Dr. Sean Hill is the Director of the Krembil Centre for Neuroinformatics, Senior Scientist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), and Professor at the University of Toronto. Dr. Hill is a computational neuroscientist with experience in building large-scale computational models of brain circuitry. The Centre collaborates with clinicians and researchers, employing neuroinformatics, artificial intelligence, and multiscale modeling, to develop data-driven definitions of brain disorders, predict patient trajectories, and transform mental health care.

Dr. Hill applies large-scale data integration, neuroinformatics, multiscale brain modeling and machine learning to improve our understanding and treatment of mental health disorders. The Centre’s mandate is to accelerate global collaborations in brain science using the power of big data and brain modelling to fundamentally change how mental illness is understood.

Professor Erin Nelson (B.Sc.P.T. (Alberta), LL.B. (Alberta), LL.M. (Columbia), J.S.D.(Columbia)) joined the Faculty of Law at the University of Alberta in 2000. She teaches Tort Law, Health Care Ethics and the Law, and Law & Medicine, and has served as Associate Dean (Research) in the Faculty of Law. In 2012-13, Professor Nelson served as Senior Legal Counsel to the Honourable Catherine Fraser, Chief Justice of Alberta. Professor Nelson’s research interests include: the interface of health care law and ethics, women’s health, issues in reproductive health and feminist legal theory. She has published articles and book chapters on numerous health law related topics, including assisted reproduction, surrogacy, organ and tissue donation, consent, intervention in pregnancy and the tort law duties of pregnant women. Her monograph, Law, Policy and Reproductive Autonomy (Hart, 2013), explores theoretical and practical issues in reproductive decision-making.

She is also a co-editor of the leading Canadian health law and policy text (Canadian Health Law and Policy, 5th ed, LexisNexis Canada. 2017) and co-author of a health law text for healthcare providers (Law for Healthcare Providers, LexisNexis Canada, 2018)

Reg Joseph was appointed as the CEO of Health Cities in February 2018. He has 20 years’ experience spanning the health, technology and investment sectors. At Health Cities, Reg is focused on developing new pathways for healthcare delivery to drive better health outcomes and economic growth for our region. Reg has served in a wide variety of roles including as an analyst with Boston-based Leerink Swann & Co. and managed a global business unit at US-based Invitrogen Corporation (now Thermo Fisher). Reg has founded and led local health technology companies and most recently, he served as the Vice President of Health at Alberta Innovates managing outgoing investments from the Heritage Fund. In addition to serving on multiple boards of health technology companies, Reg currently serves as Chair of the Board of BioTalent Canada and on the MacEwan University Board of Governors. Reg has a B.Sc. in Physiology and an MBA in Finance.

Dr. Stephanie Garies has been working with primary care electronic medical record (EMR) data for over a decade with the Canadian Primary Care Sentinel Surveillance Network (CPCSSN). Her research areas of interest include primary care EMR data science and the use of these data to advance primary health care research and innovation. She is currently a CIHR Health System Impact Postdoctoral Fellow embedded in the St. Michael’s Hospital Family Health Team (FHT), where she is exploring the use of artificial intelligence methods to derive information about patients’ social determinants of health from their electronic medical record. Dr. Garies also maintains a role as the Assistant Director of the Southern Alberta Primary Care Research Network (SAPCReN) at the University of Calgary. She received her PhD in Epidemiology at the University of Calgary (2020) and her Master’s in Public Health at the University of Warwick, UK (2010).

With a wealth of international experience in taking ideas to market— always at the dynamic intersection of where entrepreneurship and experiential learning meet— Edna Chosack, M.Sc., MBA, is the Healthcare Stream lead and Senior Coach at District 3, a leading innovation centre in Montreal. Edna is also a member of the Medical Device Research Centre Advisory Board of the National Research Council Canada (NRC). As the co-founder and VP, Strategic Marketing and Product management at Simbionix Inc. (acquired by Surgical Science for $305M USD) , Ms. Chosack co-built the company into an international surgical-simulation leader, becoming internationally recognized as one of a few experts who leverage medical-simulation into a business success story . As Director at CAE Healthcare she established and managed the surgical-simulation business line. She was also a member of the advisory committee at McGill University’s Steinberg Centre for Simulation and Interactive Learning.

Mathew Gancarz leads Information Technology (IT) and Operations at de Souza Institute where he manages the technology platforms, digital strategy and instructional design and software development staff. Working alongside the research team, he contributed as co-investigator on several research projects focused on using technology to improve online patient support groups. He is also responsible for planning, design, architecture and information management for the Continuing Education and Professional Development portfolio at the University Health Network. The role involves the development of new platforms and systems to support lifelong learning and helps to address health human resource issues, overseeing projects such as Critical + COVID Care Learning, the Ontario Workforce Reserve for Senior Support and the provincial Vaccination Support Program. He holds a Masters of Management Science (MMSc) from the University of Waterloo, developed and teaches the Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning I course for the Digital Health and Data Analytics Program at The Michener Institute of Education at UHN and has completed a certificate in the Management of Enterprise Data Analytics from the University of Toronto.

Dr. Meier is a Canada Research Chair in Developmental Psychopathology and Youth Mental Health. Her research focuses on leveraging modern technology to improve mental health care in youth. With her team, she has developed a mobile sensing app that passively gathers information on patients’ behaviours using their smartphones. Thereby she aims to identify youth at risk early on and provide them with the help they needed. She has also developed multiple online intervention tools as well as remote cognitive assessment apps.

Her work is strongly rooted in patient engagement, she co-designs her apps with patients working with over 19 patient organizations and she has founded her own youth council.

Dr. Talhouk is an assistant professor in the department of Obstetrics & Gynecology in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia. She is also the director of data science and informatics at OVCARE, BC’s ovarian and gynecological cancer research program.

She completed her PhD in Statistics at the University of British Columbia in 2013 with a focus on computational statistics and machine learning. Since then, she has been working on developing and implementing predictive models to improve patient care in women’s health and oncology. Her research focus also includes the ethics of data sharing and privacy in the era of digital health and AI modeling.

Mahmoud Azimaee is the Director of Data Quality and Information Management (DQIM) at ICES. He is a statistician by training and a Professional Statistician (P.Stat.) by the Statistical Society of Canada. He has been working with large population health data for the past 16 years. He started his career in Canada at the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy (MCHP) in 2006 and joined ICES in 2012. He has assumed various roles within ICES. Mahmoud has been leading DQIM department since February 2016. He also holds an Adjunct Faculty role with the University of Toronto’s IHPME and teaches Quantitative Skills for Health Informatics for the Master of Health Informatics program as a Sessional Instructor. His research in interests are Record Linkage, Data Quality, de-identification, Metadata, Data Management and Data Governance.

Dr. Alireza Manashty is a machine learning and data science researcher, consultant, and academic instructor with 10+ years of research and problem-solving experience. Dr. Manashty helped government, industry, universities, and hospitals to solve data science problems.

Furthermore, he has been helping communities and students as Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) in Azure Cloud, Assistant Professor in Machine Learning, and Director of Data Science Laboratory (urdatascience.ca ). Dr. Manashty has 30+ research publications and presentations in his record. His technical and research expertise and interests include machine learning, deep learning, multivariate temporal forecasting, health predictions, smart health monitoring, cloud computing, and federated learning.