Current and past Forum Fellows

Our Fellows Program allows McMaster students to study evidence synthesis, deliberations and public engagement, and be exposed to influential doers and thinkers at Forum events and through internships at government ministries and international agencies such as the World Health Organization.

Forum Fellows 2009 - 2010

	Ameya Bopardikar, abopardikar@gmail.com Ameya's interests lie in supporting the development of tools for knowledge translation. In his fourth year of the Bachelor of Health Sciences (Honours) program at McMaster University, Ameya brings a wide variety of health-related experiences from many international contexts to his role with the Forum. His research at the Brain-Body Institute involves improving the translation of animal research from behavioural neurosciences into clinical applications. As a Forum Fellow he has been involved in developing an issue brief for a stakeholder dialogue on the engagement of civil society organizations in health systems. Ameya will add to his international experiences as an intern at the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva this summer. He will work towards developing tools to support the Evidence-Informed Policy Networks (EVIPNet) program of the WHO, to further promote the use of evidence in health policy decision-making.
	Ben McCutchen, ben.mccutchen@learnlink.mcmaster.ca Having grown up in rural Ontario, Ben's research interests include the impact of policies aimed at improving primary healthcare in rural and remote areas. He is in the fourth year of McMaster University’s Bachelor of Health Sciences (Honours) degree. He has worked with the Michael DeGroote Institute for Pain Research and Care and learned about strategies for fostering knowledge translation in the field of chronic pain management. Ben's research interests led him to the McMaster Health Forum. As a Forum Fellow, Ben has been involved in the preparation of evidence and issue briefs for stakeholder dialgoues on chronic pain management and the involvement of civil society in supporting research use in health systems. In the summer of 2010, Ben will be an intern at the World Health Organization in Geneva, where he will be involved with the monitoring, evaluation and strategic planning for EVIPnet, a social and collaborative network that promotes the systematic use of health research evidence in policymaking.

Forum Fellows 2009

	Steven Hoffman, steven.hoffman@learnlink.mcmaster.ca Steven Hoffman hopes to pursue a career at the intersection of health law, social policy and global health governance. He is currently pursuing degrees in law (JD) and international relations (MA) at the University of Toronto and until recently served as a Project Manager with the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, Switzerland. He is a former president of Canada's National Health Sciences Students' Association, founding Steering Committee Member of the Canadian Interprofessional Health Collaborative, and was recently elected for a three-year term to the Board of Directors of the International Association for Interprofessional Education and Collaborative Practice. Steven has published several papers and presented at various international forums on teamwork in healthcare and continues to advise WHO in this area. He recently had a paper published in Healthcare Policy that identified the need for WHO and the World Bank to improve their use of, or at least their reporting of their use of, research evidence. He graduated summa cum laude from McMaster University's BHSc (Hons) program and teaches a Forum-sponsored undergraduate course at the University on global health advocacy.
	Tyler Law, tyler.law@queensu.ca Tyler Law's research interests include health policy and health systems organization, knowledge translation and global health. He is currently a second year medical student at Queen's University, having recently completed a BHSc at McMaster. He worked as an intern at WHO headquarters in Geneva, at the Alliance for Health Systems Research. Through contacts he met there, he went on to complete another internship at the UK Department of Health in London. He is currently a member of the Executive Committee of the National Health Science Students' Association (NaHSSA), and is focused on completing his medical studies.
	Andrew Cheung, andrew.cheung@learnlink.mcmaster.ca Andrew Cheung is interested in studying ways to encourage the use of evidence in health policymaking, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. He has worked with John Lavis in evaluating the Evidence-Informed Policy Networks (EVIPNet), an initiative of the World Health Organization (WHO). During his internship at WHO, Andrew worked with the EVIPNet team to map the context of EVIPNet's African jurisdictions and design an e-learning module on knowledge-translation for WHO personnel. After obtaining a Bachelor of Health Sciences at McMaster University, Andrew is now working towards his medical degree at the University of Ottawa.
	Lindsay Fleming, lindsay.fleming@learnlink.mcmaster.ca Lindsay, a Forum/CHEPA fellow, is in her fourth year of the BHSc (Hons) program at McMaster University with a minor in French. Under the supervision of John Lavis, Lindsay assisted in the development of the framework for the Forum's exciting simulations course, which will be offered to fourth year students in the winter of 2010. She has completed an internship at the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, working in the Research Unit of the Health Systems Planning and Research Branch. As an intern, she worked on developing a comprehensive contact database of the ministry's major stakeholders, which will allow policymakers to retrieve information about Canadian researchers’ areas of expertise. Once completed, this database will encourage and further enable evidence-supported policymaking. Lindsay is hoping to pursue international health and governance in her future educational endeavours.
	Ali Hamandi, ali.hamandi@learnlink.mcmaster.ca Ali’s research interests lie in the areas of knowledge transfer in policymaking processes and refugee heath. Under the supervision of John N. Lavis, Ali was involved in a scoping study of approaches to brokering knowledge and research information. As his interest in public health grew, Ali pursued an internship at the World Health Organization’s Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean Region in Cairo, Egypt. As an intern, Ali’s work was mostly dedicated towards the expansion of WHO’s Evidence-Informed Policy Network (EVIPNet) to the Middle East. Ali also acts as a legal advisor to refugee groups in North Africa, and in his spare time he enjoys running and contemporary art. Ali is completing his final year of the BHSc Program at McMaster University.