Former Lab Members
Dr. Blanaid Donnelly
Blanaid is a PhDCandidate at McGill University and an IDRC Doctoral research award recipient working on Indigenous Health and Climate Change with a focus on the potential impact of livestock on the health of indigenous Ugandans with DrBerrang Ford. She completed her Bachelor of Science, Doctor of Veterinary Medicine and Master of Public Health degrees at the University of Guelph where she developed her interest in epidemiology and ecosystems approaches to health. She is particularly passionate about international development and has spent time in South East Asia working with Veterinarians without Borders / Vétérinaires sans Frontières Canada and the International Livestock Research Institute. |
Marie-Pierre Lardeau
Marie-Pierre Lardeau holds a joint Masters degree in Human Nutrition and Parasitology from McGill University (2009). Her main research interests focus on understanding the determinants of health of vulnerable populations, which has led her to work with indigenous populations of Central America and the Canadian Arctic. After the completion of her thesis, she worked as a Project Coordinator for Dr.James Ford’s Climate Change and Adaptation Research Group examining urban food insecurity of marginalized populations in the context of climate change in the Canadian Arctic. She is now working as a Project Manager for the Indigenous Health and Adaptation to Climate Change (IHACC) project, with on-going research in the Arctic, Peru and Uganda examining the vulnerability of indigenous health systems to climate change and ways to promote adaptation. She is fluent in English, French and Spanish. |
Malcolm Araos
Malcolm is a first-year M.A. student in Geography. His research seeks to develop innovative methods to monitor and evaluate climate change adaptation in large cities. His project analyzes urban municipal policy to find metrics of adaptation success. Malcolm graduated with an Honours B.A. in Geography (Urban Systems) in 2013. During his undergrad he focused on the relationship between cities and the environment. Specifically, he is interested in how urban policy and design can improve the interactions between humans and the natural world. The fields of architecture, transportation, and land-use planning are of great interest in this regard. |
Kaitlin Patterson
Kate has spent the last few years researching food security among the Indigenous Batwa of Kanungu District, Uganda. Food insecurity was prevalent among Batwa communities; more than 97% reported being food insecure, with 85% being severely food insecure. The food insecurity reported among the Batwa is the highest in the published literature. Kate values a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach and incorporates both quantitative and qualitative methods into her research. She has an academic background in geography,economics and international development. Kate is now shifting her focus to Maternal and infant health among the Batwa, a key priority identified at the local and national levels in Uganda for herPhDwork at the University of Guelph.Additionally she is the database manager for the Arctic,Peru and Uganda for the IHACC project. |
Sarah MacVicar
Sarah comes to the lab from Harvard University, where she completed her undergraduate degree in Earth and Planetary Sciences (minor in Global Health) in 2013. Her senior thesis research focused on empirical and theoretical modelling of cholera prevalence in Mozambique in relation to geographic trends. She has also been involved in qualitative research with urban Aboriginal youth in Edmonton. Sarah spent this summer doing an informal internship at the University of Auckland, reviewing literature on Indigenous health and climate and learning about Māori healthcare. Sarah is starting her MSc in Health Geography with the lab in the fall of 2014; she will be joining the Uganda IHACC team to investigate potential impacts of climate change on maternal and child health. |
Sierra Clark
Sierra is currently a4th year student at McGill pursuing a BA (Hon) in Geography with a focus on Indigenous health and patterns of infectious disease transmission and risk. Sierra joined Dr. Berrang-Fords lab in 2013 as an RA. Sierra is currently working on her honours thesis that combines quantitative and qualitative methods to understand the burden, determinants, and the lived experience of AGI for Batwa. She recently finished 2 months of qualitative field work in Uganda, conducting key-informant interviews and focus groups discussions with Batwa and local health officials. Sierra’s quanitative paper on AGI was recently published in the journal Epidemiology and infection and has been presented at numerous conferences and poster fairs, notably the international ECOHEALTH conference in Montreal this summer. More recently, Sierra has been working with Dr. Lea Berrang-Ford and Dr. Manisha Kulkarni on a longitudinal analysis of mosquito net use and non-use and factors associated with coverage for Batwa. Sierra will be starting her MSc in Epidemiology next fall working with Dr. Jill Baumgartner on the impacts of cook stove interventions on cardiovascular health in the Tibetan Plateau. |
Isha Berry
Isha is in her 4th year of pursuing her BSc in Environment with a focus on Ecological Determinants of Health. Isha joined Professor Berrang-Ford’s lab in 2013 as an undergraduate Research Assistant where she worked on an IHACC project reviewing access to adaptation funding programs for low and middle income countries. Currently, Isha is working on her honours thesis which is a quantitative analysis exploring the relationship between conflict and political terror in the spread and severity of Leishmaniasis, a neglected tropical disease. Isha will be starting her MSc in Epidemiology next Fall at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. |
Mya Sherman
Mya is currently leading a 2-year project related to the monitoring and evaluation of climate change adaptation as part of the Indigenous Health Adaptation to Climate Change (IHACC) research program. She graduated from McGill University in 2012 with a double major in Ecological Determinants of Health and Latin American and Caribbean Studies and completed her Master of Arts degree in Geography from McGill University in 2014. Mya has worked with the IHACC program since 2011. As an undergraduate, she carried out fieldwork with Shipibo and Shawi communities in the Peruvian Amazon to develop a bioethical framework to guide health research in remote Indigenous Amazonian communities. Mya continued her work with the Shipibo in Peru as a Master’s student under the supervision of Dr. James Ford. Her master’s thesis is titled “Vulnerability and adaptive capacity of community food systems in the Peruvian Amazon: A case study from Panaillo”. |
Dara Shefska
Dara joined the lab in 2014 as a research assistant. Her research, in conjunction with Health Canada’s Climate Change and Health Office and fellow lab member Stephanie Austin, aims to track the monitoring of health impacts of climate change in Canadian jurisdictions. Dara graduated from McGill in 2014 with an Honours B.A. in Urban Geography. Her undergraduate thesis examined the neighbourhood determinants of gestational diabetes in Toronto, ON (supervised by Dr. Nancy Ross). She is interested in the social determinants of maternal health and diabetes. |
Brock Turville
Brock is a 4th year Geography student at McGill University with a specialization in Urban Studies. He worked in Uganda at Bwindi Community Hospital (BCH) where he extracted a main hospital database of climate-sensitive disease cases and conducted interviews to gain more insight into the protocols that govern disease classification and diagnosis. Brock currently helps to advise on issues with the extracted databases. He also speaks fluent German. |
Jolène Labbé
Jolène Labbé will graduate in April 2014 with a Bachelors of Arts and Science (Hons) from the University of Guelph, specializing in International Development and Biology. Her previous research work includes co-facilitating a strategic planning process using a Participatory Learning and Action framework at a primary school in rural Kenya as a part of an independent research project that took place in the summer 2012. In 2013, she worked as a research assistant for IHACC and is currently working, under the supervision of Dr. Ford, Dr. Berrang Ford and Dr. Scott McEwen, on a publication characterizing the health and vulnerability to climate change of Bakiga populations in Kanungu District Uganda. Jolène plans to pursue graduate work focusing on the intersection of health and the environment. Her research interests include the effect of climate change on human-health in marginalized populations, gender and feminist based approaches to health, ecosystems approaches to health, environmental epidemiology, and participatory/action-focused, community-based methods for research. |
Yang Guo
Yang is currently an Undergraduate Honours Student pursuing a major in Environment (Ecological Determinants of Health) at McGill University. She joined Dr. BerrangFord’s lab in September 2012, where she conducted a systematic literature review on the role of climate change in situations of food insecurity among indigenous people. Yang wrote her Honours thesis on the prevalence of food insecurity and associated risk factors in Iqaluit, Nunavut. |
Joe Lewnard
Joe entered the lab in 2011 to investigate environmental factors associated with global variation in risk for pathogen emergence and re-emergence. He became a research assistant for IHACC in 2012, and in 2013 traveled to Uganda to assist in coordinating a cross-sectional parasitological survey of the Batwa study communities. For his work on these and other projects within the lab, Joe was recipient of the Undergraduate Award from the Canadian Association of Geographers (2013), McGill’s Science Undergraduate Research Award in Geography (2012), and second prize in health sciences at McGill’s Science Undergraduate Research Conference (2012). Joe earned his BA in 2013 with First-Class Honors and Dean’s Honor List designations in Geography and Music. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases at Yale University. Among other projects, he is applying stochastic mathematical models to address transmission dynamics of STIs among men who have sex with men, and to optimize intervention strategies. |
Finola Hackett
Finola is currently enrolled in the BA&Sc interfaculty degree program, majoring in Environment and minoring in Political Science, anticipated graduation December 2013. Her interests broadly include the intersection of environment and health, particularly focusing on global health and water resource policy. She joined the lab in 2012 to work on a project quantifying sleeping sickness burden in Uganda in terms of disability-adjusted life years, and spatially analysing the calculated burden by parish and by district. Finola received an FRSQ USRA award to support her summer research. |
Nestor Baraheberwa
I am originally from Burundi and I have a Master’s degree in Public Health with Epidemiology from the University Pierre et Marie Curie – Paris VI – France (2009), a Inter University Diploma of Tropical Medicine-International Health form the University Denis Dederot – Paris 7 – France (2008) and a Doctor in Veterinary Medicine (DVM) form the University of Blida – Algeria (2006). My research project focuses on malaria with specific objectives of determining the baseline prevalence, risk factors and burden. We then aim to construct appropriate health datasets for epidemiologic comparison with weather variability data to determine trends in seasonality and causal associations with climatic proxies. The study will take place in multiple Indigenous communities but I will coordinate data collection in Uganda followed by laboratory and statistical analysis. |
Consuelo Errázuriz
Consuelo Errázuriz received her MA in Medical Sociology from McGill University in 1994. Since then, she has been actively involved in mental health research coordinating and conducting various research initiatives in Canada and abroad. From 2000 to 2005, Consuelo worked as Program Manager of the CIDA funded UPCD-Tier 2 Mental Health and Human Development five-year program in partnership between McGill University (Canada) and the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia (Peru). In 2003, she was engaged as program coordinator in the 5-year CIHR-Training Program in Culture and Mental Health Services Research, lead by the Division of Social and Transcultural Psychiatry, at McGill University. Presently, she is Program Manager and Research Network Coordinator of the Trauma and Global Health (TGH) Program (www.mcgill.ca/truma-globalhealth), based at the Douglas Mental Health University Institute, and the Project Manager for the IHACC project with Drs. Lea Berrang Ford and James Ford at McGill. |
Alicia Rolin
Alicia completed her undergraduate degree at McGill University in Physics and Geography in 2011. She joined the health geography lab to assist with a systematic review of historical and recent literature related to emerging and re-emerging infectious disease. The review focuses on the origins of epidemics and aims to identify factors that influence initial disease outbreaks, and the work is currently being developed for submission to publication. Alicia is currently a post-baccalaureate fellow at the National Institute of Health in the United States on a Cancer Research Training Award. Her work is geospatial analysis of the determinants and patterns of cancer across the US at the county and health service area level. Additionally, she is involved in the SEER initiative (Surveillance Epidemiology & End Results). |
Alexandra Lesnikowski
Alexandra graduated with a BA (Hons.) in Political Science from McGill University in 2010. Prior to joining the lab she worked as a Policy Fellow with the Institute for Health and Social Policy, where she completed a case study about civic participation and rights advocacy among sexual and gender minorities in Nepal. Alexandra began working as a research assistant with Dr. Lea Berrang Ford and Dr. James Ford in 2010, and has collaborated on two projects that developed innovative methodologies for systematically tracking progress on adaptation to climate change. In September of 2012 Alexandra joined the School of Community and Regional Planning at The University of British Columbia, where she is pursuing a Master of Arts (Planning). She plans to continue working in the area of climate change policy, with a particular focus on land use planning. |
Rose Eckhardt
Rose’s research focused on characterizing the potential for autochthonous (local) malaria transmission in Canada, with an emphasis on the effects of climate change and international travel and immigration patterns. The project aimed to help develop a generalized conceptual approach to understanding emerging vector-borne disease risk in Canada. Rose completed her masters degree in 2010, and is now working as a research coordinator at St.Michel’s Hospital/ University of Toronto with Dr. Kamran Khan’s research team. This work focuses on the global airline transportation network and its role as a conduit for the spread of emerging infectious diseases: http://www.biodiaspora.com/ |
Valerie Hongoh
Valerie’s masters research focused on the impacts of climate change on mosquito-borne disease in Canada. Vector-borne disease distribution can often be predicted from the ecological and climatic risk factors of both vectors and pathogens. Vectors such as mosquitoes are known to be highly sensitive to changes in climate and the habitat distribution of these vectors may shift as a result of predicted climate change. Key to mitigating some of the health effects of a warming climate will be to determine the likely impacts that global warming might have on vector and pathogen distribution. Valerie is currently working as a research assistant at the University of Montreal on projects related to climate change impacts on Lyme disease management in Canada and as a contractor on climate sensitive diseases in the U.S. |
Heather Thompson
Following participation in Dr. Berrang Ford’s GEOG 403 class in the Fall of 2009, Heather undertook an independent study project to systematically review the impacts of climate change on food security in sub-Saharan Africa. This one-semester project resulted in a manuscript, now published in the peer-reviewed journal, Sustainability. After graduation from McGill with her BA, Heather backpacked through Southeast Asia. She began Law School at the University of Alberta in September 2011, with particular interest in the university’s Health Law Institute. |
Annelise Miller
Annelise’s research centered on understanding how public health threats are reported and communicated as well as the resulting effect that media reporting and health communication has in framing both public opinion and governmental policy. Her paper “Discourses of disease in the print media: A systematic media review of H1N1 reporting in Montreal, Canada” examined the key discourses, linguistic stratification of newspaper reporting in Montreal during the 2009 pandemic and resultant the public and governmental reaction to such communication. Following graduation, she worked as an assistant to a Montreal Hospital Administrator to better understand the workings of the health care system in Quebec in a practical setting. She began medical school in the McGill Faculty of Medicine in September 2011. |
Jamie Lundine
Jamie graduated with her Geography degree in 2009 and is currently working in Nairobi with a number of health geography research projects, predominantly focused on web-based, real-time mapping for public health surveillance, as case-study of the Ushahidi-KANCO project in Nairobi, Kenya. An NSERC undergraduate research scholar, Jamie conducted her senior honours project with Dr. Berrang Ford, focusing on a systematic and quantitative review of conflict as a determinant of sleeping sickness occurrence in sub-Saharan Africa.Jamie is currently living and working in Nairobi, working on the use of new technologies for public health and development. These include digital storytelling, GPS devices, SMS reporting, and participatory video tools to increase influence and representation for marginalized communities in Nairobi. See: http://mapkibera.org or http://mapkibera.org/blogi. |
Roland Ngom
Dr. Ngom has a PhD in Health Geography University of Education Heidelberg, Germany, and expertise in spatial epidemiologic analyses, particularly focused on vector-borne diseases. He completed postdoctoral level research with Dr. Berrang Ford in 2011, focusing on the development of a general approach to predict present and future spatial occurrences of mosquito-borne diseases in Canada. He also deals with health studies (environmental and social relationships) in urban milieus and developing countries. He has additional expertise in Remote sensing and GIS tools and techniques. See: The GeoMedis Blog. Dr. Ngom began work with l’Institut national de santé publique du Québec (INSPQ) and l’Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS) in September 2011, focusing on two main projects: 1) The effects of green spaces on health (cardio vascular) in the big cities of Quebec, a part of the PACC ( Programme d’adaptation aux changements Climatiques)program, and 2) A remote sensing technique to monitor the presence of ragweed in Quebec. |
Jaclyn Paterson
Following her masters degree (Biology), Jaclyn worked as a research assistant with Dr. Lea Berrang Ford and Dr. James Ford on global climate adaptation tracking, resulting in a publication in the journal Global Environmental Change. In her second year with the lab, Jaclyn led a small team focusing on actions taken (“adaptations”) to prepare for the health impacts of climate change. The project consists of: a) an international level climate change policy comparison, b) an investigation of Canadian governmental action (policy review and case studies at the municipal, provincial and national level) and, c) an assessment of non-governmental initiatives (examples include NGOs, civil societies and private groups). Jaclyn was involved in other climate change projects as a mentor for designing and assisting research methodology related to systematic reviews approaches. |
Carolyn Poutiainen
Carolyn graduated with a BA&Sc in the Interfaculty Environment Program at McGill University in 2010. Her studies focused on ecology and climate change, with a minor in economics. Carolyn was an editorial assistant on the book Climate Change Adaptation in Developed Nations: From Theory to Practice, which was edited by Dr. Ford and Dr. Lea Berrang Ford. She then collaborated on the project about climate change and health system adaptations in Canada, and researched adaptations taken by civil society. Carolyn began law school at McGill in September 2011, and plans to pursue work at the intersection of law and environment. |
Irene Hofmeijer
Irene graduated in May 2010 with a BSc. in Environment from the McGill School of Environment. Her degree was focused on environmental health, with a particular interest in health in developing countries. Personally, Irene is passionate about plastics recycling and composting! Her previous research for her honors thesis explored the environmental and social determinants of mental health in a group of urban poor women in the slum of Independencia in Lima, Peru. In 2010-11, Irene worked for Drs. Berrang-Ford and Ford on the Indigenous Health and Adaptation to Climate Change (IHACC) project as a field researcher. Working in collaboration with the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, Irene conducted pilot field research in the Peruvian Amazon using participatory methodologies, in particular PhotoVoice. Irene currently lives in Lima, Peru, and runs a project related to plastics recycling and composting. |
Victoria Aton
Victoria completed a degree in International Development, Environment, and Management at McGill in 2011. She is passionate about development, and is particularly interested in the role of public-private partnerships in health care delivery in developing countries. She has extensive experience working with non-governmental organizations, and has been involved in non-profit management consulting in the Montreal community. Victoria conducting research on the adaptations of Canadian non-governmental organizations to the health effects of climate change. She is currently working with Free The Children, an NGO based in Toronto, coordinating their programs for youth empowerment. |
Charlotte Picard
Charlotte worked with Dr. Berrang-Ford in collaboration with Dr. Brewer from the McGill Global Health Program in 2008 as a research assistant based in Lima, Peru. She participated in collection of historical climate and vector-borne diseases data in at the Peruvian Ministry of Health. Following this work, and after the completion of her bachelor’s degree in Geography, Charlotte began a masters program in epidemiology at McGill. Charlotte is currently completing her masters thesis, which focuses on identifying the relationship between climate, specifically El Niño as measured by sea surface temperature, and dengue fever. |
Aiden Findlater
Aidan completed his Masters thesis in Epidemiology at McGill with Drs. Berrang Ford and Brewer. His research focuses on global health and infectious disease, particularly the role of climate change on the incidence of leishmaniasis over space and time in Peru. He is currently studying medicine at the University of Western Ontario School of Medicine. |
Kathryn Dingle
Kathryn completed her B.A. in Geography with a minor in Economics at McGill in 2010. For her honours thesis project, she conducted pilot research for the Indigenous Health Adaptation to Climate Change (IHACC) project in rural Uganda, related to the vulnerability of Batwa Pygmy health systems to climate change. |
Kelly Garton
Kelly graduated in December 2010 with a BA in Geography. During the Fall of 2010, she conducted an independent study project assessing current knowledge of the distribution of tsetse flies, the vector for trypanosomiasis and sleeping sickness, in Uganda. Her project focused on 1) a literature review of our current knowledge of tsetse distributions in the country, and 2) tsetse mapping based on data collected from expert sourcing in Uganda. After completing her BA, Kelly worked as a research assistant at the University of Vermont in diversifying climate education in the United States. Kelly has recently started her master’s degree in Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia, as part of its Global Health Research Program. Her thesis will focus on the relationship between physical & social infrastructure and dengue fever in Ecuador. |
Katie O’Sullivan
Katie completed her bachelors degree in Geography at McGill in 2011. Her honours project focuses on systematically reviewing the peer and grey literature to evaluate the risks and benefits of urban agriculture for rapidly urbanizing sub-Saharan African cities. Katie spent this past summer starting up a small vegetable farm in urban New Mexico. After a semi-successful growing season, she is now working in Rochester Minnesota with an organization that redevelops foreclosed or neglected properties in downtown areas and facilitates community planning workshops. She is working to build the capacity of the organization to revitalize core neighborhoods and create affordable housing. |
Alice Chautard
Alice completed her undergraduate degree at McGill in 2011. Her independent project with Drs. Berrang-Ford and Chapman focused on assessing the state of knowledge regarding health impacts of large-scale gold and silver mining. This work is currently in submission. Following graduation, Alice traveled to France and then returned to work and volunteer in Montreal for a GAP year. She is currently a master student at Oxford University in Water Science, Policy and Management. |