2009 - 2011
2008 - 2010
Alumni
Gudrun Aubertin
Gudrun grew up in Vancouver and attended the University of Victoria for two years prior to completing her undergraduate degree in biopsychology at the University of British Columbia. Following some time spent in research related to patient’s perspectives on HIV and hereditary breast cancer, she pursued a Master’s degree in genetic counseling at McGill University. Gudrun went on to attend medical school at the University of British Columbia and graduated in 2003. She is currently in the fourth year of her residency in Medical Genetics, and has been awarded a Rising Researcher award from the Canadian Child Health Clinician Scientist Program (CCHCSP) to enable her to prepare for a career as a clinician scientist. Gudrun plans to study the behavioural phenotype of individuals with the Fragile X premutation, working under the mentorship of Dr Stephanie Sherman in Atlanta, Georgia. She will enroll in the Master of Science in Clinical Research program at Emory University, and her two-year research fellowship is anticipated to begin in July 2008.
Rebecca Deyell
Rebecca was born in England but grew up in St. Albert, Alberta. She completed her undergraduate studies in cell biology and her medical degree at the University of Alberta. She moved to Calgary for general pediatrics residency and completed her tour of the west with fellowship at BC Children’s Hospital in pediatric hematology and oncology. Involvement in the CIP will allow her to pursue her research interests in the area of childhood cancer survivorship. She plans to conduct a population based retrospective cohort study of mental health outcomes in survivors of childhood cancer. This research will be supported by the Childhood, Adolescent and Young Adult Cancer Survivorship Research Program (CAYACS) based at the BC Cancer Agency and she will benefit from the mentorship of Drs. Jean-Paul Collet, Mary McBride and Rod Rassekh. She plans to complete a Masters of Health Science at UBC during her time with the CIP. Rebecca is also a proud new mum to her baby girl, Alice!
Cheng Han-Lee
Born in Taiwan and grew up in Canada since the age of 15, Cheng-Han completed his BSc (Pharmacology) and MD-PhD degrees (in the field of cell physiology and intracellular signalling) at UBC. He is currently in the final year of residency training in Anatomical Pathology at UBC. He is a proud new father of baby boy Ethan. His strong research interest led him to pursue a year of research fellowship at Stanford University in tumor genomics in the field of mesenchymal tumors and ovarian carcinomas during his residency training (PGY-3). He has continued his research on leiomyosarcomas and ovarian carcinomas with Dr. T.O. Nielsen, Dr. C.B. Gilks and Dr. D. Huntsman from GPEC/CTAG since his return to Vancouver. With the CIP funding, Cheng-Han look forward to expand his research work in mesenchymal tumor biology under the supervision of Dr. Jonathan Fletcher at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston in 2009-2011.
Aman Nijjar
Born in New Delhi, raised in California, Aman is in the process of adopting Canada as her third homeland. But prior to her move, Aman completed her undergraduate studies at George Washington University in Washington, DC, and graduated with degrees in biology and history. After working as an intern for Senator Edward Kennedy’s Health Policy Office, she pursued her interest in public health by completing a Master’s in Public Health from University of California, Berkeley. Her initial interests were in infectious disease epidemiology and she worked for the HIV Epidemiology Program in the Los Angeles County Department of Health. Medical school followed at U.C. Irvine with a subsequent residency in internal medicine at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center in San Jose, California. After marrying a Vancouver native, she moved to the Lower Mainland and finished her PGY-4 year at UBC. This extension of her training led to a renewed interest in research. Now with the support of CIP and the Division of General Internal Medicine, Aman will be focusing on the impact of ethnicity on cardiovascular outcomes. Under the guidance of Dr. Nadia Khan, Aman will be exploring the drug adherence patterns of Chinese, South Asian, and White patients with hypertension and the effect on incidence of stroke. This will lead to further research into the factors that influence drug adherence in the locally diverse population.
Jane Ng
After completing undergraduate physiology and medicine at McGill University, I was drawn to British Columbia by the many collaborating centres conducting leading research in the health of isolated populations. I feel fortunate to have this chance to pursue graduate studies through the CIP. I am excited to collaborate with experts in biology, genetics, psychology, and public health to better understand the determinants of socially partitioned diseases.
Daniel Renouf
Dan was born in Toronto and grew up in Edmonton. He obtained an undergraduate degree in molecular genetics and his medical degree from the University of Alberta. He then went on to train in internal medicine at the University of British Columbia and will be completing his medical oncology training at the British Columbia Cancer Agency in June 2009.
With the support of CIP, over the next 2 years Dan will be pursuing further training in oncology drug development at the Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto. He will also be working towards a Masters of Public Health from Harvard University’s School of Public Health.
Dan’s research interests include new drug therapy for gastrointestinal cancers such as colorectal and pancreatic cancer. He is also interested in cancer prevention and the relationship between exercise and cancer.
Outside of medicine Dan enjoys road biking, tennis, running, and hockey.
Chris Ryerson
Chris Ryerson grew up near Ottawa and attended Queen's University for his undergraduate degree. Following medical school in London, Ontario Chris moved to Vancouver where he has now completed his Internal Medicine training at the University of British Columbia. During his time at UBC Chris became interested in Respiratory Medicine and is completing his respiratory training with plans to pursue further subspecialty training in interstitial lung disease at the University of California at San Francisco. Chris will be spending two years in San Francisco and will concurrently be completing a Training in Clinical Research Masters Program at UCSF. Chris has two major research interests that will be explored at UCSF. The first is the cardiopulmonary interactions of interstitial lung disease and the factors that lead to the development of pulmonary hypertension in ILD. Second is the determinants of quality of life in chronic fibrosing forms of interstitial lung disease. Chris is being supported by the Clinical Investigator Program and with a BC Lung Association Research Scholarship.
Cherry Mammen
Asking where Cherry is from is a bit of a tricky question. He was born in India, but lived in England for most of his first 5 years of life. His family then moved to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia for the next 9 years and following that chapter, decided to move to slightly cooler temperatures in Newfoundland, Canada, where his parents currently reside. After moving to Canada in 1992, Cherry attended King's Edgehill (boarding school) near Halifax, Nova Scotia for his high school years. His undergraduate degree was in Kinesiology at Dalhousie University before going back to the "Rock" (nickname for Newfoundland) for medical school at Memorial University. Following his father's footsteps, Cherry pursued a residency in general pediatrics in St. John's, Newfoundland and transferred to the UBC Pediatrics program for his third year of residency following his beautiful wife, Anoo, across the continent to the land of sushi and rain. He is now finishing his clinical training in pediatric nephrology at BC Children's Hospital, and is excited to start his research fellowship with the UBC Clinical Investigator Program along with a Master's of Health Science at UBC. He is also proud to be the first "Indo-Newf" to be accepted into the CIP program! Cherry's research project involves examining the long term renal outcome of acute kidney injury in the pediatric ICU through a longitudinal cohort study under the guidance of Dr. Jean-Paul Collet and Dr. Douglas Matsell. His other research interest lies in the field of pediatric hemodialysis adequacy. Cherry is looking forward to being a part of the CIP family for the next two years in his quest of becoming a well-trained clinician-scientist.
David Hui
Made in England, David moved to Vancouver as a teenager. He completed
his BSc (Biochem), MSc (Biochem), and MD at UBC, followed by an internal
medicine residency at the University of Alberta.
David has a strong affinity to anything and anyone oncology-related (hint hint: he was born in July). Currently, he is completing his medical
oncology fellowship at the BC Cancer Agency. With the support of CIP,
David will embark on a 2 year clinical research fellowship under the
guidance of Dr. Bruera at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center starting July
2008. His research interest is supportive and palliative oncology, with
a particular focus on clinical
trials research in patients with advanced
cancer.
David is the author/editor of two medical books that are currently
circulating across Canada. He enjoys reading about anything but
medicine, including history, mythology, arts and religion. He also
loves juggling, although medicine has prevented him from joining the
circus. He has a black belt in Karate, and enjoys applying this skill
on watermelons.
Natalie Shiff
Originally from Toronto, Natalie completed her undergraduate degree at the University of British Columbia, following which she attended medical school at the University of Calgary and residency in Pediatrics at Memorial University in Newfoundland. Natalie is currently a Pediatric Rheumatology subspecialty resident at BC Children’s Hospital. Her research project will examine corticosteroid related changes in body mass index in children and adolescents with rheumatic diseases, and is an ancillary study to the Steroid Induced Osteoporosis in the Pediatric Population Canadian Incidence Study. Her research will be conducted under the guidance of Dr. Jaime Guzman, Dr. David Cabral, and Dr. Jean-Paul Collett. She is also looking forward to completing a Master’s of Health Science at UBC.
Caroline Chung
Caroline completed her Bachelors of Science in Biochemistry and Medical Degree at the University of British Columbia. During her residency in Radiation Oncology at the BC Cancer Agency, she developed a strong interest in molecular oncology and the application of targeted therapies in radiation medicine. She is currently the chief fellow in Radiation Oncology at Princess Margaret Hospital and is completing a research fellowship focused on combining new targeted agents with radiation and evaluating response with potential early biomarkers. With the support of CIP, she is concurrently pursuing a Masters degree at the Institute of Medical Science at the University of Toronto. Her current research includes preclinical studies to evaluate potential biomarkers of response to tyrosine kinase inhibitors and radiation in intracranial xenograft mouse models with the help of project funding through the Rapid Astra-Zeneca & CARO Evaluation of Radiomodifiers (RAZCER) grant.
Gabriela Horvath
Dewi Schrader