Scientific Advisory Committee
Shahin Jamal, Co-director
Department of Medicine, Division of Rheumatology at Vancouver Coastal Health
Clinical Associate Professor at the University of British Columbia
Dr. Jamal is an active staff physician in the Department of Medicine, Division of Rheumatology at Vancouver Coastal Health. She is Clinical Associate Professor at the University of British Columbia. She is co-director of the Canadian Rheumatology Association (CRA) Review Course for Clinicians. She is the co-principal investigator of CanRIO, the Canadian Research Group of Rheumatology in Immuno-Oncology. Her interests include diagnosis and prognosis of early inflammatory arthritis, timely assessment and access to care for patients with rheumatoid arthritis, and rheumatologic immune mediated adverse events associated with immunotherapy in oncology.
Marie Hudson, Co-director
Clinician-scientist, Jewish General Hospital and Lady Davis Institute
Associate Professor, Department of Medicine, McGill University
Dr Hudson is a rheumatologist and epidemiologist at the Jewish General Hospital and Lady Davis Institute, and an Associate professor in the Department of Medicine at McGill. She pursues research in systemic autoimmune rheumatic diseases. She is a founding member of the Canadian Scleroderma Research Group and the Canadian Inflammatory Myopathy Study. Recently, she developed an interest in immune-related adverse events from cancer
Carrie Ye, Clinical Science Lead
Assistant Clinical Professor, Division of Rheumatology, Department of Medicine, University of Alberta
Dr. Carrie Ye is a rheumatologist at the Kaye Edmonton Clinic at the University of Alberta Hospital in Edmonton, where she runs the Rheumatology in Immuno-oncology Clinic. and is the medical director of the Multidisciplinary Bone Health Clinic. She pursues research in rheumatologic manifestation of immunotherapy in cancer patients and identifying and filling gaps in care of patients with osteoporosis.
Inés Colmega, Basic Science Lead
Associate Professor, Division of Rheumatology, Department of Medicine, McGill University
Scientist, Research Institute – McGill University Health Sciences
Infectious Diseases and Immunity in Global Health Program
Centre for Translational Biology
Ines Colmegna, MD, is a clinician scientist at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) and the Division of Rheumatology – Department of Medicine of the MUHC. She is an Associate Professor at McGill and holds a Chercheur-Boursier Senior salary award from the Fonds de recherche Sante Quebec. Her group studies the role of stem and progenitor cells in autoimmune diseases. Her clinical passion is to contribute to improving the quality of life of people living with rheumatoid arthritis. She is involved in National and International initiatives that relate to this disease.
Janet Roberts, Committee Chair, Knowledge Translation Committee
Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Dalhousie University
Dr. Janet Roberts completed her medical degree at Memorial University in Newfoundland. She then moved west to pursue a residency in internal medicine and rheumatology at the University of Alberta. She joined the faculty of medicine at Dalhousie University, Halifax in August 2018 as an assistant professor in the division of Rheumatology. She is a founding member of the Canadian Research Group of Rheumatology in Immuno-Oncology (CanRIO) and has a research interest in immune related adverse events that involve the musculoskeletal system.
Sabrina Hoa, Junior Investigator
Assistant Professor, Université de Montréal Rheumatologist, Centre Hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal Clinical researcher, CHUM Research Centre
Dr. Hoa completed a post-doctoral fellowship in scleroderma and a Masters of Epidemiology at McGill University. She has an interest in the intersection between cancer and autoimmunity and joined the CanRIO group in October 2018. She contributed to the national multi-center retrospective cohort of patients with rheumatic immune-related adverse events associated with cancer immunotherapy. She is currently working on publishing a case series of CanRIO patients with preexisting autoimmune diseases who received cancer immunotherapy.
Aurore Fifi-Mah, Industry Liaison
Clinical Associate Professor, Rheumatology Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Rheumatology, South Health Campus, University of Calgary
Dr. Fifi-Mah is a Rheumatologist and a Clinical Associate Professor at the University of Calgary. She initially trained as a rheumatologist in the hospitals of Paris, France, then worked as a clinical assistant in the Rheumatology and Internal Medicine division at the teaching hospitals of Martinique and Guadeloupe in the French West Indies before moving to Calgary. She has an interest in vasculitis and complex auto-immune/inflammatory diseases. She has established a vasculitis clinic in Calgary and is a core member of CanVasc, the Canadian network for vasculitis. She is also a collaborator in the neuro-immunology clinic and the ILD clinic at the South Health Campus in Calgary. She is a core member of CanRIO.
Janet Pope, Committee Chair, Training Committee
Division Head Rheumatology, St. Joseph’s Health Care, University of Western Ontario
Dr. Janet Pope is a Professor of Medicine and head of the Division of Rheumatology at the University of Western Ontario (UWO), Schulich School of Medicine, London, Ontario, Canada. She has published over 500 peer-reviewed articles and mentored more than 125 trainees. Research expertise includes scleroderma, SLE and RA. She has been inducted into the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.
Megan Himmel, Knowledge Translation Committee
Rheumatologist, University Health Network and Sinai Health System, University of Toronto, Ontario
Dr. Megan Himmel is a Rheumatologist at the University Health Network and Sinai Health System in Toronto, Ontario where she co-leads the Rheumatology Immuno-Oncology Clinic. She holds a PhD in Immunology and has a special interest in rheumatic immune related adverse events as well as Immunology education.
Faiza Khokhar, Knowledge Translation Committee
Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, McMaster University
Dr. Faiza Khokhar is a Rheumatologist at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Hamilton, Ontario, and an Assistant Professor in Medicine at McMaster University. She has an interest in medical education and rheumatologic immune mediated adverse events associated with immunotherapy in oncology.