Executive Steering Committee

Dr. Hawker is the Sir John and Lady Eaton Professor and Chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto, a Rheumatologist/Clinician Scientist at Women’s College Hospital and a Senior Scientist at the Women’s College Research Institute. She holds cross-appointments to the Institute for Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, and at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences. Her research focuses on addressing gaps and disparities in access to and outcomes of care for people living with osteoarthritis. Her research has been important in elucidating criteria for patient appropriateness for total joint replacement surgery in OA and the relationship between walking difficulty due to OA and other common chronic conditions, e.g., cardiovascular disease and diabetes. She has published over 300 peer-reviewed articles and was the 2020 recipient of the International Osteoarthritis Research Society’s Clinical Research Award.

Dr. Laura Rosella is an epidemiologist and Associate Professor in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health (DLSPH) at the University of Toronto, where she holds a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Population Health Analytics. She is also the Program Director for the DLSPH PhD Program in Epidemiology, Site Director at ICES U of T, and a Faculty Affiliate at the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence. Laura leads the Population Health Analytics laboratory where she focuses on using linked population health data in new ways to support diabetes prevention. She has developed methodology to develop and validate population risk prediction tools, including the Diabetes Population Risk Tool and a new methodology to identify optimal cut-offs for diabetes screening. Her current research is focused on understanding how persons living with type 2 diabetes accumulate chronic conditions over their life course and elucidating what factors contribute to mortality outcomes.

Alexandra Gillespie is Vice-President of the University of Toronto and Principal of the University of Toronto Mississauga, where she works to build reciprocal relationships; to support belonging, reconciliation, and inclusive excellence; and to strengthen the research partnerships in Mississauga and Peel, including in the Novo Nordisk Network for Healthy Populations.  

Gillespie has helped build thriving communities throughout her career: as Chair of UTM’s Department of English & Drama; as an early member of Toronto’s Initiative for Diversity & Excellence; as the first Director of the Jackman Humanities Institute’s Digital Humanities Network; and as UTM’s first Vice-Presidential Special Advisor in Research.  

Her own research crosses time, place, and field. It ranges from the poetics of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales to the global development of early book technologies, from scientific approaches to book history to literary theory and philosophy. On these topics she has published more than forty articles, six co-edited volumes, and two monographs, and led several international collaborations, including as co-primary investigator on a Mellon-funded project about the Book and the Silk Roads.