Our Leadership

Quynh Doan

She/Her/Hers

Council Chair
Senior Executive Director, BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute, Provincial Health Services Authority
Associate Dean, Research, BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute, UBC Faculty of Medicine
Congdon Family Hospital Chair in Research at BC Children’s Hospital

Dr. Quynh Doan’s research program comprises projects evaluating pediatric emergency department patterns of use, the quality of care provided, and the efficiency of service delivery. She aims to answer questions pertaining to the population’s need for pediatric emergency care, how well the healthcare system is equipped to meet this need, and how we can maintain or improve the quality and value of the care provided to children and families seeking help in emergency settings. As a member of Pediatric Emergency Research Canada (PERC), Dr. Doan is the BCCH site investigator for many PERC multi-centre studies. She is also the PERC representative.

Executive Coordinator: Erika Kosuge, 604-875-2404

Vicki Chiu (ex officio)

She/Her/Hers

Council Member
Executive Director, Research Administration and Operations

Vicki Chiu is the Executive Director, Research Administration and Operations, responsible for leading business operations at BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute. She leads and coordinates the Research Administration team, smoothing the way to ensure the success of our administration units in supporting the vast BCCHR research community. In her role, she is responsible for the strategic direction and daily operations of the Research Institute. Vicki has 20 years of experience in progressively senior positions in finance and management, is a designated Chartered Accountant/Certified Public Accountant, and holds a Bachelor of Business Administration.

Executive Coordinator: Erika Kosuge, 604-875-2404

Angela Devlin (ex officio)

She/Her/Hers

Council Member
Associate Director, Foundational Science and Investigator, BC Children’s Hospital
Co-Director, Women+ and Children’s Health Research Graduate Program and Professor, Division of Endocrinology, Faculty of Medicine, UBC

Recent research suggests that a mother’s diet during pregnancy can influence the development of cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors in their adult children. Dr. Angela Devlin’s current research focuses on determining how this occurs. She speculates that maternal diet during pregnancy can influence gene expression in children through epigenetic processes, defined as heritable changes in gene expression that occur without a change in the DNA sequence of the gene. Dr. Devlin is conducting studies in mice to determine the roles of prenatal and early postnatal diet and the role of epigenetic processes in the development of CVD, and is addressing the question: If diet during adult life can change epigenetic processes, what happens to offspring exposed early in development to a similar nutrient insult, and are there consequences later in life? Determining how diet and epigenetic processes contribute to CVD will aid in the development of early screening tools for at-risk children, and novel therapeutic targets for prevention and treatment of CVD.

Jill Zwicker (ex officio)

She/Her/Hers

Council Member
Associate Director, Research Community and Investigator, BC Children’s Hospital
Professor, Department of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy, Faculty of Medicine, UBC

Children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) have difficulty learning motor skills and performing activities of daily living, such as using a knife and fork, printing, and riding a bicycle. The cause of DCD is not well understood, but Dr. Jill Zwicker’s research has shown that children with DCD use their brain differently and show subtle differences in their brain pathways compared to typically developing children. Dr. Zwicker’s program aims to further unravel the brain differences in children with DCD in an effort to better understand the disorder and inform rehabilitation interventions for these children.

Critically ill newborns (such as premature infants or infants with brain injury or heart disease) are at risk for motor impairments in childhood. Dr. Zwicker’s program aims to better understand the relationship of early brain development and motor outcomes of these at-risk newborns, and how rehabilitation interventions may affect brain and motor outcomes.

Julie A. Bettinger

She/Her/Hers

Council Member
Investigator, BC Children’s Hospital
Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, UBC

Dr. Julie Bettinger has been an investigator with the Healthy Starts Research Theme since its inception in 2015. She is an infectious disease epidemiologist at the Vaccine Evaluation Center, and her research interests include vaccine safety, vaccine hesitancy and vaccine preventable diseases, COVID-19 vaccines, and attitudes and beliefs around immunization uptake and use. Julie is the data center director for the Canadian Immunization Monitoring Program, ACTive, a national surveillance system for vaccine preventable diseases and vaccine adverse events in 14 pediatric tertiary care centers across Canada. She is also the lead investigator for the Canadian National Vaccine Safety (CANVAS) network, an active surveillance network that monitors the safety of vaccines.

Matthew Carwana

He/Him/His

Council Member
Investigator and General Pediatrician, BC Children’s Hospital
Clinical Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, UBC

Dr. Matthew Carwana’s research program aims to generate high-impact evidence, innovate new models of health delivery, and change public health policy to eliminate the current adverse health gradient experienced by structurally marginalized children and youth due to the social and structural determinants of health. Dr. Carwana works in partnership with patients and families, community organizations, and community members to design and implement research projects.

Megan Levings

She/Her/Hers

Council Member
Director, Childhood Diseases Research Theme and Investigator, BC Children’s Hospital
Professor, Department of Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, UBC

Research in Dr. Megan Levings’s laboratory is focused on a novel subset of CD4+ T cells, termed T regulatory (Treg) cells, which control immune homeostasis. Although we know that Treg cells have a fundamental role in regulating immunity to both self and foreign proteins, little is known about how they function. Current work is focused on determining how Treg cells differ from normal CD4+ T cells at both the biochemical and molecular levels, and elucidating their role in transplantation tolerance, cancer, and inflammatory bowel disease. A long-term goal is to develop methods to generate Treg cells in vitro for use as a cellular therapy to replace standard immunosuppression in the context of organ transplantation or to restore tolerance in the context of autoimmunity.

Scott Ramsay

He/Him/His

Council Member
Investigator and Nurse Clinician
Assistant Professor, School of Nursing, Faculty of Applied Science, UBC

Dr. Scott Ramsay’s work addresses the role of health services and nurse-led care in pediatric health, specifically in relation to neurological conditions. Neurological conditions are disorders that occur as a result of injury, genetics, and/or exposures. They cause a disruption in normal body functions regulated by the nervous system. Pediatric neurological conditions include common conditions (e.g., migraines), acquired conditions (e.g., concussion), and rarer conditions (e.g., muscular dystrophy). Health research for children and youth with neurological conditions is limited. There are also gaps in health services research for children and youth with these conditions. The ultimate goal of Dr. Ramsay’s research program is to enhance health care for children and youth living with neurological conditions in British Columbia, focusing especially on underserved groups.

Rod Rassekh

He/Him/His

Council Member
Co-Director, Evidence to Innovation Research Theme and Investigator, Michael Cuccione Childhood Cancer Research Program, BC Children’s Hospital
Clinical Associate Professor, Division of Hematology, Oncology and Bone Marrow Transplant, Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, UBC

Dr. Rod Rassekh’s focus is on the treatment and long-term outcomes of children treated for cancer. His specific focus is in quantifying what complications are seen in survivors of childhood cancer. Specifically, Dr. Rassekh is interested in identifying genetic markers that may help determine those who are at risk of a complication. Dr. Rassekh’s team is currently in the process of identifying genes that may explain why 20 to 50 per cent of children receiving cisplatin chemotherapy have irreversible hearing loss. His team has established a database of all adverse events in children treated through the oncology department at BC Children’s Hospital. Dr. Rassekh is also interested in using linked databases to look at hospital utilization in long-term survivors. Finally, he is interested in developing clinical trials in pediatric oncology, both locally and through the Children’s Oncology Group (COG).

Saleem Razack

He/Him/His

Council Member
Investigator and Pediatric Intensivist, BC Children’s Hospital
Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, UBC

Dr. Saleem Razack has always been interested in studying the processes of education in health professions programs, such as medical doctor (MD) programs. Specifically, Dr. Razack works to understand the best practices in education that result in better care for diverse and structurally marginalized populations. This work has included studying admissions barriers for diverse students entering into medical school, analyzing curricula for health equity and anti-racism, and examining the process of professional socialization and identity formation for diverse learners. Dr. Razack has used both quantitative (statistical) and qualitative (critical discourse analysis and hermeneutics) methods in his work. Dr. Razack seeks to link the understandings gained through research to educational policies for greater social justice.

Evelyn Stewart

She/Her/Hers

Council Member
Director, Brain, Behaviour & Development Research Theme and Investigator, BC Children’s Hospital
Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, UBC
Adjunct Professor, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, SFU
Medical Director, Pediatric OCD Program (POP)

Dr. Evelyn Stewart is the Founding Director of the Pediatric Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Clinic and Research Program located at the BC Children’s Hospital and BC Women’s Hospital + Health Centre campus. She is a clinical, genetic, and neuroscience researcher, as well as a child and adolescent psychiatrist. Dr. Stewart’s research focuses on biologic, phenotypic, familial, and treatment aspects of childhood-onset neuropsychiatric disorders, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Dr. Stewart has authored more than 70 original papers, reviews, and chapters on genetic, clinical, and treatment aspects of OCD, Tourette syndrome, and related illnesses. She sits on the Scientific and Clinical Advisory Board of the International OCD Foundation and was previously on the Medical Advisory Board of the Tourette Syndrome Association of America and Co-Director of the International OCD Foundation Genetics Collaborative.

Bruce Verchere

He/Him/His

Council Member
Director, Centre for Molecular Medicine and Therapeutics and Investigator, BC Children’s Hospital
Irving K. Barber Chair in Diabetes Research
Professor, Department of Surgery and Professor, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, UBC

In diabetes mellitus, the pancreas’s insulin-producing beta cells have impaired function or are destroyed, resulting in deficient insulin secretion. This leads to high blood glucose levels and later complications, including kidney disease and blindness. In type 1 (juvenile onset) diabetes, the patient’s own immune system kills the beta cells. In type 2 (adult onset) diabetes, the body is less sensitive to insulin produced, and the beta cells cannot secrete enough insulin to compensate. Over time, insulin secretion declines, probably due to a progressive loss of beta cells from the toxic effects of elevated blood glucose as well as the accumulation of protein-containing deposits called islet amyloid. Dr. Bruce Verchere and his team are trying to understand how beta cells normally function and why they are dysfunctional and/or are destroyed in both types of diabetes. The team hopes to devise new ways to protect beta cells, thereby slowing or preventing disease onset, and to enhance beta cell survival following transplantation of pancreatic islets into diabetic patients.