National Collaborating Centre for Methods and Tools

Charlene Dicesare supports our whole team with her amazing administrative and financial skills. Charlene has been with McMaster University in various positions for several years and joined the NCCMT in 2010. Charlene puts loads of energy into her work but also cherishes her time away from the office. She enjoys spending time with her family, bargain hunting and taking vacations in the sun.

Maureen Dobbins, RN, PhD is an associate professor in the School of Nursing at McMaster University. Her research efforts seek to understand knowledge translation and exchange among public health decision makers in Canada. Her program of research has: identified barriers and facilitators to research use; explored the information needs of public health decision makers; and developed, implemented and evaluated a variety of knowledge translation strategies for public health decision makers. Since 2001, she has been the Scientific Director of Health Evidence (www.health-evidence.ca), a single source of high quality effectiveness evidence and one component of a comprehensive knowledge translation strategy for public health decision makers worldwide. On January 1, 2012, Maureen also assumed the role of Scientific Director for the NCCMT.

Pamela Forsyth, MHSc, RD, completed her nutrition degree at the University of Guelph, her community nutrition internship in Saskatchewan and the MHSc program in Health Promotion at the University of Toronto. She has worked in public health for 17 years, eight of which have been in senior management. She has worked in a variety of areas, including community nutrition, health promotion, health communications and equal access. Much of the work that Pam has done over the years has focused on the development of programs and systems that improve the accessibility, transfer and update of timely, relevant and evidence-based information, whether for public health practitioners, the community at large or specific community groups. Pam joined the NCCMT in 2008 as the Knowledge Broker and, in that role, developed and managed the DialoguePH network.

As communications coordinator, Jeannie Mackintosh is responsible for establishing and maintaining accuracy and consistency in the written, electronic and visual representation of the NCCMT. Her goal is to ensure that the publications and presentations created by the NCCMT are appealing and user-friendly. Previously, she worked as a university communications officer, community health centre project coordinator, event planner and freelance writer. Jeannie studied fine art at the Ontario College of Art and Design and has a post-graduate certificate in Public Relations from Niagara College.

Jackie Muresan is a Registered Nurse works as a Knowledge Broker at the NCCMT. Jackie completed both her Bachelor of Science in Nursing and Master of Science in Nursing degrees at McMaster University. She has worked as a public health nurse and continues to work on a casual basis as a prenatal educator in public health. Jackie began her career at the Hospital for Sick Children on a pediatric general surgery unit. She later moved on to the role of a public health nurse in the Communicable Disease Division at the Region of Peel. While working on her Masters degree, Jackie’s primary area of interest was knowledge translation in public health. Jackie completed a clinical practicum at the NCCMT in 2007 as part of her graduate studies, and she has contributed to a systematic review conducted by the Effective Public Health Practice Project. Jackie continues to work on a casual basis for Peel Health as a prenatal educator in their Family Health Division, in addition to her part-time role as Research Coordinator at the NCCMT.

A key aspect of Jackie’s role at the NCCMT is capacity building for evidence-informed public health, including the coordination and delivery of face-to-face workshops as well as the development of online learning modules.

Kirsten Sears, MHSc, completed an undergraduate degree in health studies at the University of Waterloo and a Masters of Health Sciences in Health Promotion at the University of Toronto. Kirsten has worked in a variety of provincial public health organizations over the past five years. At the Ontario Tobacco Research Unit, Kirsten was involved in the evaluation of an online continuing education course in tobacco control for health professionals. She later worked as Knowledge Broker with the Program Training and Consultation Centre, leading the development and coordination of three provincial communities of practice in tobacco control. More recently, Kirsten worked as an Education Coordinator with the Ontario Agency for Health Protection and Promotion, where she was involved in planning and implementing a number of educational and professional development activities for provincial public health stakeholders. As a Knowledge Broker with NCCMT, Kirsten’s key responsibilities are to facilitate, oversee and manage the ongoing development and maintenance of the NCCMT network, DialoguePH.

Anita Kothari, PhD, is an Assistant Professor with the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Western Ontario, and holds a Career Scientist Award from the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Care. Anita has an ongoing interest in the use of research for practice and policy-making. In particular, she is interested in the ways that links between users and producers of research and networks can encourage research use in community-based organizations.

Susan Jack, RN, PhD is an Assistant Professor, School of Nursing and Associate Member, Clinical Epidemiology & Biostatistics at McMaster University. In 2009–2010, Susan led and tutored professional development workshops for public health professionals on the topics of critical appraisal, evidence-informed decision making and the utility of qualitative research evidence in public health decision making. Annually, she also tutors in the Evidence-Informed Decision Making workshops offered through the Canadian Centre for Evidence-Based Nursing, School of Nursing, McMaster University. Dr. Jack’s program of research is focused on 1) the development and evaluation of public health interventions to address family violence, and 2) qualitative explorations of factors influencing research use in different contexts. As one of the co-principal investigators of the Canadian Nurse-Family Partnership pilot program, Dr. Jack is excited to be putting many of the primary principles of knowledge transfer and exchange into practice. She has worked closely and collaboratively with decision-making partners at Hamilton Public Health Services, designing and implementing the evaluation of the pilot. She has implemented an evidence-based public health intervention with known effectiveness for preventing child abuse and neglect and improving important maternal child health outcomes. She has also synthesized and disseminated research evidence to share with Provincial level policy makers. In collaboration with the National Collaborating Centre for Aboriginal Health, Dr. Jack, along with Dr. Maureen Dobbins (McMaster), Dr. Chris Furgal (Trent) and Ms. Sandy Brooks (McMaster), conducted an environmental scan to describe the knowledge transfer and exchange processes used by environmental health decision-makers and researchers to address issues of interest to Aboriginal communities.

Cristina Catallo, RN PhD, is currently working as a Post-Doctoral Fellow under the supervision of Dr. John Lavis. Funded by the European Observatory for Health Policy and Systems, Cristina’s fellowship involves a series of projects related to knowledge-brokering approaches being used in the European region. These projects are collectively called the BRIDGE study (Brokering knowledge and Research Information to support the Development and Governance of health systems in Europe). Her program of research relates to clinical and policy decision making and evidence use in women’s health and public health. She completed her PhD in Nursing at McMaster University where she carried out a mixed-methods study that explored women’s decision making regarding the disclosure of intimate partner violence in urban emergency departments. Cristina also teaches in the Daphne Cockwell School of Nursing at Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada. She has worked with the NCCMT on the online registry that provides public health decision-makers with quality-appraised research syntheses related to knowledge-translation activities. Cristina has worked as a nursing consultant for public health issues with the Ontario Ministries of Health and Long-Term Care, Children and Youth Services, and Health Promotion.