Staff

Tina Afshar

Research Assistant

Email: tina.afshar@alumni.ubc.ca

Tina assists with our return to work in the construction sector project, which aims to enhance understanding of the barriers and facilitators to early and safe return to work in Ontario’s construction sector. She is pursuing an MSc in Population and Public Health at the UBC School of Population and Public Health and holds a BSc in Chemistry, Life Science & Physics, also from UBC. Her MSc research is exploring the relationship between the external (air) and internal (airway) microbiomes in participants with COPD and healthy controls.

Bahar Ahmadi

Research Assistant

Email: bahmad01@mail.ubc.ca

Bahar is working on our immigrant workers and work disability experience study as a qualitative coder. She is a Bachelor of Science in Nursing Candidate and hopes to become an emergency nurse while continuing her journey in research. She has background in clinical research, qualitative, and quantitative nursing studies. At PWHS, she will be exploring the experience of injured immigrant workers in BC. Through hearing their stories and perspectives, she hopes to discover the unique challenges that immigrant workers experience in getting support and information they require to have a positive recovery and RTW journey.

Billie Franck

Research Coordinator

Email: billie.franck@ubc.ca

Billie is working on the Food and Beverage Sector Worker (FABS) Study, looking at the effect of COVID-19 policies on violence, bullying and harassment in the food and beverage service sector in BC. She is currently pursuing a Master of Interdisciplinary Studies at UBC, where she previously earned a Bachelor of Arts with a major in Sociology. Her research focuses on female soldiers’ experiences within the Canadian Armed Forces. She looks at nuances of everyday interactions to make visible harmful gendered processes that can be addressed to support cultural change.

William Hall

Health Economist

Email: william.hall@ubc.ca

Dr William Hall is a health economist who recently completed his PhD at the UBC School of Population and Public Health. William will be assisting with the economic evaluation of the Health and Safety Excellence Program. Through his work, William hopes to support decision makers in their investment decisions to provide the safest possible environment for workers.

Andrea Jones

Technical Writer/Analyst

Email: andrea.jones@ubc.ca

Andrea is working on projects evaluating occupational health and safety program effectiveness. She completed her PhD at UBC in the School of Population and Public Health. Her dissertation investigated the impacts of common mental disorders on work disability outcomes after work-related musculoskeletal injury, with a specific focus on sex and gender. She also holds a BSc and MSc in Kinesiology from McMaster University. Her research interests include workforce mental health, work disability policy, co- and multi-morbidity, and the social determinants of health in a work and occupation context.

Pranali Kurve

Research Assistant

Email: pranali.kurve@ubc.ca

Pranali provides research administration assistance for multiple projects. Pranali holds a Bachelor of Commerce and is currently in the last semester of her two-year Diploma in Finance. Prior to joining PWHS, she worked at UBC with the School of Population and Public Health and has also worked with one of the Big 4 accounting firms internationally.

Robert Macpherson

Research Associate

Email: robert.macpherson@ubc.ca

Dr Robert Macpherson leads comparative projects concerning work-related injuries and return-to-work across Canadian provinces using workers’ compensation data. Robert holds an MA (hons) and MSc from the University of Dundee, and a PhD from the University of St Andrews, all in human geography. Prior to joining the Partnership, he completed his doctoral research on the labour market integration and internal migration of immigrant populations in Sweden. He has also conducted research projects on topics ranging from geographical access to higher education in rural communities, residential segregation and mobility, and international student mobility. Robert’s key strengths and interests are in applying quantitative research methods to large administrative registry data.

Suhail Marino

Director, Privacy and Operations

Tel: 604-822-0200
Email: suhail.marino@ubc.ca

Suhail has many years of experience in public health research, program development and management. She is a Canadian-certified privacy officer with a very strong background in data access, privacy and security in population health research. In addition to Bachelor degrees in arts and science, she holds internationally recognized certification on Information Privacy Management and Research Law. She has initiated, coordinated, and facilitated evaluation studies, epidemiological studies and public health forums. Suhail has also worked at UBC with Population Data BC, the Department of Health, Safety and Environment, the Department of Health Care and Epidemiology, Pacific Parkinson’s Research Centre, the Faculty of Medicine’s Evaluation Studies Unit and for the CIHR/MSFHR Strategic Training Program to Bridge Public Health, Engineering and Policy Research “Bridge Program.”

Dawn Mooney

Communications Specialist

Email: dawn.mooney@ubc.ca

Dawn is the Partnership expert in data visualization and information communication. She holds a Master of Public Health from the UBC School of Population and Public Health and a BA in Geography. She uses mapping to explore geographic variation in work-related health risks and outcomes and also teaches cartography classes in the UBC Department of Geography. Dawn is interested in methods of effective graphical communication of health data and statistics, and in using mapping to explore, communicate and address geographic disparities in health and health care.

Hannah Peck

Research Coordinator/Analyst

Email: hannah.peck@ubc.ca

Hannah is primarily working on a multi-year mixed-methods evaluation of the Health and Safety Excellence Program run by the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board of Ontario. As a key member of the project team, Hannah conducts recruitment, data collection, and analysis of primary and secondary data. Hannah is introducing new methods to the Partnership, including document analysis and the triangulation of various data sources. She supports numerous knowledge translation activities, authoring reports on evaluation findings and preparing presentations for stakeholders and funders. Hannah has also worked on other evaluation projects, including assessing the effect of the Certificate of Recognition (COR) on injury rates in Saskatchewan. Hannah holds a Masters of Public Health from the University of Melbourne and a BSc in Psychology from McGill University.

Anjini Sam Chee

Research Assistant

Email: asamchee@student.ubc.ca

Anjini is working on the Food and Beverage Sector Worker Study (FABS), which explores the impacts of COVID-19 policies on violence, bullying, and harassment within BC’s food and beverage sector. She is currently pursuing a Master of Public Health in the biostatistics and epidemiology pathway at UBC and holds a Bachelor of Science in biology (physiology research specialization) and a minor in sociology from McMaster University. She is passionate about using health data, analytics, and statistics to address inequities in health outcomes and health care.

Kimberly Sharpe

Research Assistant

Email: kimberly.sharpe@ubc.ca

Kimberly is leading the collection of information that will enhance understanding of the barriers and facilitators to early and safe return to work for a Partnership project on Ontario’s construction sector. She is also pursuing her PhD in the UBC School of Population and Public Health. Prior to joining the Partnership, Kimberly worked in injury research and neuroethics. She holds a BA in Anthropology and History and MA in Social Dimensions of Health from the University of Victoria.

Simone St Louis

Research Assistant

Email: simone.stlouisanderson@ubc.ca

Simone assists with our systematic review of occupational asbestos exposure and the risk of lung cancer. She holds a BSc in Biochemistry from the University of Victoria. Prior to joining PWHS, Simone assisted with a review of occupational asbestos exposure and the risk of COPD, and also worked in quality improvement research within the healthcare sector.

Muhammad Ismail Shawish

Project Manager

Email: ismail.shawish@ubc.ca

Ismail is conducting a systematic review and meta-analysis on occupational asbestos exposure and lung cancer. Prior to joining our research group, he worked with Cochrane Canada and the Therapeutics Initiative on various projects, including the COVID-19 guideline RecMap and systematic reviews on the effectiveness and safety of prescribed medications. Ismail holds a master’s degree in pharmacology and therapeutics from the UBC and a Bachelor of Pharmacy from Damascus University. His experience, education, and clinical knowledge provide him with unique insights into systematic reviews and evidence evaluation.

Stephanie Skourtes

Qualitative Research Lead

Email: stephanie.skourtes@ubc.ca

Stephanie is working on the Food and Beverage Sector Worker (FABS) Study, looking at the effect of COVID-19 policies on violence, bullying and harassment in the food and beverage service sector in BC. She completed her PhD in Educational Studies at UBC. Her expertise is in qualitative, community-based and visual research methods with marginalized populations. Her research centers around gender and structured inequality, and health and wellness related to marginalized women, girls, and gender minority communities living in urban spaces. She has conducted feminist, ethnographic, and participatory research with working-class girls living on the fringe; urban Indigenous women and youth; low-income lone mothers; 2SLGBTQ+ youth; and gender minority, street entrenched populations. As a documentarian, she has a particular interest in developing knowledge translation and exchange initiatives that are accessible and usable to a wide range of users and stakeholders.

Lillian Tamburic

Senior Programmer/Analyst

Email: lillian.tamburic@ubc.ca

Lillian provides programming and data analysis for various Partnership projects, including our work on gender, work, and health. She holds a BSc (Hons) in biochemistry from UBC and previously worked in virology research. Lillian also completed a second BSc degree in computer science, combined with statistics.

a place of mind, The University of British Columbia

School of Population and Public Health
2206 East Mall,
Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z3, Canada
Tel: 604-822-2772
Partnership for Work, Health and Safety
2206 East Mall,
Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z3, Canada
Tel: 604-822-8544

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