We bring together wide-ranging expertise and perspectives to better understand and support public trust and equitable access to new vaccines and immune-based innovations that strengthen Canada’s readiness for future health emergencies

Cindy Jardine’s research interests are in the multi-disciplinary area of environmental health risk communication. Specifically, her research looks at means and impediments to promoting better dialogue between stakeholders that will hopefully lead to more informed decisions on risks. This involves looking at the role of risk communication as a part of a comprehensive risk management strategy, including incorporating public perspectives into risk decision making. Knowledge translation and knowledge exchange are key considerations.

Much of Cindy’s work is done as participatory research with Indigenous communities in northern Canada and elsewhere to better understand their risk perspectives and risk communication needs.

Jillian Clare Kohler is a Professor at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, University of Toronto.

Her research focuses on anti-corruption, transparency, and accountability in pharmaceutical and health systems, as well as promoting fair access of populations to medicines and other health products globally.

Dr. Kohler has decades of experience providing policy expertise on pharmaceutical issues to international organizations, such as the WHO, the UNODC, the World Bank, and the UNDP. She is a Steering Committee Member of the Global Network for Anti-Corruption, Transparency and Accountability in Health, led by the WHO, a Senior Fellow and Member of the Governing Board, Massey College and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Pharmaceutical Health Services Research, Oxford University Press.

Katrina Plamondon is an Assistant Professor at the School of Nursing at the University of British Columbia Okanagan. She is a Canadian woman of Cree, Irish, Quebecois, German, Jewish ancestry whose heartstrings are tied to the Kootenay and Okanagan regions of British Columbia.

A 2020 Michael Smith Health Research Scholar, her program of research focuses on questions of how to advance equity action. Katrina’s clinical foundations are in critical care/emergency and street outreach. She completed a Master of Science in Community Health & Epidemiology in 2006 (University of Saskatchewan) and doctoral studies at the University of British Columbia under a Banting & Best Canada Graduate Scholarship, for which her research extended a decade of research and practice in knowledge translation with a focus on advancing health equity.

She plays a national leadership role in global health. She was the Principal Investigator for the multi-year Gathering Perspectives Studies that led to the creation of the equity-centred CCGHR Principles for Global Health Research (available here), named as a core element of implementing a commitment to equity in CIHR’s Framework for Action on Global Health Research (see details here). She leads national dialogue about equity and Canada’s role in global health research, with a special focus on issues of vaccine equity.

She sits on Canada’s National Scientific Advisory Committee on Global Health.

Diego S. Silva is a Senior Lecturer in Bioethics at Sydney Health Ethics and the University of Sydney School of Public Health. His research centres on public health ethics, particularly the application of political theory in the context of infectious diseases and health security, e.g., tuberculosis, COVID-19, antimicrobial resistance, etc. Diego adopts a mixed methods approach to his work, including the use of qualitative methods and conceptual analysis.

He is a Member and the Past-Chair of the Public Health Ethics Consultative Group at the Public Health Agency of Canada and works with the World Health Organization on various public health ethics topics on an ad hoc basis. Diego has a BA and MA in philosophy and a PhD in public health from the University of Toronto (Canada) and was a post-doctoral Research Fellow in Ethics and Philosophy of Medicine at the Hannover Medical School (Germany).

Maxwell Smith is a bioethicist, Associate Professor, and CIHR Applied Public Health Chair in Ethics and Health Emergencies in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Western University. At Western, he also serves as an Associate Director of the Rotman Institute of Philosophy and has appointments in the Department of Philosophy, Schulich Interfaculty Program in Public Health, and Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics.

He is currently the co-chair of the Public Health Agency of Canada’s Public Health Ethics Consultative Group and serves as a member of the Ontario Public Health Emergencies Science Advisory Committee and World Health Organization Ethics & Governance of Infectious Disease Outbreaks Expert Working Group. Max’s research is in the area of public health ethics, with a focus on infectious disease ethics and the ethical demands that health equity and social justice place on governments and institutions to protect and promote the public’s health.

Heidi Tworek is a Canada Research Chair and professor of international history and public policy at UBC. She directs the Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions. Her work examines history and policy around communications, particularly the effects of new media technologies on democracy and health communications. She is a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation as well as a non-resident fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States and the Canadian Global Affairs Institute.

Alongside writing policy reports on topics including Covid-19 communications and online harassment, Heidi has briefed or advised officials and policymakers from governments around the world on media, democracy, and the digital economy. Her writing has been published and featured in major magazines and newspapers, including The New York Times, Foreign Affairs, Washington Post, The Atlantic, Politico, The Globe & Mail, Süddeutsche Zeitung, The Financial Times, CNN, and many others.