Co-Leaders

Cecilia Benoit is a Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Victoria and Senior Administrator for the Office of Vice-President Research. Her administrative functions at UVic include CIHR university delegate, MSFHR senior health research leader and coordinator of the university-wide grants facilitation initiative. She is currently a research associate of UVic's Centre for Youth & Society and is also a research associate of the Centre for Addictions Research of BC. Cecilia's research interests span the relationship between gender, work and health; midwifery and maternity care; health determinants of youth in transition to adulthood; stigma; injury prevention and community-based research. As a Co-Leader of the WHRN, Cecilia is leading an exploration of past and ongoing research on women's health determinants. The WHRN congratulates Cecilia Benoit, the 2006 recipient of the prestigious Award In Gender Studies from the Royal Society of Canada.

Olena Hankivsky is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and Faculty Associate in the Department of Women's Studies at Simon Fraser University [SFU]. She is also the Director of the Institute for Critical Studies in Gender and Health at SFU which bridges and integrates health, social sciences, humanities, and the natural sciences using an intersection analysis with a focus on: innovative research methodologies; policy, politics, and research; health and technology; international health and globalization; health inequalities; and mental health. Drawing on critical feminist theory, Olena's research focuses on gender mainstreaming in the health sector, evidence-based decision-making and economic evaluations, gender, health and globalization, and violence against women and sex trafficking. As a Co-Leader of the WHRN, she is leading the research methodologies node aimed at exploring innovative qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods approaches in health research.

Nancy Poole is a Research Associate and research network developer with the British Columbia Centre of Excellence for Women's Health and a doctoral student with the University of South Australia studying virtual knowledge translation on women's health and substance use. She has a CIHR fellowship with the IMPART program, a training program in Gender, Women and Addictions. Nancy is engaged on several research teams undertaking policy relevant research related to women's substance use, and is well known for collaborations on addictions policy, service design and research with governments and organizations across Canada.  She is an editor, with Dr. Lorraine Greaves, of an upcoming book entitled Highs and Lows: Current Canadian Perspectives on Women and Substance Use to be published by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Ontario in April 2007. Nancy recently completed a Master's degree in Distributed Learning at Royal Roads University and is currently pursuing doctoral studies. She brings her expertise in virtual technologies and the development of communities of practice that support research involvement to her role as Co-Leader of the WHRN.

Lorraine Greaves is the newly-appointed Executive Director of the Health System Strategy Division in the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care in Ontario. She was formerly Executive Director of the BC Centre of Excellence for Women's Health and the Director, Women's Health Research Development at BC Women's Hospital and Health Centre.  She is also a Clinical Professor in the Faculty of Medicine at UBC. Her research focuses on girls' and women's addictions and substance use with a particular interest in substance use during pregnancy  and tobacco use among girls and women.  As a founding Co-Leader of the WHRN, she lead the development of the surveillance node and produced  a gendered data directory tool which will improve access to data sources for researchers interested in advancing women's health in BC. Click here to learn more about The Source, The Survey, and The Synthesis .

Joy Johnson is Scientific Director of the CIHR Institute of Gender and Health and Professor in the School of Nursing at the University of British Columbia. Joy’s research focuses on health promotion and health behaviour change, exploring the social, structural and individual factors that influence health behaviour. A major thrust of her work focuses on sex and gender issues in substance use.She has a particular research interest in the development and treatment of tobacco dependence and other drug use. Her worked has been recognized with numerous awards including the UBC Killam Research Prize. As a fouding Co-Leader of the WHRN, she led an initiative aimed at investigating how sex differences and gender influences are being explored in contemporary health research. Joy's thoughtful perspectives and insigh are missed around the WHRN planning table, but Joy continues on as an active member of the Network.