OUR TEAM

With expertise in injury epidemiology, health promotion and education, psychology, kinesiology, preventive medicine, biostatistics and public health, BCIRPU provides a breadth of knowledge and applied injury research, development, and leadership to support government, health authorities, and injury prevention stakeholders.

Ian Pike, BSPE, MSc, PhD

Director

Professor, Department of Pediatrics, UBC
Investigator, BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute
Director, Prevent Shaken Baby Syndrome BC
Scientific Director, The Community Against Preventable Injuries (Preventable)
Adjunct Member, Graduate Program in Kinesiology & Health Science, York University
Research Interests:
  • Children and youth
  • Indigenous injury prevention
  • Child passenger safety
  • Risky play
  • Social marketing
  • Injury indicators
  • Social innovation

Ian is the Director of the BCIRPU; Professor of Pediatrics at the University of British Columbia; Investigator and Co-Lead of the Evidence to Innovation Research Theme at the Research Institute at the BC Children’s Hospital; Director of the Prevent Shaken Baby Syndrome BC Program; and, Scientific Director, The Community Against Preventable Injuries. He holds adjunct appointments at York University, Vancouver Coastal Health, and Fraser Health Research Institutes, and is a member of the Board of Directors of Parachute.

He completed his PhD at the University of Alberta, and has held positions at the University of Regina, The Healthcare Benefit Trust, and the Canadian Red Cross, and was appointed Director, BCIRPU in 2004. Ian’s research is funded by CIHR, AUTO21, Transport Canada, and Public Health Agency of Canada, where he has co-led three national teams to conduct projects to develop and validate injury indicators for Canadian children and youth; injury prevention among First Nations and inuit children and youth; child passenger safety; risky play; and, the efficacy of social marketing to reduce preventable injuries.

He has published his research extensively and is a sought-after speaker and media spokesperson. Ian is the recipient of the UBC President’s Award for Public Education Through the Media, the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs Researcher of the Year, and the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science, Research Fellowship. His current research is focused on social and systems innovation to reduce preventable injuries.

Publications:

Dr. Shelina Babul, BSc, PhD

Associate Director / Sports Injury Specialist

Director, Canadian Hospitals Injury Reporting and Prevention Program, BC Children’s Hospital
Clinical Professor, Department of Pediatrics, UBC
Investigator, BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute
Investigator, Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health, UBC
Research Interests
  • Concussion
  • Traumatic brain injury
  • Sports and recreation injuries
  • Knowledge implementation, awareness, education, translation

Shelina is the Associate Director and Sports Injury Specialist with the BCIRPU. She focuses primarily on sport and recreational evidence-based research and knowledge implementation, with a particular specialization in concussion/traumatic brain injuries (TBI) and their prevention, recognition, treatment and management. Shelina created the Concussion Awareness Training Tool (CATT), a series of online educational modules and resources addressing concussion recognition, diagnosis, treatment, and management. 

She is the Director of BC Children’s Hospital Canadian Hospitals Injury Reporting and Prevention Program (BC CHIRPP), a Clinical Professor in the Department of Pediatrics, the University of British Columbia; an Investigator with both BC Children’s Hospital and the Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health, UBC. She is the chair and/or committee board member on numerous provincial and national injury and concussion advisory committees. She was recently nomiated for the 2019 YWCA Women of Distinction Award and has also received the Safety Award by BC Hockey and the Prevention and Awareness Award from the Brain Injury Association of Canada.

 

Publications:

Mariana Brussoni, BA(Hon), MA, PhD

Academic Scientist

Professor, Department of Pediatrics and School of Population and Public Health, UBC
Director, The Human Early Learning Partnership, UBC
Investigator, BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute
Adjunct Professor, School of Human Kinetics, University of Ottawa
Research Interests
  • Risky play
  • Outdoor play
  • Parenting
  • Risk-benefit assessment
  • Child-friendly neighbourhoods

Mariana is BCIRPU’s Academic Scientist, a Professor in the Department of Pediatrics and the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia, and an investigator with the British Columbia Children’s Hospital Research Institute. Mariana is a board member of the Child & Nature Alliance of Canada and on the leadership team of Outdoor Play Canada. Mariana completed her PhD in developmental psychology at UBC. She joined BCIRPU as Associate Director from 2001-2004, after which she went on to post-doctoral training in England. In 2007, she returned to BCIRPU as Academic Scientist.

Mariana’s research foci include parenting attitudes related to risk and safety; developmental importance of children’s risky play; design of children’s communities and play spaces; and policy to support children’s outdoor play. She has published her research extensively and been widely featured in international media. Her work was featured in CBC’s The Nature of Things 2019 documentary, The Power of Play. Mariana was a Michael Smith Foundation Scholar and received the 2019 inaugural Outdoor Play Canada Dr. Mariana Brussoni award. Mariana spends her free time supporting her two children’s outdoor risky play so that she can take pictures for her presentations.

Learn more about Mariana’s work at brussonilab.ca.

 

Publications:

Megan Oakey, BHK, MPH

Provincial Manager, Injury Prevention, Population & Public Health, BC Centre For Disease Control; BC Injury Research And Prevention Unit

Megan joined the BC Centre for Disease Control and the BCIRPU in 2016 as Provincial Manager for Injury Prevention, with 15 years of experience working in Public Health in Canada, Australia, Cambodia, Kenya, and Tanzania.

Megan is the current co-chair of the BC Provincial Public Health Injury Prevention Committee, which provides guidance and recommendations on injury prevention to the Provincial Public Health Executive Committee, the Ministry of Health, and the Provincial Health Officer. She also co-chairs the BC Injury Prevention Alliance, chairs the BC Falls and Injury Prevention Coalition, and is an active member of the BC Road Safety Strategy. Megan holds an MSc in Public Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK, and a BHK in Exercise Science from the University of British Columbia.

Alex Zheng, BSE, MSc

Biostatistician/Researcher

Research Interests
  • Data analysis and visualization
  • Cost modeling
  • Prediction modeling
  • Injury prevention and surveillance

Alex joined BCIRPU in October 2017 as a Biostatistician/Researcher. A graduate of the Master of Science in Biostatistics program at the University of Toronto, Alex brings over eight years of research experience from his time at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) in Toronto and at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. His main role is to provide statistical support and analytical prowess to the many projects conducted at the Unit. Alex also spends some of his time supporting other investigators at BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute.

Publications

http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6595-3580

Anita Yau

Anita Yau, BSc

Research Coordinator

 

Anita received her Bachelor of Sciences Degree from the University of British Columbia and joined BCIRPU as a Research Assistant. Now as a Research Coordinator, Anita is responsible for the overall management of administrative and financial operations around the unit. She also organizes the BCIRPU Webinar Series, and coordinates the Brain Waves program, a national brain and spinal cord injury prevention program overseen by Parachute with Mojgan Karbakhsh.

When she is not working, she can be found scouting out a good sushi joint around Vancouver and often has a cup of hot milk tea in hand.

Atousa Zargaran, BSc

Coordinator, Canadian Hospitals Injury Reporting and Prevention Program, BC Children’s Hospital

Member, Canadian Health Information Management Association (CHIMA) 

Atousa is the Coordinator of the Canadian Hospital Injury Reporting and Prevention Program (CHIRPP) at BC Children’s Hospital in Vancouver, and a member of the BCIRPU. CHIRPP is an injury and poisoning surveillance system that collects and analyzes data on injuries to people who are seen at the emergency rooms of 11 pediatric hospitals and 8 general hospitals in Canada. Atousa obtained her Bachelor of Science degree in Tehran, Iran, and completed a Health Information Management (HIM) program in Vancouver, Canada.

 

Publications:

Brendan Smith, BA (Hons)

Research Assistant

Brendan joined BCIRPU in September 2022 as a Research Assistant for Active & Safe Central. He completed a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Psychology at the University of British Columbia and previously volunteered with the Concussion Awareness Training Tool.

Outside of work, Brendan stays active by running and reading paperback books.  

 

Christina Han, BA, MA

Research Coordinator

Research Interests
  • Children’s outdoor play
  • Children’s independent mobility and boundaries
  • Qualitative research methods
  • Sense of agency

Christina is a social science researcher working with Dr. Mariana Brussoni. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and her Master of Arts in interdisciplinary Studies Graduate Program, both from the University of British Columbia. As a research coordinator, she is responsible for the overall management and implementation of multiple research studies from data collection to data analysis and dissemination. Christina brings over ten years of experience in qualitative and mixed-methods research and project management. She has successfully published over 20 peer-reviewed articles.

Publications

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Christina_Han2

Denise Beaton, BA, MA

Senior Policy Analyst, Injury Prevention and Healthy Settings, Ministry of Health

Research Interests
  • Falls among community dwelling older adults
  • Health inequity and its social determinants
Denise Beaton is a Senior Policy Analyst at the British Columbia Ministry of Health and a member of the BC Injury Research and Prevention Unit. She holds: B.A. (Hons) Psychology, University of Prince Edward Island (2012); M.A. Gerontology, Simon Fraser University (2018): and is a current Ph.D. student in the University of BC’s School of Population and Public Health. She has been awarded the BC Graduate Scholarship twice, as well as over a dozen smaller academic excellence awards. Her main research interest is falls among community-dwelling older adults. She is currently developing BC’s first Fall and Fall-Related Injury Prevention Strategy and helped to create BC’s Fall Prevention: Risk Assessment and Management for Community-Dwelling Older Adults Guideline (September 2021). Along with national and provincial committee membership, she is a Board of Directors and Society member at Yaletown House, a non-profit long-term care home in downtown Vancouver.
Publications

Fahra Rajabali, BComm, MSc

Researcher

Research Interests
  • Data analysis and manipulation
  • Data visualizations
  • Injury surveillance
  • Injury prevention
  • Abusive head trauma
  • Cost of injury

Fahra Rajabali has been at the BCIRPU since 2000. She is a specialist in injury data, epidemiology, visualizations, and evaluation. Fahra manages the data at the BCIRPU and is responsible for the data and interface for the Injury Data Online Tool (iDOT). She is the evaluation manager for the Period of PURPLE Crying program in BC. She wears many other “hats” in her work on injury surveillance and conference planning. She is also the BCIRPU’s liaison for Northern, Interior, and Island Health Authorities. Along with her co-workers, Fahra was a recipient of the UBC President’s Staff Award in 2014.

 

Publications:

Jeanette Foreman, BA (Hons), MPH

Injury Prevention Lead, Northern Health

Research Interests
  • Health Promotion and Injury Prevention
  • Determinants of Health and Health Equity
  • Cognitive and Behavioral Factors in Injury
  • Rural Injury Prevention

Jeanette Foreman joined the BCIRPU in April 2022 as Lead, Injury Prevention and Safety Promotion for the Northern Region.  Prior to joining the unit, Jeanette worked in applied health services research, evaluation, and quality improvement for over 20 years.  She has supported Northern Health’s fall prevention strategy since 2011 and will continue to support seniors’ fall prevention along with other provincial priorities including road safety and youth suicide and self-harm.  She will also work on injury prevention priorities determined by communities and partners in the North.

Jeanette has a BA (Hons) in Psychology from the University of Saskatchewan and a MPH in Health Promotion from the University of Alberta. She is interested in the development of effective strategies to reduce injury burden and improve health equity, based on the socio-ecological model. 

Karen Sadler, BID, MCP

Manager, Prevent Shaken Baby Syndrome BC

Research Interests
  • Child development
  • Child abuse prevention
  • Infant crying
  • Abusive head trauma

In 2017, Karen joined the Prevent Shaken Baby Syndrome BC team as its Manager. Her responsibilities include training, outreach, and community education to professionals supporting families. She is the point person for knowledge translation initiatives with PSBSBC. In 2005, she received her Master of City Planning from the University of Manitoba. Karen has come from the early years sector specializing in collaborative approaches to community planning and cross sectoral integration. 

Kate Turcotte, BSc (Hons), MSc

Researcher

Research Interests
  • Injury surveillance
  • Program evaluation
  • Project management
  • Injury prevention
  • Knowledge translation

Kate has been at the BCIRPU since 1999, following the completion of her Masters of Science in Epidemiology at the University of Ottawa. Her role at the Unit comprises supporting Dr. Shelina Babul’s concussion knowledge implementation program, as well as project management, grant and report writing, injury surveillance, program evaluation, and conference planning. Kate is the Unit Liaison for Vancouver Coastal Health and Fraser Health, and she provides secretariat support for the BC Injury Prevention Committee. Along with her co-workers, Kate was a recipient of the UBC President’s Staff Award in 2014.

Publications

https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/Kate-Turcotte-38609212

Kirvy Quiambao, BA, MPH

Injury Prevention Lead, Vancouver Coastal Health

Kirvy Quiambao joined the BC Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC) and Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) in March 2022 as Lead, Injury Prevention and Safety Promotion, with varying experience in areas of public health (e.g. immunization, tuberculosis, harm reduction, sexual health, injury prevention, disaster management). He holds a B.A. Psychology and Developmental Studies from the University of Winnipeg (2012), and a Master of Public Health (International) from the University of Liverpool, UK (2017). In collaboration with the BCIRPU and other health authority leads, Kirvy will support and lead some of the injury prevention initiatives within the province of BC, focusing on the VCH region. Outside of work, he plays competitive badminton, goes hiking, paddle boarding and camping.

Maureen Nolan

Research Assistant, Canadian Hospitals Injury Reporting and Prevention Program, BC Children’s Hospital

Research Interests
  • Children’s injuries and poisonings, 0-17 years old

Maureen holds a certificate in Office Administration from the British Columbia Institute of Technology and has been part of the Canadian Hospitals Injury Reporting and Prevention Program team since 2009. She is responsible for injury data collection from the BC Children’s Hospital Emergency Department, as well as assisting with various ongoing injury and poisoning studies. 

Megan Klammer, BScN, MPH

Injury Prevention Lead, Interior Health

Megan has a Masters of Public Health from the University of British Columbia and a Bachelors of Nursing from the University of Northern British Columbia. She has 27 years of experience in healthcare and over 14 years of experience in injury prevention, safety promotion, harm reduction and knowledge translation within Northern Health, Island Health, and Interior Health. Megan also has extensive experience integrating equity into her roles within public health.

In her new role, Megan will work with the Interior Health’s Healthy Communities Healthy Families Team, and provincial, local, and regional key partners. She is thrilled to shift her attention full time to health promotion and injury prevention and will apply a health equity lens to her work. She will receive co-leadership from Megan Oakey, BCCDC Provincial Injury Prevention Manager, and Heather Deegan, Interior Health Director of Population Health.

In her free time, she enjoys hiking, running, backpacking, motorcycling, learning to sail and keeping up with her daredevil sons on ski hills. The activity helps offset her love of baking.

Melody Xiao, BA, MSc

Research Assistant

Research Interests
  • Data analysis
  • Data visualizations
  • Cost of injury
  • Injury surveillance and prevention

Melody joined BCIRPU in April 2023 as a Research Assistant. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics and Master of Science degree in Resource and Food Economics from UBC. Her passion lies in utilizing data to inform injury costing and prevention strategies for BCIRPU. She is responsible for providing data support for many projects at the Unit. When she’s not working, Melody enjoys playing guitar on the beach. 

Mojgan Karbakhsh, MD, MPH

Community Mobilizer/Coordinator

Research Interests
  • Community-based injury prevention
  • Predictive analytics
  • Injury surveillance
  • Safety education & behaviour modification
  • Social Determinants of Heath (SDH)

Mojgan Karbakhsh has a passion for decreasing the burden of injury and violence by implementing community-based models and predictive analytics. Specialty training in Community Health and Preventive Medicine and several years of work with injury data have enabled her to implement the social-ecological model as a framework for injury prevention. Mojgan’s quantitative research skills has facilitated a multitude of scientific publications in various injury prevention domains including transport injuries, trauma systems, self-harm, and interpersonal violence.

Mojgan joined the BCIRPU as the Community Mobilizer in 2021, and is responsible for mobilization and coordination of the BC injury prevention network by working with various injury prevention partners active in the province. Mojgan also serves as a coordinator for BCIRPU’s Brain Waves program, a national brain and spinal cord injury prevention program overseen by Parachute.

Neil Arason, BA, AGDM

Injury Prevention Lead, Island Health Authority

Neil Arason joined the BC Centre for Disease Control in May 2022 as Lead, Injury Prevention and Safety Promotion for Island Health. He has a diploma in social work, a BA in Urban Studies, and an Advanced Graduate Diploma in Management along with almost 30 years of experience with the BC Government, including five years in the Ministry of Health and over 10 years in the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General.

Neil is also the author of the book, No Accident: Eliminating injury and death on Canadian roads – published by Wilfrid Laurier University Press. The book examines how Canada could adopt safe system thinking to eliminate deaths and serious injuries from motor transport. He has led conference papers and authored several articles including ones published in Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) International and Transportation Talk of the Canadian Institute of Transportation Engineers (CITE). He has taught transportation courses at Simon Fraser University and the University of Victoria.

Phoebe Cheng, BSc

Research Coordinator

Phoebe joined BCIRPU in 2018 as a UBC WorkLearn student with the Canadian Hospital Injury Reporting & Prevention Program (CHIRPP). For three years, she supported the surveillance into alcohol and cannabis poisonings at BC Children’s Hospital. Now, she splits her time between the Research Coordinator role for the SHRed Concussions Study and the Evidence to Innovation Theme at the BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute.

Outside of work, she is an avid runner, houseplant enthusiast, and connoisseur of useless facts.

 

Publications:
Samantha Bruin

Samantha Bruin, BA

Communications Manager

Program Manager, The Community Against Preventable Injuries (Preventable)

Samantha has led the BCIRPU’s communications and knowledge translation activities since 2017. She supports a variety of projects through strategic planning, content creation, media relations, social media, and promotion. Samantha also works as Program Manager for The Community Against Preventable Injuries.

Samantha obtained her Bachelor of Arts from the University of British Columbia and holds a certificate in Public Relations and Marketing Communications from the British Columbia Institute of Technology. She has over ten years of experience specializing in health care communications, having held positions at Pain BC and the Centre for Health Evaluation and Outcome Sciences at St. Paul’s Hospital.

In her spare time, Samantha loves running, eating good food, playing board games, and watching movies.

Publications

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Samantha_Bruin

shazya karmali

Shazya Karmali, BHSc, MSc, PhD

Research Manager

Shazya joined the BCIRPU team in December 2019 as a Research Manager. She completed her PhD in Health Promotion at Western University in February 2020, where she studied healthy behaviours within the family unit, specifically focusing on physical activity and nutrition behaviours of parents with overweight/obesity and their children. Shazya’s role at the Unit involves project management, grant writing, and program evaluation. She is also coordinating the SHRed Concussions Study, a pan-Canadian research study in investigating the prevention, recognition, and treatment of concussion in high-school athletes who play sports associated with a higher risk of concussion.

 

Publications:
shazya karmali

Shianne Bains, BSc

Coordinator, Injury Prevention and Safety Promotion

Shianne is the Injury Prevention Coordinator at the BC Centre for Disease Control and a member of the BCRIPU. Prior to joining the BCCDC, Shianne was the Coordinator for the Fall Prevention Team at Fraser Health where she led the Mobile Clinic. She completed her BSc in Health Sciences from Simon Fraser University in 2018, and is currently working towards her MA in Community Development from the University of Victoria. Among other extracurriculars, Shianne is a Board Member for the Canadian Red Cross Council for First Aid Education. Outside of work, Shianne loves to go on outdoor adventures, travel and play soccer.

Tobin Copley, MA

Injury Prevention Lead, Fraser Health Authority

Tobin has a MA in Medical Geography from McMaster University. Prior to coming to Fraser Health in 2015, Tobin had been a career-long population health researcher with a focus on prevention, both at UBC at the Centre for Health Services and Policy Research and later spending over a decade running his own applied social research firm.

In his new role, Tobin will work with the Fraser Health Environmental Health Services & Healthy Built Environment Program, and provincial, local, and regional key partners. He will receive co-leadership from Megan Oakey, BCCDC Provincial Injury Prevention Manager, and Sandra Gill, Fraser Health Manager for Environmental Health Services & Healthy Built Environment Program.

Tobin lives in Vancouver. He lives to be active and outside. Tobin has spent decades riding bicycles for transportation, recreation and competition, and supporting youth high performance athlete development. He used to be fast. He also enjoys skeleton, and skate skiing badly.

Current Trainees and Students

  • Anmol Mattu
    Supervisor: Dr. Ian Pike, UBC FLEX Medical Program
    Anmol Mattu has completed her Bachelor of Science degree in Kinesiology and master’s degree specializing in Exercise and Health Physiology at the University of Calgary. She is currently in the MD program at UBC and continues to pursue her passion for research. Anmol’s research interests are in the fields of exercise medicine and injury prevention. Beyond academics, she enjoys travelling, being active, and spending time with family and friends.

 

  • Aygun Ibrahimova
    Supervisor: Karen Sadler
    Aygun joined the BCIRPU as a volunteer in 2018, and is currently working as a Graduate Academic Assistant for the Prevent Shaken Baby Syndrome BC program. She received her Bachelor of Science from UBC in 2023 and is now working towards a Master of Public Health degree. She is interested in research focusing on pediatric health and development.

 

  • Breann Cocoran
    Supervisor: Dr. Mariana Brussoni
    Breann Corcoran is a PhD student in the School of Population and Public Health at UBC.  She has 15 years of experience working with local health authorities in BC in community development and community engagement roles.  She currently works part-time with BC Cancer’s Screening & Prevention team and is particularly interested in neighbourhood design to support healthy child development.  More recently Breann’s work has focused on the use of shade as a design tool for skin cancer prevention in early childhood settings.  Teaching has always been an interest for Breann and she previously taught a public health course to graduate naturopath students and created community placement opportunities for the students.

 

  • Catherine Smith
    Supervisory Committee Member: Dr. Ian Pike
    Catherine Smith is a doctoral student in the School of Nursing at the University of British Columbia (UBC) and a faculty at the University of the Fraser Valley (UFV). Her research focuses on burn injury in underserved communities, drawing from her experience in burn injury prevention and care in West Africa. She completed her MSc in Advanced Practice Neuroscience Care at King’s College, and her BSc (Hons) in Nursing from Kingston University, UK. Her background includes critical care nursing, global health and development in Sierra Leone, and leadership in the National Health Service, UK.

 

  • Denise Beaton
    Supervisors: Dr. Ian Pike, Dr. Mariana Brussoni
    Denise Beaton co-chairs the BC Falls Prevention Community of Practice and is a member of various injury prevention and policy committees. Currently, she is on temporary reassignment to the Ministry of Health, developing the public health fall prevention strategy and action plan for BC. Her PhD research focuses on driving cessation as a sentinel marker of frailty among community-dwelling older adults and the opportunities for pre-injury preventive intervention.

 

  • Guikurat Kandola
    Supervisor: Dr. Ian Pike
    Gurkirat is a first-year Pediatrics resident who is interested in pursuing general pediatrics. Her research interests center around adolescent mental health including exploring barriers in accessing services, underserved and BIPOC populations, and causes of self-harm in youth.

 

  • Isla Shill
    Supervisory Committee Member: Dr. Ian Pike
    Isla Shill is a PhD student under Dr. Carolyn Emery at the University of Calgary. Her MSc with a specialization in sport injury epidemiology described injury rates and mechanisms in high school female rugby and sought to understand youth rugby coach receptiveness to a rugby-specific neuromuscular training warm-up implementation. She played on the U of C Women’s Varsity Rugby team and has had the privilege of coaching high school and youth club teams. Combining her passion for rugby, Isla’s PhD will evaluate different injury prevention strategies in youth female rugby to inform safe practice and encourage lifelong participation in rugby.

 

  • Jacqueline Li
    Supervisors: Dr. Ian Pike, Dr. Kishore Mulpuri

 

  • Lucy Sager
    Supervisor: Dr. Ian Pike

 

  • Megan Zeni
    Supervisor: Dr. Mariana Brussoni
    Megan Zeni is a PhD student in the Faculty of Education at UBC. Her research interests include developing professional learning communities with in-service teachers to bridge emerging theories with teaching practices that include unstructured outdoor play as a pedagogical approach. Megan has over 20 years of experiences as a professional educator, and currently teaches in a public school outdoor and garden classroom. To learn more about her work, visit: meganzeni.com.

 

  • Michelle Bauer
    Supervisor: Dr. Ian Pike
    Michelle Bauer is a SSHRC-funded post-doctoral fellow working in the Department of Pediatrics under the supervision of Dr. Ian Pike. Her current research centres children’s perspectives on injury experiences, neighborhood safety, risk-taking, and outdoor play. She is especially interested in how children assess and manage threats in their physical environments and how navigations of risk during play influence safety strategies children adopt. Outside of her research, her interests include hiking, travelling, writing/reading fiction, and spending time with friends and family.

 

  • Michelle O’Kane
    Supervisor: Dr. Mariana Brussoni
    Michelle O’Kane is a social worker with experience working with children and families in Scotland, England and British Columbia. She is currently working on her PhD at the School of Social Work at UBC, in examining jurisdictional differences in child welfare processes with infants. She is involved in the Playability study where she interviewed children and their parents, and analysed their interviews.

 

  • Rachel Ramsden
    Supervisors: Dr. Ian Pike, Dr. Mariana Brussoni
    Rachel Ramsden is a PhD student in the School of Population and Public Health at UBC. She is interested in understanding the movements and behaviors that occur when children partake in unstructured play in order to examine the design of outdoor environments. Rachel is also the Child Care Planner at the City of Richmond, where she facilitates the design of indoor and outdoor municipal early child development settings.