Executive Committee

Dr. Kimberlyn McGrail is a Professor in the School of Population and Public Health and Centre for Health Services Policy Research at the University of British Columbia. She is the Scientific Director of Population Data BC. Dr. McGrail’s research interests are quantitative policy evaluation and all aspects of population data science. She is Interim Editor in Chief of the International Journal of Population Data Science, the 2009 -2010 Commonwealth Fund Harkness Associate in Health Care Policy and Practice, the 2016 recipient of the Cortlandt JG Mackenzie Prize for Excellence in Teaching, and the 2017 recipient of UBC’s Excellence in Clinical or Applied Research Award. She was part of the Expert Advisory Group for the pan-Canadian Health Data Strategy and is currently a member of the Global Partnership for AI as part of the Data Governance Working Group.

Bill Pratt has worked and volunteered in the charitable sector with a drive for excellence and inclusion that engages others in the pursuit of being better for the world. His experience comes from working in the areas of international development, homelessness and housing, community corrections, and health and social services. He is the CEO of Eden Care Communities, one of Saskatchewan’s largest charities, and his charitable governance experience has been gained by serving on many boards, including Kids Brain Health Network and Kids Brain Health Foundation. He is Vice Chair for the Jane Goodall Institute of Canada and a volunteer not-for-profit coach with the JDC West business school competition at the University of Regina. He holds a Master’s degree in Leadership, is a Certified Fundraising Executive, and has completed the Institute of Corporate Directors Not-for-Profit Governance Essentials Program.

Brent Diverty is the Vice President of the Programs Division at the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI). In this role, he oversees CIHI’s extensive data holdings, which span the continuum of health care services and contain related financial, pharmaceutical and workforce data. He also has executive responsibility for CIHI’s strategic data initiatives, including work and partnerships to advance new data acquisitions, linkages, improving access and health system use of data and CIHI’s strategy for advanced analytics. Previously, Mr. Diverty worked as a director at CIHI in management consulting roles and at Statistics Canada. Over his 20-year career, he has worked on both the supply and demand sides of data and information, in most cases with a focus on health services and population health. He holds an MA in economics from McMaster University, with a specialization in health.

Since 2014, Catherine has served as Director of the Newfoundland and Labrador SUPPORT Unit (NL SUPPORT), funded through the Canadian Institutes for Health Research’s Strategy for Patient-Oriented Research (SPOR) initiative. She is responsible for strategic development, budgetary and staff management, performance monitoring and patient engagement, as well as training and capacity development for NL SUPPORT and its associated programs – Quality of Care NL and the Centre for Analytics, Informatics and Research. Throughout her time with NL SUPPORT, Catherine has gained significant experience in patient and public engagement in research and understands the significant added value that patients and the public can bring to research.

Dr. Jean-François Ethier is a clinician-scientist and Professor in the Department of Medicine at the Université de Sherbrooke and practices as an attending physician in the Internal Medicine Department of the Centre hospitalier universitaire de Sherbrooke. He leads the technological development of HDRN Canada and co-leads the Groupe de recherche interdisciplinaire en informatique de la santé (GRIIS). His research program is also deployed, in collaboration with French colleagues, through his work as an associate researcher at INSERM. Dr. Ethier received his medical training from McGill University where he graduated MD CM in 2006 and completed his residency in internal medicine in 2011. He subsequently completed a Master’s STS (public health) and a PhD in health informatics in Paris at Paris IV (Université Pierre-Marie Curie).

Dr. Jennifer Walker is a Haudenosaunee member of Six Nations of the Grand River and an Associate Professor in the Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence and Impact at McMaster University. Her work focuses largely on Indigenous community-engaged health research using large health services databases through her work as a Core Scientist and Indigenous Health Lead at ICES in Ontario. Dr. Walker has an active community-engaged research program in aging and dementia; is co-lead of the Canadian Consortium on Neurodegeneration and Aging’s Team 18 – Issues in Dementia Care for Indigenous Populations; and leads the Indigenous Cognitive Health Program. She has also led the validation of the Canadian Indigenous Cognitive Assessment tool and the implementation of the tool in Anishinabek communities of Northern Ontario. Dr. Walker has a PhD in Community Health Services (Epidemiology) from the University of Calgary.

Dr. Michael Schull is CEO and Senior Scientist at ICES, Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto, and a Senior Scientist at the Sunnybrook Research Institute. His research focuses on health service utilization, quality of care, health system integration and patient outcomes, and the evaluation of health policy. Under his leadership, ICES has expanded the types of data available for researchers, created a virtual platform where researchers outside ICES can access and analyze linked datasets, launched a health artificial intelligence data and analysis platform, and engaged the public in the work of ICES to ensure it remains aligned with public values. Dr. Schull leads the participation of ICES in a pan-Canadian initiative to build a national health and social data platform. He practices as an Emergency Medicine specialist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto.

Dr. Nathan Nickel is the Director of the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy and an Associate Professor of Community Health Sciences at the University of Manitoba, Co-Director of the Manitoba Interdisciplinary Lactation Centre, and a scientist at the Children’s Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba. Dr. Nickel is an applied population health scientist who uses whole-population administrative data to conduct health and social policy research. Dr. Nickel’s research program uses a cross-disciplinary, team-science approach, partnering with scientists, community and government policy- and decision-makers to generate actionable evidence to improve population health and well-being. His work examines parent-child health and mental health outcomes within the contexts of the social and structural determinants of health. Much of his research is done in partnership with First Nations, Métis and Inuit organizations in Manitoba.

Dr. Ted McDonald is the founding director of the NB Institute for Research, Data and Training, New Brunswick’s only provincial research data centre hosting administrative data, and a Professor of Economics at the University of New Brunswick. Dr. McDonald is also the New Brunswick lead for the Maritime SPOR SUPPORT Unit, Academic Director of the Statistics Canada NB-RDC and past chair of the Canadian Research Data Centre Network Academic Council (2017-2023). His main research areas include the health status and health services used by immigrants, rural residents, minority groups and other subpopulations, the socioeconomic and demographic determinants of cancer, and population migration and retention. Dr. McDonald holds a PhD and a Master of Commerce in Economics from the University of Melbourne.