Members of the Research Ethics Board of Health Canada

Full time members:

Chair

Janet Storch, RN, BScN, MHSA, PhD, DSc (Hon), CHE
Dr. Storch has been involved in bioethics, health ethics, administrative, organizational and research ethics since the mid-seventies. She served as President of the Canadian Bioethics Society in 1991-1992 and as member and President of the National Council on Ethics in Human Research from 1994 to 2002. She is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Victoria where she served as Director of the School of Nursing and where she continues an active research program in nursing and health care ethics. She was Chair of the University of Victoria Human Research Ethics Committee from 2002-2005 as well as member of the Vancouver Island Health Authority REB during those same years. Prior to her appointment at the University of Victoria in 1996 she was Dean of Nursing at the University of Calgary and prior to 1990, was Professor and Director of the Masters in Health Administration Program at the University of Alberta. Her academic training includes a BScN, an MHSA and a PhD in Sociology, as well as a certificate from her studies at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics in Washington DC. Jan continues active service on several local clinical ethics committees, serves on the BC Ministry of Health committee to develop clinical ethics resources, and serves on other provincial and national Committees including two committees of Health Canada. She was scholar in residence at the Canadian Nurses Association in 2001-2002 and continues to work with CNA in review and revision of their Code of ethics for registered nurses, as well as in developing research ethics guidelines for registered nurses.

Law

Robert P. Kouri, B.A., LL.L., M.C.L., D.C.L.
Dr. Kouri is professor of law at the Faculté de droit at the Université de Sherbrooke. He teaches and pursues research in Health Law and Civil Law. He has published "La responsabilité civile médicale" [Medical civil liability] (in collaboration with Alain Bernardot), "L'intégrité de la personne et le consentement aux soins" 2^nd edition [Inviolability of the person and consent to care] (in collaboration with Suzanne Philips-Nootens), "Éléments de responsabilité civile médicale", 3^rd edition [Elements of medical civil liability](in collaboration with Suzanne Philips-Nootens and Pauline Lesage-Jarjoura), "Le mandat donné en prevision de l'inaptitude" [Mandate given in anticipation of incapacity](in collaboration with Lucie Laflamme and Suzanne Philips-Nootens), as well as several articles. Professor Kouri was president of the Editorial Committee for the first and second editions of the Private Law Dictionary and Bilingual Lexicons at the Quebec Research Centre of Private and Comparative Law. He was a visiting lecturer at the Faculty of Law of McGill University. Dr. Kouri acted as consultant to the Office de révision du Code civil as well as to Justice Canada, the Québec Ministère de la Justice, the Law Reform Commission of Canada and the Medical Research Council of Canada. He is chair of the Groupe de recherche en politiques de la santé de l'Université de Sherbrooke and is a member of the Board of Professional Advisors of the American Journal of Contemporary Health Law and Policy. He also served as director of the graduate programmes in Health Law and Policy as well as Associate Dean (Research) at the Université de Sherbrooke.

Researcher External to Health Canada

Barbara McGillivray, MD, FRCPC, FCCMG
Dr. McGillivray is a professor and clinical geneticist in the Department of Medical Genetics at the University of British Columbia. Dr. McGillivray's research interests include inherited cancers (breast, ovarian and colon cancer), clinical genetics, and prenatal diagnosis. She has been involved for many years in the field of ethics of research involving humans. She was a member of the Tri-Council Working Group for the Code of Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans, a member of the Standing Committee on Ethics of Medical Research Council and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). She is also an experienced REB Chair, and has been on both biomedical and social science REBs. Dr. McGillivray was a council member of National Council on Ethics in Human Research for several years, and continues as a member of the Evaluation Committee. She has participated in many site visits to evaluate research ethics boards and most recently, in a series of visits to evaluate the CIHR Guidelines for Health Research involving Aboriginal Peoples.

Health Canada Researcher

Agnes Klein, MD, DPH
Dr. Klein is the Director, Centre for the Evaluation of Radiopharmaceuticals and Biotherapeutic Products in Health Canada's Biologics and Genetic Therapies Directorate (BGTD). Dr. Klein received her medical degree from the University of Toronto, and trained in Endocrinology, Medical Biochemistry and Public and Community Health. She joined Health Canada and the Drugs Directorate in late 1974 and has occupied many and varied scientific and management positions within the department and its regulatory arms, including having acted as the Director of the Bureau of Human Prescription Drugs and as Director for the Biologics and Genetic Therapies Evaluation Centre. From 2001 to 2004, she was the Manager (Clinical Evaluation Division) of a newly created division responsible for Clinical Trial Application as well as the pre-market review and decisions regarding post-market events relating to biological/biotechnology agents. Since September 2004, Dr. Klein has served as Senior Medical Advisor and Acting Director for a newly created evaluation centre within BGTD. She is an active member of several medical and scientific organizations nationally and internationally.

Public Health Agency of Canada Researcher

Katherine Dinner, B.Sc, M.Sc
Ms. Dinner is the Health and Social Services Advisor in the Community Acquired Infections Division at the Public Health Agency of Canada. She has over 20 years of primary and public health experience in research, clinical practice, community and street outreach, and in the development, coordination and evaluation of health programs, in a variety of urban, rural and remote settings in Canada. She has worked with First Nations and Inuit Health both as a community health nurse and as a communicable disease epidemiologist. Her commitment and hands-on work with First Nations Communities in Manitoba were recognized when she was the 2002 recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal. Her formal academic background includes a B.Sc.(Life Sciences) from Queen's University and an M.Sc. (Nursing) from McGill University.

Public Health Community Representative

Don Sutherland, MD, M.Comm H. MSc
Dr. Sutherland studied medicine at the University of British Columbia and practiced clinical medicine in Canada for several years before becoming a district medical officer in rural Malawi. He subsequently completed postgraduate studies in community medicine at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and in epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. After practicing community medicine in Canada, Dr. Sutherland served as senior technical advisor on refugee health for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Somalia and as senior technical advisor to the International Red Cross Child Health Program, which was implementing projects in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. In 1988, he joined the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Program on AIDS as a team leader/epidemiologist in Uganda. Some 4 years later in 1992, he joined Health Canada's Bureau of Communicable Disease Epidemiology as head of the HIV/AIDS Division. In 1995, Dr. Sutherland became Director of the Bureau of HIV/AIDS, STD and TB for Health Canada. In that role, he was responsible for planning, directing and managing epidemiology, laboratory research, and surveillance programs as part of the National AIDS, STD and TB Strategies throughout Canada and the world. Dr Sutherland then became Senior Advisor on Scientific Affairs in the Center for Infectious Disease Prevention and Control. In 2003 Dr. Sutherland was seconded to WHO to coordinate the HIV Department's Strategic Information including HIV/AIDS Surveillance, Monitoring and Evaluation, Operational Research and the WHO HIV Drug Resistance Global Strategy. In 2007 Dr. Sutherland returned to Canada to become Executive Director of International Public Health of the Public Health Agency of Canada based in Ottawa. In December 2009, Dr. Sutherland retired from the Federal Government. He continues to volunteer as a member of the Health Canada Research Ethics Board.

Ethicist

Glenn G. Griener, Ph.D.
Dr. Griener is an Associate Professor at the University of Alberta and a philosopher specializing in health ethics and research ethics, with a joint appointment to the School of Public Health and the Department of Philosophy. He is also a member of the John Dossetor Health Ethics Centre. He has had regular responsibility for teaching ethics to students in nursing and pharmacy. He also teaches in the occupational medicine, surgery and psychiatry residency programs. Dr. Griener also offers an interdisciplinary graduate seminar in research ethics, open to students from across campus.

Community Member - General population

Jean R. House, B.A., B.Ed., LL.B.
Ms. House is presently retired. She was a lawyer (non-practising status), employed at the Newfoundland and Labrador Health Boards Association. Previously, she served as a legal representative on the Human Investigation Committee (Memorial University of Newfoundland Research Ethics Board) for a seven-year term. She serves on committees at Memorial University dealing with the development of policies and guidelines in research ethics and privacy, and sits on the Human Investigation Committee Appeal Board. Ms. House also worked on legal policy with the Newfoundland and Labrador Department of Health and Community Services, drafting provincial standards for genetics research and consulting on legislation, most relevantly on legislation to establish a single province-wide health research ethics authority and health research ethics board (HREB). As part of the Transition Team composed of representatives of public and private research stakeholders, she is working on the implementation of the legislation and a smooth transition to the HREB. She has been a member of the Board of the Newfoundland and Labrador Centre for Applied Health Research and serves on the Advisory Committee for the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Regional Partnership Program (Newfoundland and Labrador). She is currently a clinical assistant professor at the Memorial University Medical School. Her particular interest is in health legislation, privacy and confidentiality, and ethics.

Community Representative - Aboriginal Population

Maxine Cole, B.A., M.S.
Ms. Cole received a B.A. at the State University of New York at Potsdam College, majoring in biology and a M.S. in Epidemiology at the University of Ottawa. Ms. Cole is currently at the Akwesasne Freedom School (Mohawk immersion program) as a teacher for Mohawk language and English-based subjects. Ms. Cole's past and current experience includes clinical and research and educational outreach in health and environment issues. For the past nine years, she has been a member of the Akwesasne Task Force on the Environment (ATFE) and the co-chair for the Research Advisory Committee (RAC) for the ATFE. The ATFE is a community-based non-profit organization that was developed in the early 1980's to oversee all research within the Mohawk Nation at Akwesasne. The RAC/ATFE established research ethic guidelines that are strongly recommended for all proposed research within the Mohawk Nation. The RAC reviews all research proposals, and recommends amendments and monitors the research work.

Alternate Members

Law

Julie Samuël, LL.B., LL.M.
Me Samuël holds a Bachelor of Law degree from Laval University and has been a member of the Quebec Bar since 2001. She also has a master's degree in law and biotechnology for the University of Montreal. Her thesis analyzes the obligations and the liability of doctors in sport doping. She also did an internship at the International Olympic Committee, in Lausanne. She was a research lawyer at the Quebec Court of Appeal under justices Jacques Delisle and René Dussault. Since 2005, she has worked as a project manager at the Centre de recherche en droit public, University of Montreal. Her research focuses primarily on studies involving children, gene therapy, genetic testing and biobanks. She works on Canada-wide projects involving organizations such as the Stem Cell Network, the National Council on Ethics in Human Research (NCEHR) and the Réseau de médecine génétique appliquée du Québec (RMGA).

Researcher Outside Health Canada

Kathleen Oberle, RN, BscN, MN, PhD
Dr. Oberle is a Professor with the Faculty of Nursing and Adjunct Associate Professor with the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Calgary. Her scholarly interest focuses on clinical and research ethics. Dr. Oberle has been a past member of the CIHR Standing Committee on Ethics, a member of CIHR's review panel for Ethics, Law and the Humanities, and a member of a working subcommittee mandated to revise the Tri-Council Policy statement to make it more user-friendly for qualitative researchers. She was member of the executive of the Canadian Bioethics Society for a number of years.

Dr. Oberle's research interests and methods are varied. Qualitative studies have explored doctors' and nurses' perceptions of ethical problems, the effects of cost constraints on ethical decision making in intensive care, and a recent study on the experiences of nurses caring for patients enrolled in clinical trials. In addition she has conducted psychometric studies to develop instruments to measure nurses' moral reasoning, parents' attitudes toward research with newborns, nurses' attitudes toward obesity, and health needs of pregnant women. She and several colleagues recently completed a randomized clinical trial to explore the effectiveness of elk velvet antler in managing symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis. Dr. Oberle has been a member of a variety of Research Ethics Boards for about 18 years, and for several years taught a graduate course in research ethics. A recently completed textbook titled Ethics in Canadian Nursing Practice: Navigating the Journey (co-authored by Shelley Raffin Bouchal) has just been released by Pearson Education.

Health Canada Researcher

Tye Arbuckle, Ph.D.
Dr. Arbuckle has a Ph.D. in Epidemiology and her areas of expertise are in environmental and reproductive epidemiology and exposure assessment to environmental chemicals. Dr. Arbuckle's current science and research interests are in pesticides, disinfection by-products in municipal water supplies, influences of environmental chemicals on pregnancy, child health and development and male reproductive health. She has academic appointments with the University of Ottawa, Department of Epidemiology and Community Medicine, Institute of Population Health and Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology; and with Queen's University, Department of Community Health and Epidemiology.

Public Health Agency of Canada Researcher

Howard Morrison, Ph.D.
Dr. Morrison is a Senior Science Advisor in the Centre for Chronic Disease Prevention and Control in the Public Health Agency of Canada, as well as a Principal Scientific Editor for the Chronic Diseases in Canada Publication. He obtained a Ph.D. in Epidemiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1991; a M.Sc. in Epidemiology at the University of Western Ontario, 1986; and a B.Sc. in Biology; Carleton University, 1981. In 1995, Dr. Morrison held a position of Chief in the Behavioural Risk Assessment Division, Cancer Bureau within Health Canada. Dr. Morrison is the author of several publications published since 2006 on various health related matters.

Public Health Community Representative

Brenda Wilson, MB ChB, MSc, MRCP (UK), FFPH
Dr Wilson is an associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Community Medicine at the University of Ottawa. She received her undergraduate medical training at the Universities of St Andrews and Edinburgh in the UK. After clinical training in Edinburgh and Newcastle Upon Tyne, she undertook specialist training in community medicine and received her MSc from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in 1990. Between 1991 and 2001 she held Clinical Lecturer and Senior Lecturer posts in the Department of Public Health at Aberdeen University. She also had honorary consultant status with Grampian Health Board, in which capacity she provided public health input into the planning and delivery of cancer services.

Dr Wilson moved to the University of Ottawa in January 2002 and is taking the opportunity to focus on her major interest of public health genetics. This covers a wide spectrum of activities - from establishing the contribution that genetic predisposition makes to disease burden in populations, through evaluating potential interventions to prevent illness and death from genetic disease, to assessing how health services may be appropriately and efficiently organized to deliver such interventions. A key element of such work is understanding the perspectives and values of the general public, service users, health professionals and decision makers. She has been investigator on a number of projects in this field in the UK and is working to develop a similar research program in Canada.

Ethics

Michael D. Coughlin, Ph.D..
Dr. Coughlin has worked as a clinical ethicist for over 20 years and is an Associate Professor at McMaster University in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences. His background includes degrees in philosophy, theology and developmental biology and he has held Faculty appointments at New York Hospital/Cornell University Medical College and at McMaster University and still does some basic research in neurobiology. Michael recently retired from the position of Ethics Consultant at St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton, a position he initiated in 1986. During that time he served both as clinical ethicist and as secretary and ethicist for their Research Ethics Board. He continues to be involved in clinical and research ethics in the Faculty of Health Sciences at McMaster and in a number of health facilities. He serves as Chair of the Tri-Hospital Research Ethics Board in Kitchener-Cambridge, and during the past year acted as interim Clinical and Organizational Ethicist at Hamilton Health Sciences during the ethicist's maternity leave. Michael was involved with the Catholic Health Association of Canada in helping to draft the Health Care Ethics Guide and the current Health Ethics Guide and he is a founding member and a Past President of the Canadian Bioethics Society.

Community Representative - General Population

Carrielynn Lund, MSW
Mrs. Lund is a Métis consultant from Gift Lake, one of Alberta's eight Métis settlements. She possesses a degree from the Royal Conservatory of Music and a Master's degree in Social Work. Her primary focus is on assisting Aboriginal communities to identify and address health and social issues that have a negative impact on children and their families. An Aboriginal person with disabilities, she also works with governments, businesses, and educational institutions to identify and remove barriers that prevent or discourage persons with disabilities from full participation in community. Her extensive committee work includes service on the Premier's Council on the Status of Persons with Disabilities, the Provincial Human Rights Multicultural Education Fund Advisory Committee, the Aboriginal Healing Foundation (Treasurer) and the Canadian Institute of Health Research Ethics Standing Committee. She is currently working with CIETcanada coordinating two resilience-based Aboriginal research projects in western Canada.

Community Representative - Aboriginal Population

Paulette C. Tremblay, B.A., B.Ed., M.A., Ph.D
Dr. Tremblay is a Mohawk of the Six Nations of the Grand River Territory in Southern Ontario. Dr. Tremblay began her role of Chief Executive Officer of the National Aboriginal Health Organization located in Ottawa, Ontario, on January& 7, 2008. She was the Director of Education for the National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation from 2005-2008 and was the Chief Executive Officer for the Six Nations Council from 2002-2005 heading up an Administration with approximately 700 employees and serving the needs of the people in her home Territory. Having been involved in the field of education for 30 years, she has been a former professor at the Six Nations Polytechnic Institute, Algonquin College and the University of Ottawa and the Director of Education for the Assembly of First Nations for five years. Dr. Tremblay has been a curriculum designer; educational, evaluation and training consultant for the private sector; a management instructor, consultant and policy analyst for the federal government; and a high school teacher and Counsellor. She has been the author of many reports, articles and educational curricula. She obtained the following degrees from the University of Ottawa: Doctor of Philosophy in Education, concentrating in Psychopedagogy; Master of Arts in Education, concentrating in Measurement and Evaluation.

She also has a Bachelor of Education from Dalhousie University in Halifax, NS and a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, ON.