OHDSI Canada Symposium 2026 SPEAKERS

Alison Park is an Algorithms and Data Harmonization Epidemiologist at ICES with a Master of Science from McGill University. She provides data, methodological and epidemiological expertise for multi-jurisdictional research projects conducted within HDRN Canada. She is co-leading HDRN Canada’s efforts to pilot the OMOP CDM at participating data centres across Canada.

Dr. Anne Martel is a Professor in Medical Biophysics at the University of Toronto and a Senior Scientist at Sunnybrook Research Institute where she holds the Tory Family Chair in Oncology. She is also a Vector Faculty Member. Her research program is focused on applications of machine learning and artificial intelligence for detection, diagnosis, and prediction/prognosis in cancer. In particular, she is interested in developing multi-modal models capable of integrating clinical data, radiology and digital pathology images and genomics data. Dr Martel also leads the development of the Sunnybrook Integrated Research Informatics ecoSystem (SIRIS), which transfers de-identified clinical, imaging, pathology, laboratory and administrative data from across the hospital into an OMOP common data model environment, creating a scalable platform for observational research and AI development.

Brad Millson is Head of Global Product Development within IQVIA’s Real World Evidence organization, where he focuses on developing and advancing innovative methods and capabilities for evidence generation. His work draws on customer insights, competitive intelligence and operational learnings to evolve how real-world data, technology and advanced methodologies can be used to address increasingly complex evidence needs. Previously, Brad led IQVIA’s Real World Evidence business in Canada, overseeing a multidisciplinary team delivering real-world evidence, outcomes research, health economics, market access and strategic solutions to the life sciences sector. In that role, his team worked across pharmaceutical companies, governments, patients, academia and health care providers to support decision-making and health care transformation.

With over 20 years of experience spanning government and the private sector, Brad has a longstanding interest in using large-scale health care data to answer important questions about health care value, outcomes and decision-making. He regularly contributes perspectives on real-world evidence and issues relevant to decision-making in complex health care environments. Brad holds a Master’s degree in Business and Science from Keck Graduate Institute of Claremont, California, as well as a BSc in Physiology from McGill University.

Dr. Christine Hallinan is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne and an epidemiologist with a PhD, Master of Public Health, and Master of Biostatistics. Her research focuses on primary care, prescribing safety, and the use of routinely collected health data for evidence generation. She was the first researcher to undertake formal analyses using Patron, the University’s primary care EMR repository. Her research includes large-scale EMR analytics, pharmacovigilance, and integrated data governance, including the application of the OMOP Common Data Model to observational research using primary care data.

As Australian Lead for INTRePID, she contributes to international collaborative research using primary care data. Her medicinal cannabis research has informed national medicines regulation and policy in Australia. She has authored or co-authored 37 peer-reviewed publications and delivered more than 35 national and international conference presentations. She also writes for The Conversation Australia. She coordinates the Doctor of Medicine and Honours research programs in the University of Melbourne’s Department of General Practice and Primary Care. She previously worked as a Clinical Nurse Specialist in critical care and has held leadership roles in general practice and primary care support.

Dr. Danielle Boyce serves as Director, Data Science and Biomedical Informatics and Principal Investigator, Real World Evidence at the ALS Therapy Development Institute. She is also affiliated with Johns Hopkins University’s Biomedical Informatics and Data Science Section, the University of Calgary, and Emory University. Dr. Boyce’s expertise includes real world evidence, with a specialty in the secondary use of electronic health records for research, FHIR, Observational Medical Outcomes Partnership Common Data Model (OMOP CDM), biostatistics and multiple programming languages. Her most popular contributions are Registry Forge – Enterprise and Registry Forge – Patient Edition, an open source pipeline for getting your EHR data into research-ready shape free, using tools you already have.

Darya Zhukova (née Kosareva) is a passionate expert in data analytics, health informatics and public health. She has been working as a consultant in data analytics at EPAM Systems since 2020, leveraging her deep expertise across the full spectrum of the Observational Health Data Sciences and Informatics (OHDSI) ecosystem. Her diverse contributions to the OHDSI community include work on vocabulary/ontology development, ETL data harmonization, data science and large-scale data network and analytical platform products. Darya’s ability to bridge clinical knowledge and technical expertise stems from her unique career trajectory, which began as an emergency nurse at Montreal’s Jewish General Hospital (RUISSS McGill). Darya holds a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from McGill University (2014) and a Master of Public Health from Warwick University (2019). Her combined experience in clinical practice and public health motivates her work in developing and improving data-driven solutions to enhance patient outcomes and evidence-based decision-making in health care.

Darya holds a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BScN) from McGill University (2014) and a Master of Public Health (MPH) from Warwick University (2019). Her combined experience in clinical practice and public health motivates her work in developing and improving data-driven solutions to enhance patient outcomes and evidence-based decision-making in healthcare.

Dr. Evan Minty is a General Internist and Clinical Assistant Professor at the O’Brien Institute for Public Health at the University of Calgary. He holds an MSc in Physics from the University of Alberta, an MD from the University of Calgary, and an MSc in Biomedical Informatics from Stanford University. His introduction to OHDSI came from his experience at Stanford, where he remained a research affiliate through 2024. He now holds an adjunct appointment at Johns Hopkins University’s division of Biomedical Informatics and Data Science, where he teaches within the Data Science program, and contributes to OHDSI-related research. Dr. Minty has served on several OHDSI committees, spanning methods-focused working groups as well as those advancing clinical studies. He co-leads the Surgery and Perioperative Medicine Working Group, with a particular interest in using observational data to improve perioperative care. Above all, he is passionate about advancing Canada’s role in computational epidemiology—through shared data standards, transparent methods and reproducible evidence that can guide patient care and policy.

Dr. Felipe Pérez-Jvostov brings extensive experience working across Canada’s digital research infrastructure (DRI) ecosystem, with a strong focus on strategy development, community engagement, and shaping national-scale approaches that respond to the needs of researchers. His research background informs both his analytical approach and his understanding of how digital infrastructure, services and funding intersect with research practice. His work has consistently focused on translating complex and often fragmented community needs into coherent strategic directions, working closely with researchers, institutions, funders and partners across disciplines and sectors. At the Digital Research Alliance of Canada, Dr. Pérez-Jvostov leads strategic initiatives that help define organizational direction and guide major investment decisions. His work emphasizes alignment, inclusivity and long-term sustainability, supporting the Alliance in advancing coordinated, community-driven approaches across a highly federated national research landscape.

Dr. James White is a clinician-scientist and cardiologist, a professor of Medicine in the Departments of Cardiac Sciences and Diagnostic Imaging, and director of the Nelson PULSE Centre for Innovation and Libin Precision Medicine Initiative. He is lead PI on the MANTA project – an institutionally-integrated data management pipeline for multi-modal health data bridged to Alberta’s VITAL TRE. Dr. White’s academic program is focused in translational research in multi-modal digital health data and personalized cardiovascular care. This work aims to establish AI workflows for automating cardiovascular phenomics in clinical practice to improve diagnostic and prognostic insights that leverage the full value of diagnostic data. His research is supported by the Cardiovascular Imaging Registry of Calgary (CIROC), a large prospective data initiative launched in 2015 engaging patients referred for diagnostic testing across Alberta. Dr. White has received grants supported through the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), Heart and Stroke Foundation, National Institutes of Health (NIH), Alberta Innovates and MITACS. He currently supervises a team of postdoctoral fellows, PhD and masters students in the Department of Cardiovascular and Respiratory Science.

Dr. James Gilbert is a Manager in Epidemiology Analytics within the Epidemiology department at Janssen Research & Development. James is an experienced Software Engineer and Bioinformatician having achieved his undergraduate degree in Computer Science at Loughborough University in 2011 before achieving his PhD in Systems Biology at the University of Nottingham in 2015, researching complex biological networks. Dr. Gilbert then worked for the Nottingham Synthetic Biology Research Center, where he helped build software tools and computational models to aid the engineering of bacteria to produce fine chemicals and biofuels from waste products. He joined OHDSI in 2020 and now actively develops applications for the HADES suite of software tools and develops large scale systems for population level effect estimation with a specific focus on developing methods for drug repurposing. Born and raised in the UK, Dr. Gilbert now makes home in Whistler, British Columbia where he loves to ski, run, hike and mountain bike.

Dr. Jenna Reps is a Director at Johnson & Johnson where she is focusing on developing novel solutions to personalise risk prediction. Dr. Reps’ areas of expertise include applying machine learning and data mining techniques to develop solutions for various healthcare problems. She co-leads the patient level prediction OHDSI workgroup with the aim of developing open source and user friendly software for developing risk models using data sets in the OMOP Common Data Model format. Prior to joining Johnson & Johnson, Dr. Reps was a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Nottingham where she developed supervised learning techniques to signal adverse drug reactions using UK primary care data and acted as a data consultant to other researchers within the University. She received her BSc in Mathematics and MSc in Mathematical Biology at the University of Bath and her PhD in Computer Science at the University of Nottingham.

Dr. Jennifer Brooks is an Associate Professor of Epidemiology at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto and has been the Executive Director of the Canadian Partnership for Tomorrow’s Health (CanPath) since 2023. CanPath is Canada’s largest longitudinal cohort study, now including close to 380,000 Canadians with comprehensive questionnaire data linked to biospecimens, environmental exposure, and administrative health data. She is a recognized expert in the field, with over 20 years of experience working with cohort studies and linked administrative health data.

Josip Maras is a business leader and strategic operator with over 15 years of experience across health technology, wellness and business development. He has a strong track record of building and scaling ventures, leading cross-functional teams, and executing complex initiatives that drive sustainable growth and innovation. He holds an educational background in Health Sciences and Economics from Trinity Western University, equipping him with a balanced perspective that integrates clinical insight with disciplined business strategy. Josip has been actively involved in community health initiatives as a former board member at North York General Hospital, where he contributed to programs that strengthen patient care and advance community well-being. He remains committed to improving health outcomes through collaborative leadership, evidence-based solutions, and long-term value creation.

Kayley Marchena is a Senior Research Data Engineer at GEMINI Medicine. She holds a Master’s in Medical Biophysics from the University of Toronto. Her current work includes managing GEMINI’s research database, which includes over 3 million hospitalizations and over 30 billion data points. She is leading GEMINI’s translation of its data holdings to the OMOP data model.

Dr. Lillian Sung is Professor of Paediatrics at the University of Toronto, Senior Scientist and Chief Clinical Data Scientist at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids). A pediatric oncologist and clinician scientist, she leads research at the intersection of pediatric oncology, clinical epidemiology, data science and artificial intelligence (AI). She holds a Canada Research Chair in Data-Enabled Pediatric Precision Medicine. Her work has advanced supportive care in pediatric oncology through randomized trials, clinical practice guidelines and implementation initiatives focused on symptom management, infection prevention and ototoxicity reduction. Dr. Sung previously served as Chair of Cancer Control and Supportive Care for the Children’s Oncology Group, where she led the development of a multinational supportive care research portfolio and advanced collaborative clinical trials across North America. Her current work focuses on building learning health systems, advancing data-enabled precision medicine and deploying trustworthy AI to improve child health and healthcare delivery.

Dr. Lisa Lix is Associate Dean, Research in the College of Community and Global Health and a Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Manitoba. She is a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair and the Director of Data Science in the George & Fay Yee Centre for Healthcare Innovation, also at the University of Manitoba. She is a member of HDRN Canada’s Executive Committee and the Lead of HDRN Canada’s Harmonized Data & Tools Team.

Mahmoud Azimaee is Chief Information Officer at the Centre of Recovery Excellence (CORE), where provides strategic leadership in information management, data and analytics to support evidence-based decision-making in addiction and recovery services. Mahmoud is an expert in population health data and brings extensive experience from multiple Canadian jurisdictions. Before joining CoRE, he spent 13 years at  ICES in Ontario, holding various leadership roles in data and analytics. In 2024, Mahmoud led the modernization of ICES’ record linkage system, an achievement that earned the organization national recognition. He holds the Professional Statistician (P.Stat.) designation from the Statistical Society of Canada and has served as an Adjunct Faculty member in Health Informatics at the University of Toronto.

Dr. Paul Nagy, PhD, FSIIM serves as the head of Biomedical Informatics and Data Science (BIDS) and co-directs the Responsible AI, Information Sciences, and Education (RAISE) Center in the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine Department of Medicine. The RAISE Center mission is clinical faculty development empowering a learning health system with AI and data science.  Dr. Nagy leads the JH Observational Health and Data Science Informatics (OHDSI) research group at Johns Hopkins, which has standardized the JHM Epic EHR of 3+ million patients into the OMOP common data model. This group has led or participated in 15 multi-institutional observational research studies and has been awarded $35M in grants and contracts since 2021 from the FDA, NIH, NSF and the CDC. Dr. Nagy is the Co-PI on the $14M/seven year NIH Maternal Health Centers of Excellence and the $8M/seven year CDC Pregnant patient surveillance program.  In 2022 he received the OHDSI Titan Award for his contributions to the field of observational research. He is the past-chair of the American Medical Informatics Association Academic Forum, which represents 90+ degree-granting informatics programs.  He is a past chair of the Society of Imaging Informatics in Medicine and the American Board of Imaging Informatics as well as the past president of the College of SIIM Fellows.

Dr. Philippe Després is a full professor in the Department of Physics, Engineering Physics and Optics at Université Laval. He is also a member of the Cancer Research Center at Université Laval, a medical physicist at the CHU de Québec-Université Laval and a researcher at the Institut universitaire de cardiologie et de pneumologie de Québec-Université Laval (IUCPQ-UL). After earning a master’s degree in Physics from Université Laval and a doctorate in Physics from the Université de Montréal, he completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco in Biomedical Engineering and Molecular Imaging. His research projects focus primarily on medical imaging, particularly tomographic reconstruction and the use of artificial intelligence for detection and classification. He was a pioneer in advanced computing on graphics processing units (GPUs), leading to the development of innovative applications in medical physics, including an ultra-fast Monte Carlo radiative transport code. He is also interested in data valorization in the medical field, particularly the infrastructure, standards, and best practices (including the FAIR principles) required for the responsible use of clinical information. In this capacity, he is co-leader of CIRRUS, the Center for the Integration and Management of Health Information for Secondary Use at IUCPQ-UL. Dr. Després is also the director of the Big Data Research Center  at Université Laval and a researcher at the International Observatory on the Societal Impacts of AI and Digital Technology. He sits on the Research Council of the Digital Research Alliance of Canada.

Elder Dr. Wendy Phillips belongs to the 7th Fire and is a member of the Bald Eagle Clan. She is of the Potawatomi Nation (Keepers of Fire), and Jamandomac Nation (People with Excellent Memories); which is known today as the Ojibwa Nation and she is a proud member of Wasauksing First Nation. Her Anishinaabe name translates to One Who Helps, and her family translates to One Who Stands Alone. Elder Dr. Phillips is a Spiritual Leader, Traditional Healer, Seer, Wisdom Keeper and Carrier of the 8th Fire Prophecies and the Ancient Thunderbird Calendar, and carries many teachings and cultural responsibilities as a Ceremonial Leader  She has a doctorate in Anishinaabe law, a Master’s in Anishinaabe Traditional Governance and Sustainability and BA with a Minor in Business Administration and Honors in Indigenous Studies. She has a Diploma in Career and Work Counseling. She also has a Coaching Certificate from George Brown College. Elder Dr. Phillips was awarded the Community Medal from Scarborough/Guildwood from M.P Honorable John McKay and she was also a recipient of the Remarkable Woman Award.