Chair AND FOUNDER OF GLOBAL HEALTH SIM
Dr. Thomas Piggott
🐦 @twpiggott
📧 chair@ghsim.com
BSc (Guelph), MD (McMaster), MSc (LSHTM), CCFP, FRCPC
Thomas is a public health and family doctor. He works as Medical Officer of Health for Labrador-Grenfell Health and is completing his PhD in Health Research Methods at McMaster University. His research interests include global public health, disaster preparedness and response, climate change and health, and addressing health inequities of under-served populations through public health and primary care. He has worked at various levels of public health, and has worked clinically in Canada and internationally with a focus on under-served populations. He recently spent 6 months as a field doctor with Médecins Sans Frontières in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He has organized global health simulations for conferences and student groups for several years, and has a passion for creative, experiential forms of learning. In his spare time he enjoys rock and mountain climbing, swimming, running, reading, travelling, learning languages and philosophizing solutions to global issues. Most of all he enjoys meeting new people.
DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS
David OldenbUrger
📧 operations@ghsim.com
BScN, RN, MSc (McMaster)
David is a Registered Nurse with a Masters in Global Health. Recently he returned from consulting on adolescent health education programs in Nigeria and Senegal. Prior to working in Senegal he was a medic in the military, and first aid instructor for over 5 years. Currently he is working at McMaster University as a coordinator in the Global Health Office, while helping develop GH Sim's online simulation activities, and continuing to consult on health programming through data analysis and research.
DIRECTOR OF Strategic Planning and Partnerships
OLIVIA VARSANEUX
📧 planning@ghsim.com
BSc Virology and Demography (McGill), MSc (LSHTM)
Olivia is a research fellow in diagnostics at LSHTM. She is a former CID student at LSHTM who has a keen interest in humanitarian response. Olivia has worked with UNAIDS and the WHO in Geneva. During the Ebola outbreak she worked with the WHO as a field epidemiologist in West Africa. Olivia has a background in virology and demography from McGill University and has formerly worked in HIV research in both areas.
DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS
Julie Zhang
📧 communications@ghsim.com
🐦 @juliejzhang
MPH (University of British Columbia), BSc (University of Toronto)
Julie is a program evaluator with the Public Health Agency of Canada and currently works on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishnaabeg people. She is interested in addressing health inequities at home and abroad and has a Master of Public Health degree from UBC. Julie’s past public health experiences include working with a BC health authority to evaluate two Aboriginal health programs and conducting qualitative research on knowledge mobilization in public health. She has also served as editor for a forthcoming graduate-level science and risk communication textbook, supported non-profit digital communication campaigns and prepared briefings and memos as an intern with Doctors Without Borders Canada.
Director of Monitoring & Evaluations
Miranda Loutet
📧 evaluation@ghsim.com
Miranda is currently an epidemiologist in the Tuberculosis Surveillance Unit at Public Health England, leading on enhanced surveillance of mycobacterium drug resistance and molecular strain typing to control transmission of TB in the UK. Miranda completed her BSc in Anatomy and Cell Biology and a minor in International Development at McGill University, and continued her education with a MSc in Control of Infectious Diseases at The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She loves to travel and has worked in Costa Rica, Uganda and South Africa. Miranda’s research interests include controlling diseases that disproportionately affect vulnerable and marginalised populations in developed and developing countries.
Senior Global Health Advisors
JENNIFER HULME
BScH (Queen’s), MD, CM (McGill), MPH (John’s Hopkins School of Public Health)
Jennifer Hulme is an attending emergency physician at the University Health Network in Toronto. She specializes in heath policy and translational health systems research to strengthen public-sector health systems and improve health equity. Her research interests include the adoption and diffusion of innovations in health systems, including the scale up of evidence-based public health interventions in community settings, task sharing and human resource capacity, the impact of HIV/AIDS treatment and disease control programmes, and novel approaches to the organization of health services and public health service delivery. Jennifer has held various programmatic and research positions in Canada, Mexico, India, Bangladesh, and Timor-Leste. She worked with the Ministry of Health and non-governmental organizations in expanding family planning, maternal and child survival programs and emergency response in Timor-Leste between 2005 and 2008. She is particularly interested in affecting reproductive, maternal and child health outcomes, and is currently engaged in research exploring disparities in access to women’s health services among underserved populations in Canada, and the impact of maternal survival interventions in low-resource settings.
jANET HATCHER rOBERTS
Janet Hatcher Roberts has extensive experience in the areas of international public health policy, health systems strengthening capacity building and research. She spent 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 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 from 1997 to 2013.
Currently, Janet is the Co-Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre on Technology Assessment, Knowledge Translation and Health Equity with the Centre for Global Health at the University of Ottawa. She is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Medicine and Affiliate Scientist at the Institute for Population Health at the University of Ottawa where she co-coordinates a graduate course in global health and collaborates on global health research. Also, she is Adjunct Professor to the Department of Community Health and Epidemiology Dalhousie University where she assists in the development of global health courses.
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 is presently a Board member of the US-based Council of Graduate Foreign Nurses (CGFNS). In 2009, she was appointed by an Order in Council as Board member to Public Heath Ontario (PHO) where she also sits on the Strategic Planning Committee. She is currently on the Board of Make Poverty History.
DONALD SUTHERLAND
B.A. Psych/Zoology, MD, Master of Community Health (Liverpool), Masters of Epidemiology (London) Dr. Donald Sutherland is a global health consultant and Senior Policy Advisor for the Canadian Society for International Health with 50 years experience of clinical medicine and international public health experience in more that 100 countries. He has worked for numerous organizations, including extensive time with the World Health Organization. He has a passion for mentorship and working with the next generation of leaders in global health.