Peter Tugwell
Director, The Ottawa Centre for Health Equity
Co-Convenor, Campbell and Cochrane Health Equity Thematic Group
Co-Director, WHO Collaborating Centre for Knowledge Translation and Health Technology Assessment in Equity
Dr. Peter Tugwell is Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology & Public Health at the University of Ottawa and is a practicing rheumatologist at the Ottawa Hospital. In 2001, he became Director of the Ottawa Centre for Health Equity (formerly the Centre for Global Health at the University of Ottawa). He has built a research program and multidisciplinary team around his Canada Research Chair in Health Equity. In 2002 he was appointed the North American Editor for the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology. In 2013, His Excellency the Right Honourable David Johnston, Governor General of Canada appointed Dr Tugwell to the rank of Officer of the Order of Canada, the second-highest ranking conferred by Canada. Dr Tugwell was recognized for his contributions as an epidemiologist reducing global disparities in health care access. Dr. Tugwell's publication record includes over 900 journal articles, monographs, and book chapters.
Vivian Welch
Vivian Welch, PhD
Senior Investigator, The Ottawa Centre for Health Equity
Editor-in-Chief, Campbell Collaboration
Co-Convenor, Campbell and Cochrane Health Equity Thematic Group
Vivian Welch is Senior Investigator with the Ottawa Centre for Health Equity. She is Editor in Chief of Campbell, Director of the Methods Centre at the Bruyère Research Institute (BRI), and Associate Professor at University of Ottawa School of Epidemiology and Public Health. She co-convenes the Campbell and Cochrane Health Equity Thematic Group and is a co-director of Cochrane-Campbell Global Ageing. She obtained her PhD in Population health and epidemiology from the University of Ottawa in 2010.
Vivian’s research interests include methods for reporting and conducting systematic reviews relevant to ageing and health equity. She has led international teams in the development of reporting guidelines for how to assess health equity in systematic reviews (PRISMA-Equity 2012), randomized controlled trials (CONSORT-Equity 2017) and public health guidelines. She has led and contributed to over 30 systematic reviews on global health. She led a new chapter on assessing health equity in the revised Cochrane Handbook, published in 2019.
She has published over 200 peer-reviewed papers on systematic review methods and health equity and led 33 research grants as a principal investigator or co-principal investigator (total funding $2,727,137). She was awarded a recognition as one of the top 100 women in Global Health 2018, The Lancet and Canadian Society for International Health and an Ontario Early Researcher Award (2014-2019).
Maria Cannataro
Administrative Assistant
Maria Cannataro is a part-time administrative assistant for the Ottawa Centre for Health Equity. She has previous experience working in the epidemiology departments of the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute (OHRI) and Canadian Blood Services. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Western University.
Omar Dewidar
Omar Dewidar, MSc
Research Associate
Co-Editor in Chief for University of Ottawa Journal of Medicine (UOJM)
School of Epidemiology and Public Health (SEPH) Equity Inclusion and Diversity working Group
COVID-END Equity Working group
GRADE Equity Working group
Omar Dewidar completed his Masters in Epidemiology at the University of Ottawa. He is a research associate at Bruyère Research Institute. Omar does research in Epidemiology and public health to answer questions about global health and health equity.
Sierra Dowling
Research Assistant
Sierra Dowling is an HBSc graduate from the University of Ottawa in Biomedical Science. She is a full-time research assistant at Bruyère Research Institute. Her research interests include health equity and healthy aging. Sierra is also a certified yoga teacher and teaches yoga in her spare time.
Elizabeth Ghogomu
Elizabeth is a senior research associate at Bruyère Research Institute with over 10 years of experience in systematic review methods and evidence synthesis and has an interest in knowledge translation and health equity. She graduated as a medical doctor in 1990 from the University of Yaounde I, in Cameroon where she worked in general medicine until 2003. She obtained a Master of Science in Public Health from Oxford Brookes University, UK in 2005.
Shawna Grosskleg
Shawna is the OMERACT Secretariat and works with the OMERACT Executive Committee and working group leaders to ensure that OMERACT meetings and core activities are organized and managed.
Janet Hatcher Roberts
Co-Director, WHO Collaborating Centre for Knowledge Translation and Health Technology Assessment in Equity
Janet Hatcher Roberts has extensive experience in the areas of international public health policy, health systems strengthening capacity building and research. Currently, Janet is the Co-Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre on Technology Assessment, Knowledge Translation and Health Equite at Bruyere Research Institute, University of Ottawa. She is an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Medicine, School of Epidemiology and Public Health, at the University of Ottawa where she co-coordinates a graduate courses in global health and collaborates on global health research. She served as senior technical advisor to the Canadian Society for International Health focusing on HCV from 2013-2020.
From 1998-2013, she was the Executive Director of the Canadian Society for International Health. She spent 2007-2008 in Geneva where she was Director of the Migration Health Department with the International Organization for Migration. Later, she returned to Ottawa to resume her position until 2013, as the Executive Director of the Canadian Society for International Health (CSIH) where she oversaw the design and implementation of global health systems strengthening projects in Africa, Asia, Latin and Central America and Eastern Europe.
Over the past three decades, she has been involved in the design, monitoring and evaluation of global health and development and gender and health programmes and projects at IDRC, CIDA, CIHR (Institute on Gender and Health), the Public Health Agency of Canada and Health Canada. She also brings technical expertise, including approaches to strengthening health systems, women’s health, and public health systems and development.
In her volunteer time, Janet was the Chair of the Board for Action Canada for Population Development and was a Board member and Past Treasurer of the Canadian Coalition for Global Health Research. She was a Board member of the US-based Council of Graduate Foreign Nurses (CGFNS) from 2007- 2016. From 2009-2019, she was appointed by an Order in Council as Board member to Public Heath Ontario (PHO) where she also sat on the Strategic Planning Committee and Governance Committee. She also served for four years on the National Board of Make Poverty History. She is currently a board member of the Transition Board for the merging organizations of CSIH and CCGHR and an advisory to the new Pegasus Institute.
Shannon Hillier
Executive Assistant
Graduated with honors: Diploma: Medical Laboratory Technology, Algonquin College
Executive Assistant to Vivian Welch
Currently employed: Program Administrator for the Mood and Anxiety Program at the Royal Ottawa Hospital
Past experience: Clinical assistant in the Cardiac Surgery Dept. at the Ottawa Heart Institute and Medical Laboratory Technician with Gamma Dynacare Medical Laboratories.
Lara Maxwell
Lara Maxwell, PhD
Senior Methodologist, OMERACT
Lara Maxwell recently joined OMERACT as the Methodological Advisor to the Technical Advisory Group. She is based at the University of Ottawa and the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Canada. Since 2004 she has been involved with Cochrane and OMERACT. She is involved in the multiple intervention methods initiative and Equity Methods Group within Cochrane. In addition to systematic review methodology, her research interests include developing knowledge translation strategies for the dissemination of results of systematic reviews, including the development of patient decision aids, criteria around when to replicate systematic reviews, and the assessment of measurement properties of pain scales. She received a PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Split, Croatia and an MSc in Epidemiology from the University of Ottawa.
Jordi Pardo Pardo
Jordi Pardo Pardo
Senior Advisor, Cochrane Equity Thematic Group
Jordi Pardo Pardo joined the team in 2009. Jordi was trained as a journalist. Early in his career, he started working in Systematic Reviews with the Iberoamerican Cochrane Centre in Barcelona, where he is from. Jordi currently contributes as a senior advisor of the Cochrane Equity Thematic Group. Jordi is currently a member of Cochrane’s Governing Board. Jordi is also the liaison person between Cochrane and the Canadian Rheumatology Association for the production of guidelines. In his free time, Jordi loves to watch and play football, European style.
Jennifer Petkovic
Jennifer Petkovic, PhD
Research Associate
Affiliate Investigator, Bruyère Research Institute
Coordinator, Campbell and Cochrane Health Equity Thematic Group
Jennifer is the Coordinator of the Campbell and Cochrane Health Equity Thematic Group and the MuSE Consortium. She is an Affiliate Investigator at the Bruyère Research Institute. Jennifer earned her PhD in Public Health at the University of Split in Croatia in 2017 and her MSc in Population and Public Health (Global Health) from Simon Fraser University in 2007. Her research interests include systematic review methods for disadvantaged populations, multi-stakeholder engagement in research and guidelines and knowledge translation.
Bev Shea
Bev Shea, PhD
Senior Methodologist, OMERACT
Bev Shea has been involved in the production of more than 40 systematic Reviews. And more recently, has contributed to the creation of new knowledge in the field of quality assessment and qualitative data analysis. This includes the development of an original quality assessment instrument for assessing systematic reviews known as “AMSTAR”.
She is an editor for the Cochrane Musculoskeletal Review Group, and co-convenor for the Cochrane non-randomized methods working group. She is a Clinical Scientist at the Bruyère Research Institute, Senior Methodologist at the Ottawa Health Research Institute, and Adjunct Professor at the Department of Epidemiology and Community Medicine at the University of Ottawa.
Bob Shumsky
Bob Shumsky
Financial Services, OMERACT