The Canadian Cochrane Centre would like to take a moment to introduce you to three new members of our Advisory Board. We are pleased to welcome Timothy Caulfield, Alberta; Heather Davidson, British Columbia; and Christine Fitzgerald, Ontario. Each of these professionals bring different experiences and skill sets to the Board, along with an informed regional perspective.
We are looking forward to working with them and the rest of our Advisory Board as we endeavour to fulfill our vision and mission.
Please see Tim’s, Heather’s and Christine’s biographies below to gain a better sense of their backgrounds.z
Timothy Caulfield
Timothy Caulfield is a Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy and a Professor in the Faculty of Law and the School of Public Health at the University of Alberta. He was the Research Director of the Health Law Institute at the University of Alberta from 1993 to 2011 and is now leading the Faculty of Law’s Health Law and Science Policy Group (HeaLS). Over the past several years he has been involved in a variety of interdisciplinary research endeavours that have allowed him to publish over 250 articles and book chapters. He is a Health Senior Scholar with the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research and the Principal Investigator for a number of large interdisciplinary projects that explore the ethical, legal and health policy issues associated with a range of topics, including stem cell research, genetics, patient safety, the prevention of chronic disease, obesity policy, the commercialization of research, complementary and alternative medicine and access to health care. Professor Caulfield is and has been involved with a number of national and international policy and research ethics committees, including: Canadian Biotechnology Advisory Committee; Genome Canada’s Science Advisory Committee; the Ethics and Public Policy Committee for International Society for Stem Cell Research; and the Federal Panel on Research Ethics. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. He writes frequently for the popular press on a range of health and science policy issues and is the author ofThe Cure for Everything: Untangling the Twisted Messages about Health, Fitness and Happiness(Penguin 2012).
Heather Davidson
Heather Davidson has worked with the British Columbia government since 1991. She has worked in a variety of roles within the Ministry of Health and has also worked in housing policy with the Ministry of Housing and Constructive Standards and income and disability assistance with the Ministry of Social Development. She has been an Assistant Deputy Minister with the Ministry of Health since 2010 and is currently the Assistant Deputy Minister, Planning and Innovation Division. Her current responsibilities include strategic planning and policy for the health sector, performance monitoring and analytics and health research. Heather holds a PhD in Psychology (Adult Development and Aging) from the University of Victoria.
Christine Fitzgerald
Christine Fitzgerald has over 30 years of management experience in the health sector. Over her career, she has worked in the areas of health service delivery, health informatics, public policy, health research and innovation and played an important role in the creation of the Canadian Institute of Health Information and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
Most recently, Christine was the Executive Vice-President of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) where she was responsible for corporate governance and policy, strategic positioning and planning, responsible conduct of research, corporate relationships, performance evaluation and audit and international affairs. The Federal Minister of Health recognized Christine’s substantial contributions to CIHR and health research policy in 2012.
Christine has significant experience interacting with governments, the academic research community, non-governmental organizations, industry and public advocates at the regional, national and international levels. She is currently the Vice-Chair of the Ottawa Heart Institute Research Corporation and has been a member of numerous committees including the National Steering Committee for Canada’s Strategy for Patient-Oriented Research, the Canadian Common CV Board, the Federal Inter-agency Management Committee for Ethics, the Scientific Expert Working Group and the Joint Expert Panel on Multiple Sclerosis Research, and Canada’s ICD-10 Implementation Committee. She has represented Canada on a number of delegations to meetings of the World Health Organization including the Governing Council of the International Agency for Research in Cancer. She has led many successful large, complex projects in multi-stakeholder environments.
Christine received a BSc (HEc) (1978) from Acadia University, completed her Dietetic Internship (1979) at the Royal Jubilee in Victoria, BC, received a Masters in Health Services Administration (1986) from Dalhousie University, and completed the Senior Executive Fellows program at the John F Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University (2010). She is a certified member of the Canadian College of Health Leaders.
