STEMcast

Having spent a lifetime dedicated to improving the health of those most in need, and having been chosen as one of TIME's 100 Most Influential People in 2015, few have shaped the public health landscape as profoundly as Dr. Joanne Liu.

Dr. Liu is the former International President of Doctors without Borders, otherwise known as Médecins sans Frontières (MSF). She led the MSF from 2013-2019 and coordinated the organization's response to some of the world's major crises; from the Syrian civil war to the Ebola pandemic. She currently leads the Pandemic and Health Emergency Readiness Lab, and is a member of the United Nations' panel on evaluating the humanitarian response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

She talks to us about coordinating MSF's front-line response to the Ebola pandemic, as well as her time on the ground in Syria during the nation's devastating civil war. We further discuss her role in responding to the current COVID-19 pandemic and her thoughts on the future of pandemic readiness.

Kathryn completed her PhD at McMaster University in the Molecular Immunology, Virology and Inflammation program. Her thesis focused on determining the mechanism behind the beneficial role of TGF-beta on enhancing intestinal epithelial barrier function and protection from EHEC O157:H7 infection. Kathryn went to medical school at the University of Toronto and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Sick Kids, publishing in several fields during this time, including infection and immunity in HIV, ethics and sustainability in global surgery, and ischemia-reperfusion. She has been awarded competitive Canadian Institutes of Health Research Fellowships and National scholarships throughout her research career. As part of her Vascular Surgery residency (McMaster), Kathryn completed a 3-month clinical and research fellowship at Stanford University and established her own bench research program investigating the role of endothelial microRNA in vascular disease. Kathryn was awarded FRCSC status in 2018 and will provide the full breadth of vascular surgery including endovascular and open aneurysm repair, carotid revascularization, critical limb ischemia, thoracic outlet syndrome, dialysis access, and venous disorders. Her clinical initiative is carotid revascularization and stroke prevention with multi-disciplinary team engagement to triage at-risk patients for early intervention, work that dovetails with Kathryn’s bench research program (see below).

After graduating from The Hebrew University with an MD, she attended the university of toronto starting July of 2005. Since then she has been a Neuroradiologist at the Toronto Western Hospital. Her research interests include: Cerebrovascular imaging, subarachnoid hemorrhage, neurovascular computed tomography (CT) angiography, neurovascular magnetic resonance (MR) angiography and MR venography

From Bellemare himself, "I lead the reinforcement learning efforts of the Google Research team in Montréal, Canada. I also supervise a number of graduate students at Mila, of which I am a core industry member.

My research focuses on two complementary problems in reinforcement learning. First comes the problem of representation: How should a learning system structure and update its knowledge about the environment it operates in? The second problem is concerned with exploration: How should the same learning system organize its decisions to be maximally effective at discovering its environment, and in particular acquiring information to build better representations?"

Dr. Amanda Black is a Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at The University of Ottawa. She completed her training at the University of Western Ontario, The University of Ottawa and Queen’s University, and a Masters of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. She holds appointment at The Ottawa Hospital and The Children’s hospital of Eastern Ontario and is an Associate Scientist at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute. Her subspecialty areas of interest are Contraception / Family Planning and Adolescent Health. She is an active member of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada (SOGC) and sits on the Board of Directors. She has authored several national guidelines, has developed many educational programs, has presented nationally and internationally, and authored numerous publications in her field.

Dr. Black holds the Dr. Elaine Jolly Chair in Women’s Health Research at The University of Ottawa. She has participated in a number on international clinical trials, database studies, and investigator-led clinical studies. Her research focuses on new contraceptive methods, contraceptive use and trends in Canada, access to family planning services, and adolescent sexual health.

Robert Chen, MD, est anesthésiologiste à l'Institut de cardiologie de l'Université d'Ottawa. Le Dr Chen a obtenu son diplôme en médecine de l’Université McMaster en 1992. Il a terminé sa résidence en anesthésiologie à l’Université de Toronto et des bourses en anesthésiologie traumatologique au Ryder Trauma Centre (Université de Miami) et à l’hôpital St. Michael’s (Université de Toronto). Il a également reçu une formation complémentaire en échocardiographie transoesophagienne.

STEMcast est un podcast à but non lucratif qui sert à mettre en évidence les liens entre les sous-domaines très variés de STEM. Nous interviewons des conférenciers invités provenant d'un large éventail de domaines pour répondre aux questions les plus fréquemment posées par les étudiants de premier cycle au sujet de leur carrière respective.

Dr. Aaron is a respirologist with special research and clinical interests in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthma and cystic fibrosis (CF). Dr. Aaron's research has been focused on investigating acute pulmonary exacerbations of these diseases, with a specific interest in the critical assessment of interventions designed to prevent exacerbations and improve the diagnosis and treatment of exacerbations of COPD and CF. His other major interest is health services research related to the correct diagnosis and treatment of obstructive lung diseases in Canadian communities.

Dr. Carolyn Nessim is a Surgical Oncologist at the Ottawa Hospital and Assistant Professor of Surgery at the University of Ottawa. She completed her MD, MSc (Biomedical Sciences) and General Surgery Residency at the University of Montreal. Her fellowship training was in Surgical Oncology at the University of Toronto and then at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Center in Melbourne Australia.She is currently also a Clinician Investigator in the Cancer Therapeutics Program at The Ottawa Hospital Research Institute (OHRI) as well as the Program Director for the Complex Surgical Oncology Subspecialty Fellowship training program. Her clinical practice focuses on the treatment of patients with Soft Tissue Sarcoma/GIST, Melanoma/Skin Cancers, Gastric cancer and Neuroendocrine Tumours. She is the Regional Co-Lead for Melanoma and Skin Cancers and Gastric Cancer in the Champlain LHIN. She has been invited as a speaker and moderator at several national and international conferences on the topics of Sarcoma and Melanoma. She is a member of Cancer Care Ontario's Skin Cancer Advisory Board as well as the American Society of Clinical Oncology's Technical Expert Group for Melanoma.

Dr. Hakim's research interests have included the study of the biochemical, ionic, molecular and receptor events that determine selective cerebral vulnerability in stroke and other conditions, the determination of conditions for neuroprotection against ischemic damage, and investigation of post-stroke plasticity and means of enhancing it. During the course of his career, he has published more than 150 scientific papers and received in excess of $65 million in research funding.