a Nursing Consultant at Public Health Ontario in the Immunization & Vaccine Preventable Diseases team. Prior to joining PHO, she worked in local public health on immunization assessment and enforcement and communicable disease case and contact management Margaret has a master of nursing (MN) from the University of Toronto, where she holds an Adjunct Lecturer position at the Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing.
Christina Taylor is a Public Health Manager in Infectious Diseases and Emergency Preparedness with the Huron County Health Unit. Christina is also the Chief Nursing Officer. Christina has her certification in Community Health Nursing and Infection Control.
Alison Locker is an Epidemiologist who completed her Master of Science in Community Health and Epidemiology at Queen’s University. With the Middlesex-London Health Unit since 2004, her portfolio includes vaccine preventable diseases, sexually transmitted and blood-borne infections, infectious diseases, tuberculosis, and oral health. Since joining the Health Unit, Alison has had the privilege of
working with her colleagues and contributing to a number of disease investigations at both the local and provincial level.
Dr. Anna Majury is a clinical microbiologist with Public Health Ontario and works out of the Regional Public Health Laboratory in Kingston.
She has her Doctor of Veterinary Medicine and Surgery from the University of Guelph, a Masters in Veterinary Infectious Diseases, also from Guelph, and a PhD from the Division of Microbiology and Immunology at Queen's. She completed her clinical microbiology training through the University of Toronto before returning to Kingston to begin a career in Public Health at PHO, and oversees the Food and Waterborne sections of the PHO Laboratories. She also has appointments in Biomedical and Molecular Sciences, Public Health Sciences, and Environmental Studies at Queen's University. In addition to her service work, Dr. Majury has a teaching and research portfolio and her current studies are focused on waterborne pathogens and rural and water related health issues, including issues related to the one health paradigm for humans, animals and the environment. She is also a practicing want-to-be artist, an owner of several animals, a volunteer Veterinarian, and mother of three talented, and occasionally also charming, children.
Allana Murphy is the Senior Laboratory Lead for the Environmental Microbiology section at Public Health Ontario – Toronto Public Health Laboratory. Allana oversees the day to day operations of the Environmental Microbiology section. She also provides guidance regarding method development, laboratory workflow, sample collection and result interpretation. Allana was instrumental in the implementation and design of the electronic food laboratory requisition, Salmonella PCR methodology, and laboratory information management system for reporting of food results. Prior to joining Public Health Ontario, Allana was the Director of Compliance at a private laboratory in the US. She has also held positions as Laboratory Manager and Quality Manager at the same laboratory where food, environmental and water samples were analyzed.
Alison Samuel is currently with Public Health Ontario (PHO) in the Enteric, Zoonotic, Vectorborne Diseases Unit as a Senior Program Specialist. Prior to the transition to PHO, she spent eight years with the Public Health Division of the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care in the same role. Alison worked as a Public Health Inspector in several boards of health, and as a Food Scientist with the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. She has also served as a board examiner for CIPHI.
Stacie Carey is a knowledge exchange specialist at PHO, where she is working to build knowledge exchange capacity, processes and tools across the organization. Her experience spans multiple public health priority areas including physical activity promotion, mental health and injury prevention. She has worked with local, provincial and national organizations to design and evaluate creative knowledge exchange strategies.
Sharon Lobo is currently the Physician Outreach Specialist at Peel Public Health. She has an Honours Bachelor of Science in Molecular Genetics and Molecular Biology and a Masters in Biotechnology from the University of Toronto. She has seven years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry where she has held positions in Regulatory Affairs, Reimbursement, Business Development and Sales. She has spent the last five years with Peel Public Health as their Physician Outreach Specialist based in the Office of the Medical Offer of Health and has a centralized role serving all five public health divisions in matters involving physicians.
Dr. Ray Copes completed his undergraduate degrees in psychology and biology at Simon Fraser University. He subsequently attended McGill University where he obtained his MD and MSc. After medical school Ray did his residency training in Family Medicine at the University of Western Ontario and in Occupational and Environmental medicine at St. Michael’s Hospital and the University of Toronto. He has worked as an occupational physician, first in industry and then with the Alberta Occupational Health and Safety Division as Senior Medical Consultant and later as Director of Health Services. In 1990, he moved to British Columbia to become Medical Consultant in Environmental Health, Risk Assessment and Toxicology with the BC Ministry of Health in Victoria. Later Ray moved to the BC Centre for Disease Control where he was Director of Environmental Health and the founding Scientific Director of the National Collaborating Centre for Environmental Health, one of six National Collaborating Centres in Public Health funded by the Public Health Agency of Canada. Ray has taught courses in environmental health, toxicology, risk assessment, risk management and risk communication at the University of Victoria, the University of British Columbia and University of Toronto. He holds appointments as a Clinical Professor at the University of British Columbia and Associate Professor, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto. Since July 2009, Ray has been with Public Health Ontario, and is the Chief of Environmental and Occupational Health in Toronto.
Dr. Doug Sider is Medical Director, Communicable Disease Prevention and Control, for PHO and provides scientific and medical leadership on communicable diseases, in addition to providing
operational guidance, research and evaluation. He received his medical degree from the University of Toronto and is a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. He is an assistant professor at in the department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, McMaster University. Dr. Brian Schwartz is Chief, Communicable Diseases and Emergency Preparedness and Response and leads and is responsible for the scientific and operational activities in CDEPR at PHO, including the development of PHO’s strategy and activities related to protection against communicable diseases, as well as in preparation and response to health emergencies and exigent circumstances including
hazardous materials, catastrophic events and outbreaks. He has a MD from the University of Toronto as well as a master of science in community health. He received his certification in emergency medicine from and is a fellow of the College of Family Physicians of Canada.
