NACI Membership/Representation

• Chairperson: Dr. Bryna Warshawsky
• Members: Dr. Natasha Crowcroft, Dr. Bonnie Henry, Dr. Deepali Kumar, Dr. Shelly McNeil, Dr. Caroline Quach-Thanh, Dr. Marina Salvadori, Dr. Blair Seifert, Dr. Nadine Sicard, Dr. Wendy Vaudry, Dr. Richard Warrington
• Executive Secretary: Dr. Shainoor Ismail
• Liaison Representatives
• Ex-officio Representatives

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Chairperson
Dr. Bryna Warshawsky
Middlesex-London Health Unit
London, Ontario

Bryna Warshawsky is the Associate Medical Officer of Health and Director, Communicable Disease and Sexual Health Services for the Middlesex-London Health Unit. She graduated from McGill University in Medicine in 1986. After working as a family practitioner for three years, she returned to the University of Toronto and obtained a Master's of Health Science Degree in Epidemiology and Biostatistics, and a fellowship from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons in Community Medicine. She joined the Middlesex-London Health Unit in September 1994 where her main areas of responsibilities are the prevention and control of communicable diseases and development of sexual health programming. Her of interests include vaccine preventable diseases and outbreak management. She is cross-appointed in both the Departments of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, and Family Medicine at the University of Western Ontario.

Members

Dr. Natasha Crowcroft
Public Health Ontario
Toronto, Ontario

Natasha Crowcroft has an MA and MD (PhD) from the University of Cambridge, a medical degree (MB BS) and MSc from the University of London, and post graduate specialist qualifications in internal medicine and public health (MRCP, FFPH).

Natasha Crowcroft has worked internationally in several European programmes and as adviser to the World Health Organization on methods of estimating global burden of pertussis and neonatal tetanus. She was the first person selected to represent the UK in the European Programme for Intervention Epidemiology Training (EPIET) and is the founding President of the EPIET Alumni Network (EAN) which links public health epidemiologists across Europe. While working in Belgium 1995-1997 she undertook one of the first cross border projects completed between Belgium and France, a study of hantavirus infections. After this she worked for a decade in the Immunisation Department of the Health Protection Agency's Centre for Infections as a national expert in immunization, leading on surveillance of a number of diseases including diphtheria, tetanus rabies and pertussis, as well as vaccination coverage and pioneered multi-disciplinary training in immunization. She also led incident responses including  Lassa Fever as well as research interests in encephalitis.

Natasha came to Canada in 2007 and took up the position of Director, Surveillance and Epidemiology at the newly established Ontario Agency for Health Protection and Promotion in 2008. In 2012 she became Chief, Infectious Diseases at Public Health Ontario. In addition to NACI, she is member of PAHO's International Expert Committee on the elimination of measles, rubella and congenital rubella syndrome and WHO's Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) subgroup on Measles and Rubella.

Dr. Bonnie Henry
Centre for Disease Control and University of British Columbia
Vancouver, British Colombia

Bonnie Henry is currently the Director of Public Health Emergency Management with the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control and is Medical Director for the provincial Emerging and Vector-borne Diseases program as well as a provincial program for surveillance and control of healthcare associated infections; a position she started in February of 2005. Previously she was Associate Medical Officer of Health for Toronto Public Health, where she was responsible for the Emergency Services Unit and the Communicable Disease Liaison Unit. She is a specialist in Community Medicine and is Board Certified in Preventive Medicine in the US. She graduated from Dalhousie Medical School and completed a Masters in Public Health in San Diego, residency training in preventive medicine at University of California, San Diego and in community medicine at University of Toronto. More recently, Dr. Henry worked with the WHO/UNICEF Polio eradication program in Pakistan in 2000 and with the World Health Organisation to control the Ebola outbreak in Uganda in 2001. She joined Toronto Public Health in September 2001 and in 2003 was one of the leads in the response to the SARS outbreak in Toronto. She was on the executive of the Ontario SARS Scientific Advisory Committee and is an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia, Faculty of Medicine. She is currently the Chair of Immunization Canada where she has led the development of programs for the promotion of immunization throughout life.

Dr. Deepali Kumar
University of Alberta
Edmonton, Alberta

Deepali Kumar is an Assistant Professor, University of Alberta Hospital, Department of Medicine, and is a consultant in Transplant Infectious Diseases.

Deepali Kumar obtained her MD and BSc from the University of Ottawa, where she also completed her internal medicine residency. Dr. Kumar then did her infectious diseases training at both the University of California-San Diego and McMaster University. She further trained in transplant infectious diseases and infections in the immunocompromised host and received a MSc at the University of Toronto. She was Assistant Professor and Active Staff at the University Health Network in Toronto till 2007.

Deepali Kumar's clinical and research interests focus on infections in the immunocompromised host include vaccine-preventable diseases, fungal infections, and respiratory viral infections in solid organ and bone marrow transplantation. She is executive member of the Infectious Diseases community of practice (2008-2010) and Transplant Infectious Diseases Study Group (TIDSG) of the American Society of Transplantation (AST). She also is member of the Canadian Standards' Association technical committee for Tissue and Organ transplantation.

Dr. Shelly McNeil
QEII Health Sciences Centre
Halifax, Nova Scotia

Shelly McNeil is currently an Assistant Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics and an Infectious Diseases Consultant at the QEII Health Sciences Centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Dr. McNeil completed her medical education at Dalhousie University followed by a three-year residency in Internal Medicine at Dalhousie and a three-year fellowship in Infectious Diseases at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Shelly McNeil returned to Dalhousie as an Assistant Professor of Medicine in 2000 and is currently cross-appointed with the Department of Pediatrics. Dr. McNeil is a Clinical Investigator at the Clinical Trials Research Center and the Canadian Centre for Vaccinology, Halifax where her research focuses on the evaluation of vaccine-preventable diseases in the elderly and in pregnant women and early-phase clinical trials of new vaccines targeted at adult populations. Dr. McNeil has recently been awarded the Dalhousie University Faculty of Medicine Clinical Research Scholar Award for the period 2005-2010.

Dr. Caroline Quach-Thanh
McGill University
Montreal, Quebec

Caroline Quach-Thanh is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics and an associate member of the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at McGill University. She is the co-director of the McGill University Health Center Vaccine Study Center and works as a pediatric infectious diseases consultant and a medical microbiologist at The Montreal Children's Hospital. She also has a cross-appointment at the Quebec Institute of Public Health.

Caroline Quach graduated from the Université de Montréal Medical School, did her pediatric training at Sainte-Justine Hospital, and her post-graduate Infectious Diseases and Medical Microbiology training at McGill University where she also obtained a Masters of Sciences in Epidemiology. Her research interests are focused on the prevention of infections – both healthcare-associated infections and vaccine-preventable diseases. She currently also serves on the Quebec Immunization Committee (CIQ), the Quebec Nosocomial Infection Committee (CINQ), and chairs the Quebec Daycare Infection Prevention Committee (CPISGEQ).

Dr. Marina Salvadori
Children's Hospital of Western Ontario
London, Ontario

Marina Salvadori graduated from medicine at Queen's University in 1991.
She did her residency training in pediatrics at the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, then trained in Infectious Diseases at The Hospital For Sick Children in Toronto. She was working there in May 2000, and joined a team of pediatricians who responded to the call for help from Walkerton. She spent the summer of 2000 working in Walkerton, then moved to London in October 2000. She is currently a pediatric infectious diseases consultant at London Health Sciences Center-Children's Hospital, and an Associate Professor at the Schulich school of medicine and dentistry at the University of Western Ontario, in London, Ontario. She is part of the team that conducted the Walkerton Health Study to provide care and monitor health problems of the people of Walkerton. She is also very interested in immunizations and immunization advocacy and regularly does teaching and workshops about immunizations. She has represented the Canadian Pediatric Society as a liaison member to NACI.

Dr. Blair Seifert
Health Science Centre
Winnipeg, Manitoba

Blair Seifert is a Clinical Pharmacist at the Children's Hospital, Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg and is cross appointed as Assistant Professor in the Department of Pediatrics and Child Health at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Manitoba. He is a graduate of the University of Saskatchewan College of Pharmacy, and received his Doctor of Pharmacy degree with a specialty in Pediatric Clinical Pharmacy in 1981.

Blair Seifert is involved with several Provincial, National and International pharmacy and medical organizations. He has participated in National and International committees and forums related to medication use in children and expectant parents as well as participating in the planning and delivery of continuing, professional development programs for pharmacists, physicians, and nurses, and many education programs for families. The use of vaccines and other immunizing agents to prevent disease is an integral part of his practice.

Dr. Nadine Sicard
Ministère de la Santé et des Services Sociaux
Montréal, Quebec

Nadine Sicard studied medicine and Public Health at Sherbrooke and Montréal universities. Since 2011, she has been a medical advisor in the Public Health protection team of Québec's Ministère de la Santé et des Services sociaux and contributes, particularly, to the immunization and hospital acquired infections teams. She held the position of Associate Medical Officer of Health at Ottawa Public Health from 2008 to 2011, mostly in the areas of communicable disease prevention and control, emergency preparedness and response and management of the vaccine preventable diseases programs. Prior to working in Ottawa, Dr. Sicard worked in the areas of policy development, quality assurance and communicable disease control in Montreal and Abitibi-Témiscamingue. She's been involved in the management of public health outbreaks including pandemic influenza. She has contributed to several provincial and national advisory committees, such as NACI, as the liaison member for the Canadian Public Health Association from 2008 to 2011. Dr Sicard has held adjunct Faculty appointments at l'Université de Montréal and Queen's University. She has been the Chair of the Influenza Working Group of NACI since 2010, and in this role has coordinated the development of several NACI statements related to influenza, such as the annual seasonal influenza statements and newly authorized influenza vaccines.

Dr. Wendy Vaudry
University of Alberta
Edmonton, Alberta

Wendy Vaudry is Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Alberta and Director of Infectious Diseases at the Stollery Children's Hospital in Edmonton. Her research interests include the epidemiology of vaccine preventable diseases and vaccine adverse events; she is the current national co-PI of IMPACT (the Canadian Pediatric Society and Health Canada's Immunization monitoring program, active). Other research interests include congenital CMV infection and transplant infectious diseases. She is a graduate of Medical School at McGill University and trained in Pediatrics at the Montreal Children's Hospital, Infectious Diseases at the University of Alberta and Transplant Infectious Diseases at the University of Washington.

Dr. Richard Warrington
University of Manitoba
Winnipeg, Manitoba

Richard Warrington received his Medical degree from the Royal London Hospital, London, England in 1968, and moved to St John's, Newfoundland in 1969 to help found the new Medical School at Memorial University. He received his PhD in Immunology from Memorial University, in 1973. He trained in Allergy & Clinical Immunology at the University of Manitoba until 1976, when he joined the Section of Allergy & Clinical Immunology in the Department of Medicine., which he has headed since 1982. From 1983 to 1996, Dr. Warrington directed the Rheumatic Disease Unit Research Laboratory at the University of Manitoba. His research has been on cytokines and autoantibodies and drug hypersensitivity. He is currently studying the effects of anti-cytokines antibodies in intravenous gammaglobulin.

Richard Warrington is Professor of Medicine & Immunology at the University of Manitoba, A Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians & Surgeons of Canada, past Chief Examiner for the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, a Fellow of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, President of the Canadian Society of Allergy & Clinical Immunology.

Executive Secretary

Dr. Shainoor Ismail

Liaison Representatives

Association of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Disease Canada
Dr. Anne Opavsky
Toronto, ON

Canadian Association for Immunization Research and Evaluation
Dr. Jason Brophy
Ottawa, ON

Canadian Paediatric Society
Dr. Dorothy Moore
Montreal, Quebec

Canadian Public Health Association
Dr. Ian Gemmill
Kingston, Ontario

Center for Disease Control and Prevention
Dr. Alison Mawle
Atlanta, Georgia, USA

College of Family Physicians of Canada
Dr. Shelley Rechner
Hamilton, Ontario

Community and Hospital Infection and Control Association
Council of Chief Medical Officers of Health
Dr. Heather Morrison
Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island

Society of Obstetrics and Gyneacologists
Dr. Vyta Senikas
Ottawa, Ontario

Ex-officio Representatives

Canadian Forces Health Services Group Headquarters
LCol (Dr) James Anderson
Communicable Disease Control Program
Ottawa, Ontario

Centre for Evaluation of Radiopharmaceuticals and Biotherapeutics
Dr. Agnes Klein
Health Canada
Ottawa, Ontario

Centre for Immunization and Respiratory Infectious Diseases
Immunization Assessment and Information
Dr. Julie Laroche
Public Health Agency of Canada
Ottawa, Ontario

Centre for Immunization and Respiratory Infectious Diseases (CIRID) -
Vaccine Safety
Dr. Barbara Law
Public Health Agency of Canada
Ottawa, Ontario

Centre for Immunization and Respiratory Infectious Diseases (CIRID) -
Canadian Immunization Committee
Ms. Danielle C.Poulin
Public Health Agency of Canada
Ottawa, Ontario

First Nations and Inuit Health Branch
Dr. Ezzat Farzad
Health Canada
Ottawa, Ontario