Dr. Alberga completed her BSc (Major Exercise Science, Minor Psychology) at Concordia University. She then completed her MSc and PhD in the School of Human Kinetics, specializing in exercise physiology at the University of Ottawa. She was awarded a Canadian Diabetes Association Doctoral Research Award for her research focused on improving the cardiometabolic health of children and adolescents with obesity through exercise. It is through these experiences that she learned how prevalent and harmful weight-based stigma is and has since been devoted to research, teaching and knowledge translation efforts to reduce weight discrimination in society. Dr. Alberga was awarded an Eyes High Postdoctoral Fellowship and a Banting Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Postdoctoral Fellowship by the Federal Government of Canada at the University of Calgary supporting her research on weight stigma reduction in education, healthcare and public policy.

Alongside her interdisciplinary research training in health promotion and disease prevention, she has over 15 years of experience working with children, youth and adults as a camp counselor, educator, mentor, coach, instructor, personal trainer and clinical exercise physiologist in academic and community settings across Canada. Dr. Alberga’s research program (interdisciplinary approach to weight-related issues: Implications for population and public health) focuses on better understanding how societal, and school and other institutional factors influence weight-related issues including obesity, eating disorders, physical inactivity and weight stigma.

Sociologist (Universidad de Buenos Aires), MSc. in Public Health in Developing Countries (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK), and Docteur en Demographie (Université de Lyon, France).

She is Senior researcher at the National Council for Scientific and Technological Research (CONICET) and at the Centro de Estudios de Estado y Sociedad (CEDES), Argentina. During 2008-2018 she was the Scientific Coordinator of the National Program on Cervical Cancer Prevention, Argentina, and since 2019 she is member of its Scientific Committee. She is principal investigator of several national and international research projects to produce evidence aimed at improving prevention of cervical cancer. At present she is also consultant of the World Health Organization about organization and management of cancer control programs, member of the Regional Advisory Board for Latin America de la American Association for Research on Cancer (AACR), member of the Advisory Board for the “Initiative for a global data repository on Cancer Screening in 5 Continents (CanScreen5)” led by IARC-WHO, and adviser of ministries of health of several Latin American countries.

Her main areas of research are about organization of cancer prevention and control programs, the analysis of social inequalities in the access to health services, and the social and economic cost of cancer.  Her publications include papers in peer-reviewed journals, book chapters and programmatic materials.

Professor in the Department of Health, Kinesiology, and Applied Physiology at Concordia University, Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Strategy for Patient-Oriented Research (SPOR) Chair in Innovative, Patient-Oriented, Behavioural Clinical Trials, Co-Director of the Montréal Behavioural Medicine Centre, fellow of the Obesity Society and the Canadian Cardiovascular Society, and researcher at the Centre intégré universitaire de santé et service sociaux du Nord-de-l’Île-de-Montréal (CIUSSS-NIM) and co-lead of the International Behavioural Trials Network.

Dr. Molly Byrne is a Professor of Health Psychology at the National University of Ireland, Galway. In 2014 she was awarded a Health Research Board (HRB, Ireland) Research Leadership Award (2014-2019) to establish and direct the Health Behaviour Change Research Group (HBCRG). This group aims to improve population health by developing and promoting an evidence-based behavioural science approach to health behaviour change interventions. The team are interested in developing novel approaches to increase the implementation and impact of behaviour change interventions, with particular interest in participatory approaches to research involving patients and public. The team are currently running a number of intervention development studies, pilot trials of interventions and definitive intervention trials. Studies are focused on areas including: self-management among young adults with Type 1 Diabetes; attendance at structured education programmes for people with Type 2 Diabetes; delivery of sexual counselling within hospital cardiac rehabilitation; interventions to increase physical activity among overweight pregnant women and interventions to promote healthy infant feeding delivered in primary care.

Professor of Clinical Psychology and Oncology and Director of Clinical Training at the University of Calgary. With a PhD from McGill University and a Postdoctoral Fellowship at Duke University Medical Centre, his research interests involve identifying and understanding the bio-behavioural mechanisms involved in the development, progression, and management of chronic diseases, such as hypertension, cancer and insomnia. Dr. Campbell has published results from several behaviour-based RCTs in the areas of cancer, pain, and chronic disease management, including the i-can sleep trial targeting insomnia in cancer survivors. In addition, he is actively involved in the Canadian Hypertension Education Program (CHEP) and is Chair of the Adherence Committee and an active member of the Knowledge Translation Committee at Hypertension Canada. Finally, Dr.Campbell is regularly sought out by a variety of healthcare professionals (e.g., physicians, rheumatologists, nurses, dermatologists) to deliver workshops with a focus on motivating health behaviour change and improving patient-provider communication.

Dr. Linda Carlson holds the Enbridge Research Chair in Psychosocial Oncology, is Full Professor in Psychosocial Oncology in the Department of Oncology, Cumming School of Medicine at the University of Calgary, and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Psychology. She is the Director of Research and works as a Clinical Psychologist at the Department of Psychosocial Resources at the Tom Baker Cancer Centre (TBCC), where she has worked since 1997. She also holds a CIHR SPOR-funded mentorship chair in innovative clinical trials, which funds the TRACTION program (Training in Research And Clinical Trials in Integrative Oncology), supporting a multidisciplinary group of University of Calgary fellows studying Integrative Oncology.

Susan M. Czajkowski is Chief of the Health Behaviors Research Branch (HBRB) of the National Cancer Institute (NCI). She is an expert on psychosocial and behavioural risk factors for disease, including the development and testing of interventions for behavioural risk factors such as obesity, physical inactivity, adverse diets, and non-adherence to medical regimens; the roles of social support and depression in disease risk and recovery; and the assessment of health-related quality of life and psychosocial functioning in patients with chronic diseases. Dr. Czajkowski was also the lead project officer for the NIH-funded Obesity Related Behavioral Intervention Trials (ORBIT) network, a cooperative agreement program supporting seven research sites across the U.S. with the goal of translating findings from basic research on human behaviour into more effective interventions to alter obesity-related health behaviours (e.g., diet, physical activity). As part of the ORBIT consortium, Dr. Czajkowski led the development of the ORBIT model for designing and testing behavioural treatments for chronic diseases. She is also a fellow in the Society of Behavioral Medicine, and recently served as President of the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research.

Declan is the Director of Evidence Synthesis Ireland and Scientific Director of Cochrane Ireland. He holds the Chair in Midwifery and is Deputy Dean of the College of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences at NUI Galway. He is also Scientific Director of the HRB-Trials Methodology Research Network, and Principal Investigator with the INFANT – Irish Centre for Fetal and Neonatal Translational Research. Declan trained as a nurse and a midwife, meandered (with the help of opportunity, interest and luck) his way into trial methodology and evidence synthesis and his work now focuses on a blend across midwifery (and broader maternity care), randomised trials and how they are done and synthesising evidence.

Declan’s methodological areas of expertise are randomised trials, systematic reviews and meta-analyses (and other evidence syntheses) and much of his career has focused on building capacity in this area. He has published over 200 papers (h-index 38 Scopus, March 2021) including numerous Cochrane systematic reviews. He has led a number of clinical trials recruiting from 100 to over 3000 participants and serves on a number of national and international Trial Steering Committees and Data Monitoring Boards. He is an Editor with the Cochrane Pregnancy and Childbirth Group and has authored dozens of systematic reviews.

Kenneth Freedland is a Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, the Editor-in-Chief of Health Psychology, and the Program Director of the annual NIH/OBSSR Summer Institute on Randomized Behavioral Clinical Trials. His clinical research focuses primarily on the role and treatment of depression, stress, anxiety, and inadequate self-care in patients with heart disease, with an emphasis on heart failure. His methodological interests include feasibility and pilot studies and the selection and design of comparators for randomized controlled trials of health-related behavioral interventions. He chaired the NIH/OBSSR Expert Panel on Comparator Group Selection in Behavioral and Social Science Clinical Trials and has published several papers and book chapters on comparators, pilot studies, and the goals and methods of health-related behavioral intervention research. He has served on several NIH study sections and NIH and VA special emphasis panels, clinical trial review committees for the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, and the DSMBs for several randomized controlled trials. Dr. Freedland was an Associate Editor of Psychosomatic Medicine for over 10 years, chaired the Publications and Communications Council of the Society of Behavioral Medicine, is the Associate Editor for Behavioral Medicine for the Hogrefe series on Advances in Psychotherapy: Evidence-Based Practice, and is the Editor-in-Chief of Health Psychology. He is a fellow of the American Heart Association, the Society of Behavioral Medicine, and the Academy of Cognitive Therapy (ACT); past Chair of the American Heart Association’s Behavior Change Committee; past President and Treasurer of the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research, founder of the Society of Behavioral Medicine’s Cardiovascular Disease Special Interest Group, and founder of the Behavioral Medicine Research Council.

Dr. Gordon is a Canada Research Chair in Women’s Mental Health and Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Regina. She received her PhD in Clinical Psychology at McGill University and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Women’s Reproductive Mood Disorders at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research focuses on the etiology and treatment of depression in the context of reproductive transitions or challenges, including the menopause transition and infertility. Her work has been published in high impact journals, such as the American Journal of Psychiatry and JAMA Psychiatry, and is well funded by national agencies such as CIHR, NSERC, and the Canada Foundation for Innovation.

Dr. Kate Guastaferro is an assistant research professor in the Methodology Center at The Pennsylvania State University. Kate has a doctorate and masters of public health with a focus on prevention science. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Prevention and Methodology Training program at Penn State. Her advanced training centered substantively upon the prevention of child sexual abuse and methodologically on innovative methods for the optimization, evaluation, and dissemination of interventions (e.g., the multiphase optimization strategy [MOST]) with high public health impact. As a prevention scientist working at the cutting edge of prevention and intervention science, Dr. Guastaferro’s program of research is devoted to the development, optimization, and evaluation of effective, efficient, economical, and scalable interventions with a specific focus on the prevention of child maltreatment.

Co-Director of the Montréal Behavioural Medicine Centre, co-lead of the International Behavioural Trials Network (IBTN) and former Director of the Chronic Disease Research Division at Hôpital du Sacré-Coeur de Montréal. She is a Full Professor in the Department of Psychology and Canada Research Chair in Behavioural Medicine. She is also Chair of Health Psychology and Behavioural Medicine at the Canadian Psychological Association and an active member of the CHEP recommendation panel (Adherence Subcommittee). She currently holds a Quebec Health Research (FRQS) Senior Investigator Award.

Dr. Rebecca E. Lee is a professor in the Edson College of Nursing and Health Innovation and previously served as founding director of the Texas Obesity Research Center in the Department of Health and Human Performance at the University of Houston. She is a community health psychologist, and specializes in community engaged research with underserved communities. She is a leader in development of ecological theory, techniques and applications of policy, physical and social environmental factors contributing to physical activity, dietary habits and obesity. She has been consistently funded by the NIH for over 2 decades as PI or Co-I, authored over 150 articles in peer-reviewed journals, and is a twice, Fulbright-García Robles Scholar to Mexico in 2011-2012 and 2019-2020.

Mariantonia Lemos is a psychologist, coordinator of the Behavioural Studies Masters Program and Professor in the Psychology Department at Universidad EAFIT (Medellín, Colombia). She is a researcher in the field of behavioural medicine with a focus on cardiovascular disease, emotions and stress. She also works as a clinical cognitive behavioural therapy psychologist.

Dr. Sean Locke is an Assistant Professor at Brock University in the Faculty of Applied Health Sciences. Dr. Locke runs the REFRAME (REFraming Rehabilitation Adherence, Motivation and Exercise) lab, which focuses on developing interventions to modify health-related cognitions and behaviours to help individuals prevent or manage complex chronic conditions. Dr. Locke has conducted behavioural research for individuals with multiple sclerosis, cardiac rehabilitation, and prediabetes.

Dr Oonagh Meade is a Postdoctoral Researcher with the Health Behaviour Change Research Group and Honorary Research Lecturer at the School of Psychology at NUI Galway. Oonagh’s research interests lie in health psychology, particularly the psychosocial impact of living with long-term health conditions and the development and evaluation of behavioural interventions. Oonagh is currently working on a Health Research Board Applied Partnership Award aimed at enhancing the implementation of the Making Every Contact Count brief behavioural intervention programme in Ireland. Oonagh is also leading on projects aimed at enhancing understanding of patient attendance at community cardiac rehabilitation and the acceptability of virtually-delivered cardiac rehabilitation. Oonagh is a Patient and Public Involvement Catalyst at NUI Galway where she works to support staff and students to embed patient and public involvement in research.

Dr. Chris Noone is a lecturer in the School of Psychology at the National University of Ireland, Galway. He is a member of the Health Behaviour Change Research Group and a research associate with the Health Research Board Trial Methodology Research Network. Chris has contributed to research on a range of topics broadly related to health and wellbeing and holds a specific interest in LGBT health. He is also a board member and chair of the research sub-committee for the National LGBT Federation in Ireland.

Mark Parascandola, Ph.D., M.P.H., is Branch Chief for Research and Training in the Center for Global Health at the National Cancer Institute (NCI). He received his Doctorate in Philosophy of Science from Cambridge University and his Master of Public Health degree in Epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health. He has authored over 75 published articles on global cancer prevention, implementation science, tobacco control, and epidemiologic research methodology. He served as an editor for the NCI/WHO report The Economics of Tobacco and Tobacco Control (2016). Dr. Parascandola has served as an Embassy Science Fellow and expert advisor on tobacco control, air pollution and health at the U.S. Embassies in Beijing, China, and Warsaw, Poland.

Dr. Lynda Powell is the Charles J. and Margaret Roberts Professor of Preventive Medicine, Medicine, Behavioral Sciences, and Pharmacology, and Chair of the Department of Preventive Medicine at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. She has been a past principal investigator on five major randomized behavioral trials and has served as a standing member of the NHLBI Clinical Trials Study Section. She was the Principal Investigator of the Chicago site of the NHLBI-sponsored Obesity-Related Behavioral Intervention Trials (ORBIT) network and co-developed the ORBIT model for behavioral treatment development. She is a founding faculty member in the NIH/OBSSR-sponsored Summer Institute for Randomized Clinical Trials Involving Behavioral Interventions. She will publish the first book on methods for behavioral randomized clinical trials for chronic diseases in 2020.

Dr. Rebecca Segrave is Deputy Director and Head of Interventions Research at Monash University’s BrainPark (Melbourne, Australia). She is also an AHPRA registered Clinical Neuropsychologist and founding Director of the Turner Institute Implementation and Behaviour Change Group. Dr. Segrave leads a multidisciplinary research team that includes exercise physiologists, psychologists, cognitive neuroscientists, and doctoral students. Together they are working to develop lifestyle (e.g. physical exercise, mindfulness meditation, cognitive training) and technology-based (e.g. therapeutic virtual reality, wearable devices) interventions for mental wellness, and behaviour change strategies that promote their long-term adoption. Her research program focuses on compulsive conditions such as addictions and obsessive compulsive disorder, and how these interventions impact the brain, decision-making, and behavioural control. She has also undertaken specialist research commercialization and translation training and developed a close network of industry, health care, and philanthropic partners with whom she is working to create translation pathways that implement innovative mental health solutions into the community.

Dr. Sheinfeld Gorin is on the senior faculty of the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School. She is also Director of New York Physicians against Cancer (NYPAC), founded with the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center, a grant-funded research and training group that works with primary care physicians to reduce health disparities in cancer prevention and screening. She has held positions of leadership in cancer prevention and control research with an emphasis on health disparities in the government, non-profit, and academic sectors. She has published or presented over 250 papers; she contributes as an editor or reviewer to over 40 publications. Her scholarly interests are both deep and broad, spanning the fields of cancer epidemiology, health services research, behavioral medicine, empirical research ethics, and implementation science. Her primary interests are in the implications of disparities, particularly among ethnic and racial subgroups, in cancer prevention, screening, and treatment outcomes for breast, colorectal, prostate, and cervical cancers. She has led the development and implementation of multi-level, theory-based, interventions to reduce cancer-related health disparities across diverse subgroups.

Sharon is Professor of Behavioural Sciences and Health in the MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit. She co-leads the Unit’s Complexity programme. She is also Head of the Population Health Research Facility, which supports the design, planning and delivery of high quality community based research and is part of the Glasgow Clinical Trials Unit. She currently leads the Institute of Health and Wellbeing Solutions Focussed Research Theme, which is the largest of the Institutes three research themes. She leads a team of senior staff representing each of the research groups within the Institute to develop a strategy to deliver world class Solution Focussed Research. Sharon has recently completed a five-year MRC/University of Glasgow Senior Fellowship. The fellowship focussed on developing a better understanding of social support and social networks and how they can facilitate behaviour change, developing and testing interventions which seek to harness social support and social networks to help initiate and maintain behaviour change, and exploring how technology can be used to facilitate this.

Sharon’s main research interests lie in the areas of diet, physical activity, obesity and mental health. She is also interested in social networks and mobile health technologies. She has methodological expertise in randomised controlled trials and in the development and evaluation of complex interventions, as well as mixed methods approaches and process evaluation. Sharon is a member of the National Institute for Health Research Health Technology Assessment Programme Clinical Evaluation and Trials Committee. She is also a member of the National Institute for Health Research Policy Research Programme Committee and the Chief Scientist Office Health Improvement Protection and Services Committee. She is also a member of the Editorial Board for the International Journal of Behavioural Nutrition and Physical Activity and BMC Public Health. She is a member of the UK Society of Behavioural Medicine and is chairing the Local Organising Committee and co-chairing the Scientific Programme Committee for the International Society of Behavioural Medicine Congress 2020.

Dr. Sudha Sivaram is Lead for Global Cancer Research Training at the Center for Global Health at the US National Cancer Institute (NCI). In this capacity, she works with colleagues across the institute to develop and coordinate research funding programs in global cancer control and enhance training programs in cancer research. Dr. Sivaram is trained in epidemiology and social science and her interests are to help bring public health research data and evidence to practice. In addition to her work for the US Government, Dr. Sivaram is also an associate adjunct faculty at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health where she is involved in teaching and working on global health programs and where she was faculty in epidemiology prior to her federal tenure.

Michael is a nurse and the Quality Improvement Lead for the English and Welsh National Audit of Diabetes. His research interests are in implementation science and the development of complex interventions, with a focus on implementing enhancements to existing quality improvement interventions. His NIHR Doctoral Research Fellowship used co-design and multi-methods qualitative work to describe and enhance audit and feedback in hospital dementia care. Subsequent work explored the feasibility of the co-designed intervention to implement the enhancements. He is currently undertaking a multi-site study to translate, and test the feasibility of, the intervention to the Irish National Audit of Dementia. He is also the Principal Investigator on a qualitative, co-design study to describe and enhance the use of a performance dashboard for hip and knee surgery. Michael was a mentee in the 2018 IBTN Summer School. (Twitter: @MSykes09)

Prof K. R. Thankappan is currently working as the Dean school of Medicine and Public Health at the Central University of Kerala in India. He is trained public health physician with an MD from India and MPH from Harvard University. He has more than 35 years of teaching and research experience. He has more than 300 publications with an ‘h’ index of 52. His research interests are in chronic non-communicable diseases and their risk factors.

Faculty

Dr Elaine Toomey is a Lecturer in the School of Allied Health in the University of Limerick. She is also a Health Research Board ‘Applying Research into Policy and Practice’ Research Fellow and lead investigator on the INTREPiD (INTegrating REsearch into Public health Decision-making) project. She is a Cochrane Ireland Research Associate and a member of both the Health Research Institute (University of Limerick) and the Health Behaviour Change Research Group (National University of Ireland Galway). Until April 2020, Elaine was Associate Director of Cochrane Ireland within Evidence Synthesis Ireland and led the implementation of the Evidence Synthesis Ireland Fellowship Scheme. Previously, Elaine was a Health Research Board (HRB) Interdisciplinary Capacity Enhancement Post-doctoral Research Fellow, where she co-led the development of a complex behaviour change childhood obesity prevention intervention, with a specific focus on process and implementation outcomes. Elaine’s research has two main strands – 1) utilising health behaviour change for chronic disease prevention and management, and 2) enhancing the methods used for the implementation of health research into policy and practice. She has specific methodological expertise in evidence synthesis, implementation science/knowledge translation, intervention development, process evaluation and fidelity/adaptation of behaviour change interventions.