Madeline Boscoe (BSc.N., RN) is Executive Director for REACH Community Health Centre in Vancouver and formerly Executive Director of the Canadian Women’s Health Network and the Advocacy and Special Project Coordinator of the Women’s Health Clinic in Winnipeg.

Maryam Chinichian (M.A.). Maryam holds an MSc. in Family Relations and Human Development and an MA in Anthropology. She has midwifery background. Her focus of work has been on reproductive/sexual health and women’s health in family context.

Kirk Elifson (Ph.D.). After spending most of his career as a member of the faculty in the Department of Sociology at Georgia State University, Kirk Elifson is now a professor emeritus in the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Health Education at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University. His research interests include medical sociology, trend studies of substance abuse, substance abuse and mental health, and HIV risk practices.

Cheryl Gore-Felton (Ph.D.)  is Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine.

Lorraine Greaves (Ph.D.) is the Executive Director of the Health System Strategy Division, Ministry of Health and Long Term Care in Ontario. She was formerly Executive Director of the BC Centre of Excellence for Women’s Health and Director of Women’s Health Research. She studies women’s health issues, including tobacco use, substance use, mothering and violence.

Sepali Guruge, (RN, Ph.D.) is an Associate Professor in Nursing at Ryerson University.  Her research focuses on immigrant women’s health in general, and violence against women throughout the migration

process, in particular. Presently, she is engaged in research on violence against women with colleagues in Canada, the U.S., Sri Lanka, Ethiopia, England, Belgium, Italy and Brazil.

Jalajah Jokarasa holds a BA in Psychology, and is a School and Library Settlement Counsellor.

Charles Kamen (Ph.D.) is Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine.

Parvathy Kanthasamy (Ph.D.) is a community mental health advocate at Community Resource Connections of Toronto. She is a founding member of Vasantham, a Tamil Seniors’ Wellness Centre. She has been an instructor at the South Asian Studies Program at the University of Toronto, a research associate at the Centre for Refugee Studies at York University, and a Senior Fullbright Fellow at Stanford University.

Anna Khaylis  (Ph.D.) is a Psychologist at the Operational Stress Injury Clinic in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Hugh Klein (Ph.D.) is a senior researcher in the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Health Education at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University.  His research interests include substance use and abuse, HIV/AIDS, sexual behaviours, mental health functioning and the use of the mass media to promote risk reduction to populations that engage in high rates of risky behaviours.

Kaysi Eastlick Kushner (Ph.D., RN) is Associate Professor and Assistant Dean, Undergraduate Programs in the Faculty of Nursing at the University of Alberta. Her research examines women's and family's everyday health decision making within social institutional contexts of managing paid, family and community work under diverse socioeconomic circumstances.

Susanne Lee (MPH) is Project Director in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine.

Nicole L. Letourneau (Ph.D., RN) is the Canada Research Chair in Healthy Child Development, Research Fellow with the Canada Research Institute for Social Policy and Professor in the Faculty of Nursing at the University of New Brunswick. Her research examines risk factors to parent-child relationships and child development, including support for fathers and mothers affected by postpartum depression and supporting mother-infant relationships affected by intimate partner violence.

Edward Makwarimba (Ph.D.) manages the Social Support Research Program at University of Alberta. His research interests include social support for vulnerable populations, such as women, low-income people, immigrants, refugees, and individual and community empowerment. Dr. Makwarimba is Vice-President, Edmonton Multicultural Society of Alberta and board member, Alberta Community HIV Fund Provincial Consortium.

Petroiya Paterson (BSc., MN(c)) has experience in transplant nursing and working with internationally educated nurses. She is currently the Career Development Officer for the Oncology Nursing e-Mentorship Program at McMaster University. Her research interests include the health issues of women of colour and women who are immigrants.

Khosro Refaie Shirpak (M.D., Ph.D.) holds a medical doctorate degree from Iran as well as a MPH and a Ph.D. in Maternal and Child Health. He completed his postdoctoral work in Social Justice and Sexual Health at the University of Windsor in 2008. He is currently a Community Medicine and Family Medicine resident at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.

Shree-Sai Sathananthan (RN) completed her undergraduate studies in Nursing at Ryerson University and is currently pursuing her master’s studies at University of Toronto.

Aysan Sev’er (Ph.D.) is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Toronto. She is the recipient of numerous national and international awards for her work on violence against women. Her most current research focuses on extreme forms of violence against women in India and in south-eastern Turkey. She is the founding editor of the Women’s Health & Urban Life Journal. Her book entitled “Fleeing the House of Horrors (UTP, 2002d) received the Canadian Women’s Studies Book Award in

2004. Her edited book entitled Skeletons in Family Closets (with J. Trost) is published by WLU Press (2010). She also organized numerous national and international conferences in the areas of violence against women, health, family and gender.

Susan Sharp (B.A.) is a graduate student at Palo Alto University, PGSP- Stanford Psy.D. Consortium.

Denise L. Spitzer (Ph.D.) is the Canada Research Chair in Gender, Migration and Health, a Principal Scientist in the Institute of Population Health, and Associate Professor with the Institute of Women’s Studies at the University of Ottawa. Her research focuses on immigrant and refugee women, the impact of policy on health, agency and social support and gender/diversity-based analysis.

Claire Sterk (Ph.D.) is a professor in the Department of Behavioural Sciences and Health Education at the Rollins School of Public Health at  Emory University. Her research interests include substance abuse,

mental health, social stratification, infectious diseases and community-based risk prevention interventions. In recent years, she has been principal investigator on National Institute on Drug Abuse-funded studies of young adult ecstasy users, new users of heroin and/or methamphetamine, adult persistent smokers and the familial effects of cocaine use among young adults.

Miriam J. Stewart (Ph.D., FRSC, FCAHS) is Professor at University of Alberta. She is also an AHFMR Health Senior Scholar. She was Scientific Director of the CIHR Institute of Gender and Health. Director of the University of Alberta Centre for Health Promotion Studies, Director of the Atlantic Health Promotion Research Centre and co-investigator of the Maritime Centre of Excellence on Women's Health. Her research investigates social factors influencing health and their relevance to services for vulnerable populations.

Teresa Yi Wai Wan recently completed her Master’s of Nursing at Ryerson, and currently works in rehabilitation nursing. She is engaged in research in the capacities of research assistant and project coordinator in a number of projects.