Canadian Harkness Fellows

MD, MPH

Evan Tlesla Adams, MD, MPH, is a 2024–25 Canadian Harkness Fellow in Health Care Policy and Practice. He is a Coast Salish physician from the Tla’amin Nation, near Powell River, B.C., Canada. Adams completed his Medical Doctorate at the University of Calgary and a residency in the Aboriginal Family Practice program at UBC in Vancouver. He has a master’s in public health from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md. Adams was the Deputy Provincial Health Officer for B.C. (2012–2014), the Chief Medical Officer of the First Nations Health Authority (2014–2020), and the Deputy Chief Medical Officer of First Nations & Inuit Health Branch, Indigenous Services Canada (2020–2023). He has recently returned half-time to the FNHA as its Deputy CMO and half-time to Simon Fraser University’s new Medical School as an Acting Associate Dean.

PhD

Gerald P. McKinley, PhD is a 2023-2024 Canadian Harkness Fellow in Health Care Policy and Practice.  He is a medical and environmental anthropologist who specializes in relationship-based research with First Nations communities in Ontario, Canada.  His research explores the intersection of physical and social environmental with mental health through a social determinants of health lens.  He is particularly interested in how we can use qualitative methods to decrease the negative impacts of environmental change on Indigenous communities through effective environmental health policy development.  Additionally, he has a background in community partnerships for the development of adolescent suicide prevention programs with First Nations communities. He is core faculty in the Schulich Interfaculty Program in Public Health and One Health programs, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, Western University. He completed his post-doctoral training in Psychiatry at the University of Toronto, Canada. Gerald McKinley is a mentor in the Michigan Integrative Well-Being and Inequality (MIWI) Training Program at the University of Michigan. 

MD, FRCSC, FACS, MSc, MBA

Dr. Arnaout is a Breast Surgical Oncologist at the Ottawa Hospital, Associate Professor at the University of Ottawa and Associate Scientist at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute. As the Regional Director Breast and Quality Lead of the Champlain LHIN Ottawa Region, she oversees the quality of breast cancer care for 9 regional hospitals, focusing on access, efficiency, effectiveness, patient experience, and equity of care. Dr. Arnaout is also an Expert Lead of Knowledge Mobilization and Physician Practice Change at the Cancer Partnership Against Cancer as well as a member of the Cancer Care Ontario Breast Cancer Advisory Board, where she participates in mobilizing high quality cancer care across all hospitals within Ontario and in Canada. She is a recipient of the Federation of Medical Women of Canada Enid Johnson MacLeod Award, Cancer Care Ontario Human Touch Award, Order of Ottawa, and multiple Ottawa Hospital Guardian Angel Awards for her dedication to breast care and women’s health in Canada. She recently completed her Executive MBA program at the University of Toronto.

PhD

Mylaine Breton, PhD is a professor at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at the Université de Sherbrooke (Longueuil). Mylaine has an MBA from Laval University, a doctorate in health service management from the University of Montreal and completed a Post-doctoral appointment at the Université de Sherbrooke/McGill University. Her Harkness research focused on understand promising organizational innovations to improve accessibility and continuity of primary health care, such as the implementation of centralized waiting lists for patients without a primary healthcare provider, as well as advanced access models. Mylaine is a judge for CFHI’s Priority Health Innovation Challenge.

Fredrika Scarth, PhD is the Director, Secretariat to the Premier’s Council on Improving Healthcare and Ending Hallway Medicine. In this role she supports the Council, an advisory body to the Premier of Ontario and Minister of Health and Long-Term Care, with advice, subject matter expertise and operational experience to set the strategic direction for improving the Ontario’s healthcare system. Fredrika was previously the Director of Health Quality Ontario Liaison and Program Development at the Health System Quality and Funding Division of the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care. Fredrika holds a BA in political science from McGill University, as well as an MA in political science and a PhD in political theory, both from the University of Toronto. Her research project explored interventions in the US which have created and sustained accountable care implementations that are mostly likely to be effective in a single-payer universal health care system, such that in Ontario.

Matthew Herder is the Director of the Health Law Institute at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia and an Associate Professor in the Dalhousie University Faculties of Medicine and Law. Matthew’s research focused on biomedical innovation policy, with a particular emphasis on intellectual property rights and the regulation of biopharmaceutical interventions. His work is often interdisciplinary and policy-oriented, and he has received grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Royal Society of Canada, in addition to appearing as an expert witness before several Parliamentary Committees on pharmaceutical regulation and policy. Matthew was the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation Legal Research Fellow at New York University’s School of Law. He was a Law Clerk at the Federal Court of Canada and was admitted to the Law Society of Upper Canada. He holds a Master’s of the Science of Law degree from Stanford Law School, as well as two law degrees from Dalhousie University.

Dr. Danielle Rodin is a radiation oncologist and Director of the Global Cancer Program at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, as well as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of Toronto. Danielle has published more than 30 peer-reviewed papers on health technology assessment and global health systems regarding oncology. She was a Commissioner for the Lancet Oncology Commission in 2015 and an Economics Consultant for the International Atomic Energy Agency in 2017. Within the agency’s Division of Human Health, her work focused on the implementation and sustainability of radiotherapy programs in low-resource settings. While completing her Master’s of Public Health in Qualitative Methods at Harvard University, she helped launch the Global Task Force on Radiotherapy for Cancer Control and developed a scientific framework to establish the impact of enhanced access to radiotherapy on human welfare, labor productivity and national income. She received her medical degree from the University of Toronto. Danielle’s Harkness Fellowship research focused on identifying new opportunities to introduce information about clinical outcomes and costs into cancer care healthcare practice.

Dr. Onil Bhattacharyya is the Frigon-Blau Chair in Family Medicine Research, a Clinical Scientist at Toronto’s Women’s College Hospital and an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto’s Department of Family and Community Medicine. He has a PhD in health policy management and evaluation from the University in Toronto and completed a fellowship in international health at the Harvard School of Public Health. His Harkness research focused on developing innovative models of care to better meet the needs of complex patients with multiple chronic conditions.

Dr. Eyal Cohen is Physician in the Division of Pediatric Medicine, Complex Care Program at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, also known as SickKids. He is also Program Head and an Associate Scientist of Child Health Evaluative Sciences at SickKids’ Research Institute. He has several positions with the University of Toronto: Professor in the Department of Pediatrics; Professor and Faculty Member in the Institute of Health Policy; and Co-Executive Director of the Edwin S.H Leong Centre for Healthy Children. His Harkness research project focused on improving health service delivery for children with complex chronic conditions.

Scott Robertson is an independent consultant helping healthcare organizations and digital health companies achieve outcomes that matter to patients. He has held several positions in the Northwest Territories’ Department of Health and Social Services (DHSS), including Senior Project Manager for the Medical Travel, Chief Nursing Officer and Senior Nursing Consultant. Scott has extensive operational, policy, and econometric experience to support healthcare improvement in northern and remote areas of Canada. He has a Master’s Degree in Health Economics and Policy from the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics. His fellowship research study focused on improving health care for isolated populations through better continuity of care. 

Fiona Clement, PhD is an Associate Professor and Director of the Health Technology Assessment Unit within the O’Brien Institute of Public Health at the University of Calgary. She completed her PhD in community health services specializing in health services research and health economics at the University of Calgary. Additionally, she completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Newcastle (UK), supported by CFHI and Alberta Innovates-Health Solutions. Fiona’s Harkness research focused on approaches to optimize technology. Her interests include health technology assessment, health technology reassessment and drug policy.

Dr. Christopher Hayes is the Chief Medical Information Officer at Trillium Health Partners in Mississauga, Ontario and an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto’s Institute for Health Policy, Management and Evaluation. His previous positions include Medical Officer at the Canadian Patient Safety Institute where he led patient safety and quality initiatives. He holds a Master of Science degree from McMaster University in Ontario, as well as Master’s of Education from the University of Toronto. His Harkness research focused on developing a conceptual model and assessment tool that incorporated ‘workload-capacity balance’ into quality improvement strategies.

PhD

Jason Sutherland, PhD is a professor in the Centre for Health Services and Policy Research in the Faculty of Medicine, School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia. His Harkness research looked at the effectiveness of bundled payment projects and other payment reforms.