Research Advisory Committee Members
Dr. Kevin Vessey
Chair
Dr. Charmaine McPherson
Vice Chair
Dr. Ben Rusak
Committee Member
Dr. Gerald Johnston
Committee Member
Ms. Lindsay Peach
Committee Member
Dr. William Marshall
Committee Member
Ms. Lisa Underwood
Committee Member
Dr. Robert Bortolussi
Committee Member
Dr. Lachlan McWilliams
Committee Member
Mr. Brad Osmond
Committee Member
Dr. Mark Fleming
Committee Member
Dr. James Fawcett
Committee Member
Dr. Christa Brosseau
Committee Member
Dr. Anita Unruh
Committee Member
Ms. Tracey Williams
Committee Member
Kevin Vessey, who received his PhD from Queen’s University, is the Dean of the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research at Saint Mary’s University. His teaching and research area is plant physiology, and he has published multiple articles and been awarded several regional and national research awards.
Kevin has served or is currently serving on the grant selection committees of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council; advisory committees for the NSHRF-CIHR Regional Partnership Program, the Nova Scotia Research and Innovation Trust, Petroleum Research Atlantic Canada, and TRIUMF the Tri-University Meson Facility; and the Board of Directors for the Atlantic Environmental Sciences Network, Offshore Energy Technology Research Association, and Plant Inoculants Canada.
Dr. Charmaine McPherson
Vice Chair
Dr. Charmaine McPherson completed her PhD at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, and her Master’s of Science with a Clinical Nurse Specialty in Psychiatry at Boston College, Massachusetts.
She is a public health systems and health policy expert specializing in interorganizational and cross-sectoral network partnerships to advance population health.
Dr. McPherson brings a unique blend of 20 years of administrative and clinical practice in community mental health, NGO community-based residential care, and regional interorganizational child health networks to her applied health research program. She has contributed to many rural social justice and health efforts through organizations such as Family Services of Eastern Nova Scotia and the United Nations Association-Canada. Dr. McPherson has conducted more than 100 invited and peer-reviewed presentations at local, national and international levels. She also advances innovative organizational planning and development through her private practice, ENS Consulting.
Dr. McPherson is currently a professor and CHSRF/CIHR Post-doctoral Fellow at St. Francis Xavier University in partnership with Calgary Health Region, Dalhousie University, and Guysborough Antigonish Strait Health Authority GASHA. The focus of the fellowship is on the roles of context and interprofessional relationships in primary health care models.
Dr. Benjamin Rusak
Committee Member
Benjamin Rusak, who received his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, is an expert in biological rhythms and sleep. He has been at Dalhousie University since 1975, and is currently a University Research Professor in Psychiatry, Psychology and Pharmacology. Ben also serves as the Research Director in the Department of Psychiatry and directs Capital Health’s Chronobiology and Sleep Program.
Ben has published more than 100 refereed journal articles, 22 book chapters, 103 abstracts, and given more than 115 presentations. He founded the Journal of Biological Rhythms and has served on multiple editorial and grant-review panels. He has also served on the Executive of several scientific societies and on a number of advisory boards, including those of the Institute of Circulatory and Respiratory Health and the Canadian Space Agency. In recognition of his work, Ben was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1999.
Dr. Gerald Johnston
Committee Member
Gerald Johnston is Associate Dean of Medical Research in Dalhousie University’s Faculty of Medicine. He runs the Cell Proliferation Laboratory, in collaboration with Richard Singer.
After receiving his PhD at York University, Gerry obtained his early training in yeast genetics with Leland H. Hartwell in the Department of Genetics at the University of Washington. In 1975, he was recruited to Dalhousie; in the intervening years, his genetics program, a collaborative effort with Richard Singer, has been funded continuously by the CIHR as well as NCIC. He has received many awards for his research, most notably the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal and the Dalhousie Medical Research Foundation’s Max Forman Research Prize. He has also been named as a Terry Fox Cancer Research Scientist and NCIC Senior Research Scientist.
Ms. Lindsay Peach
Committee Member
Lindsay Peach received her Masters of Health Services Administration in 2001 from Dalhousie University. Since then she has worked for the Cape Breton District Health Authority in several capacities. Most recently, she is the Vice President of Population Health and Continuing Care. Prior to this position she worked as the Acting Vice President of Population Health and Research and the Director of Rural Health. She has worked with the Scientific Review Committee for conferences held by the Canadian Association for Health Services and Policy Research.
Lindsay is the Recipient of the Nova Scotia Association of Health Organizations’ Award for Academic Excellence and is a Certified Health Executive. Lindsay was also a member of the inaugural graduation class of the Executive Training for Research Application Fellowship EXTRA through CHSRF. She has both published and presented on the topic of primary health care and population health.
Dr. William Marshall
Committee Member
William S. Marshall, b. Victoria BC 1951, obtained BSc Honours in Biology from Acadia University 1973, a Ph.D. in Zoology from U.B.C. 1977 and took an NSERC and Killam postdoctoral fellowship to University of California Berkeley for two years of postdoctoral research in the Department of Zoology and Cancer Research Laboratory. After three years at the Ophthalmology department researching corneal physiology at Louisiana Steate University Medical Center, he became NSERC University Research Fellow at St Francis Xavier University in 1982, becoming Full professor in 1994, Chair of Department in 1999, Dean of Science in 2005 and was awarded the University Research Award in 2006.
Along the way he has served on numerous NSERC committees, as Chair of CCAC site visits and as President of the Canadian Society of Zoologists.
He currently researches cellular level regulatory mechanisms of ion transport in epithelia using a teleost fish model, has more than 65 publications and trained more than forty undergraduate honours and masters research students.
Ms. Lisa Underwood
Committee Member
As the Director of Research Services at Capital Health, Lisa is accountable for the organization, administration, management and promotion of research at Capital Health. She and her team provide support services to 240 researchers and 260 research personnel, to ensure that the financial, legal, ethical, regulatory and infrastructural requirements are met, for all research conducted at Capital Health.
She is committed to creating an environment where research in all health care disciplines can flourish and where researches can fulfill their potential, both as individual investigators and as interdisciplinary team members.
Prior to joining the health centre in 1992, Lisa worked as a high school English teacher, a lawyer and as research contracts coordinator for Dalhousie University.
Dr. Robert Bortolussi
Committee Member
Robert Bortolussi MD, FRCPC, is Professor of Pediatrics and Microbiology and Immunology at Dalhousie University. Bob is a Paediatric Infectious Diseases specialist and consultant at the IWK Health Centre in Halifax where he also directs the AIDS treatment program for children across the Maritimes. Bob joined Dalhousie University in 1978 after clinical and research training in Montreal, Toronto and Minnesota. He received research grants from the Medical Research Council of Canada, and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research CIHR continuously from 1979 until 2001 and was awarded the Sanofi Pasteur Research Award of the Canadian Paediatric Society in 2005 for his research on the development of innate immunity in the newborn. Bob has published over 100 original articles and book chapters on infection and newborn host defence. Bob was Chief of Research and Vice President of Research at the IWK Health Centre from 1992 until 2007 where he helped to develop this Centre’s research program to national prominence leading to construction of the $20 million “Goldbloom Research Pavilion” which doubled the research space at the IWK.
Bob’s main academic interest now focuses on nurturing clinician scientists to a successful career. To aid in this process, Bob developed the interdisciplinary problem based curriculum for the CIHR training program, the Canadian Child Health Clinician Scientists Program CCHCSP. The curriculum is now used in 17 Universities across Canada and by clinician scientist groups in Europe, Africa and China. In 2008, he edited a book, “The Handbook for Clinician Scientists” as a reference source for clinician scientists and supplement to the CCHCSP curriculum. Bob also directs Dalhousie’s Clinical Investigator program CIP for the Faculty of Medicine.
Dr. Lachlan McWilliams
Committee Member
Lachlan McWilliams received his Ph.D. from the University of Manitoba in 2005. He is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Acadia University and is a registered clinical psychologist. His research focuses on individual difference variables and interpersonal processes involved in chronic pain, and is supported by operating grants from SSHRC and CIHR.
Mr. Brad Osmond
Committee Member
Brad obtained a Business Degree from Acadia University and then graduated from Dalhousie University with a Masters in Applied Health Services Research which was a program sponsored by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research. As an intern in the Master’s program, Brad worked for the Atlantic Health Promotion Research Centre and Rural Communities Impacting Policy Project to conduct research for local communities. He was then employed by Annapolis Valley District Health Authority (AVH) as a Community Health Board Coordinator and later moved into his current position as the Community Health Planner. Within this position, Brad is charged with supporting the organization around population health planning and decision making. Brad also helps to foster research capacity within the district and with partners in the community. Brad has facilitated the community health planning process for the Community Health Boards within AVH and has created a valid local approach to community consultation to shape recommendations for the district that were based on the Ottawa Charter priority action areas. Brad is a member of the Research Ethics Board at AVH where he provides a social science perspective to the committee and is a board member for the Health Promotion Clearinghouse.
Dr. James Fawcett
Committee Member
James Fawcett is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and the Department of Surgery at Dalhousie University. He is a Tier II Canadian Research Chair in the Molecular Biology of Brain Repair. The focus of his laboratory is to explore the fundamental processes that underlie the formation of individual neurons and synapses, and of the complex spinal circuits that control walking.
Dr. Fawcett, originally from Dundas, Ontario, completed a B.Sc. in biology from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. He then went on to complete his M.Sc. in Biomedical Sciences at McMaster. He then turned his attention to global health issues, spending time exploring the education system in Botswana while obtaining an MSc(T) in education through McMaster’s Faculty of Health Sciences. From there, he went to the Montreal Neurological Institute at McGill University to pursue a PhD. Funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research launched Dr. Fawcett’s postdoctoral studies at the University of Toronto’s Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute, where he trained with Dr. Tony Pawson. In 2006, he was awarded a Tier II Canada Research Chair in the Molecular Neurobiology of Brain Repair at Dalhousie University, and made the move to Halifax. Dr. Fawcett has received other awards including the Barbara Turnbull Award for Spinal Cord Research, a CHIR Maud Menten New Principal Investigator prize, a Dalhousie Medical Research Foundation (DMRF) New Investigator Award and is the recipient of an EJLB Foundation Research Scholar award.
Dr. Christina Brosseau
Committee Member
Dr. Brosseau received her Ph.D. from the University of Guelph in 2007, and is currently an assistant professor of chemistry at Saint Mary’s University. Her expertise is in the area of electrochemistry and surface vibrational spectroscopy. Specifically, Dr. Brosseau's research is aimed towards understanding the nature of interactions between aggregated protein and cellular membranes as it relates to protein aggregation disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease. She and her team are also working on developing a portable hand-held biosensor for the rapid detection of disease pathogens at the point-of-care as part of a Grand Challenges Canada initiative. Their research program is supported by NSERC, CFI, NSRIT, GCC and SMU-FGSR.
Dr. Anita Unruh
Committee Member
Dr. Anita Unruh received an Interdisciplinary Ph. D. (Health Studies Research Methods) at Dalhousie University, as well as a Master in Social Work at Carleton University in Ottawa and a Bachelor of Science (Occupational Therapy) from the University of Western Ontario. A faculty member at Dalhousie University since 1989, she has been an Acting Director in the Schools of Occupational Therapy, Health and Human Performance, and Health Administration in the Faculty of Health Professions at Dalhousie University. Anita is currently the Acting Associate Dean (Research and Academic) in Health Professions. Anita's research interests have included: gender, appraisal, and coping with pain; and, leisure and spirituality in coping with serious life crises. She is currently working on developing an assessment and intervention program for parent and adolescent communication. her work has been supported by SSHRC and CIHR.