Appointee Biographies

EYAL COHEN

Dr. Eyal Cohen received academic training at the University of Toronto (medicine) and McMaster University (health research methodology), and clinical training at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) and the Children’s Hospital at Westmead in Sydney, Australia. He was a Harkness Fellow in 2015-2016 at Stanford University. Dr. Cohen co-founded the Complex Care Program with his colleagues in the Division of Pediatric Medicine at SickKids. He is currently the Program Head of Child Health Evaluative Sciences at the SickKids Research Institute. Dr. Cohen is a Professor of Pediatrics and Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto where he is also the Co-Director of the Edwin S.H. Leong Centre for Healthy Children.

KELVIN CHAN

Dr. Kelvin Chan is a Medical Oncologist at the Sunnybrooke Odette Cancer Centre, an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto, and an associate scientist at Sunnybrook Research Institute. He has completed both an MSc and a PhD in Biostatistics, and also holds an MSc in Clinical Epidemiology. Dr. Chan’s research interests include health economics, health technology assessment, and real-world evidence. He is the Co-Director at the Canadian Centre for Applied Research in Cancer Control (ARCC), and he is also the Clinical Lead for the Provincial Drug Reimbursement Programs (PDRP) at Ontario Health-Cancer Care Ontario (OH-CCO).

JOANNE HO

Dr. Joanne Ho is the Schlegel Chair in Geriatric Pharmacotherapy and Associate Professor of medicine, geriatric medicine and clinical pharmacology at McMaster University. She is Founder and Co-Executive Director of GeriMedRisk where she drives innovative solutions to improve medication safety among older adults with multimorbidity and polypharmacy through interdisciplinary clinical consultations, education and research. She obtained her degree in Medicine from University of British Columbia (2005), and at the University of Toronto, received postgraduate training in Internal medicine (2008), Geriatric Medicine (2010), Clinical Pharmacology (2011) and, through the Institute for Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, her Masters of Science (2015). She is Vice-Chair for the examinations committee with the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada for Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology. She is head of service for geriatric medicine for Grand River Hospital and St. Mary’s General Hospital in Kitchener, ON where she provides inpatient geriatric medicine, internal medicine and clinical pharmacology consultation services. She is a consultant geriatrician and clinical pharmacologist with GeriMedRisk, an Ontario Ministry of Health-funded program, which provides interdisciplinary geriatric specialist clinical advice and education to Ontario clinicians who optimize the medications of their older adult patients. GeriMedRisk’s geriatric drug information educational activities include monthly educational rounds with a cumulative international attendance of at least 8800 clinician attendees to date and a knowledge portal available online. In 2022, Dr. Ho was the recipient of the Canadian Geriatrics Society Peter McCracken Physician Innovator in Education Award.

MIRANDA SO

Dr. Miranda So is the Manager of the Antimicrobial Stewardship Program at the University Health Network in Toronto, Ontario. She received her BScPhm and PharmD degrees from the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Toronto, and her Master of Public Health degree in the field of Epidemiology from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard University. Dr. So teaches in the infectious diseases and antimicrobial stewardship curricula in her role as assistant professor (status-only) at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy. She is affiliated with the Toronto General Hospital Research Institute as a clinician-investigator. She also has an academic appointment as a lecturer (honorary-clinical) with the Division of Infectious Diseases, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, University of Melbourne, Australia. Her research interests focus on antimicrobial stewardship in immunocompromised patients, as well as the appropriate use antimicrobial use and population health. Miranda is an active member of the Canadian Society of Hospital Pharmacists, the American Society of Transplantation, the International Society of Heart and Lung Transplantation, and the Society of Healthcare Epidemiology of America.

REBECCA HANCOCK-HOWARD

Rebecca Hancock-Howard is a health economist with experience across the public sector, private sector, and academia. She is an adjunct professor at the University of Toronto's Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, where she teaches economic evaluation methods. She has worked as a consultant in the private sector, bringing her expertise in health technology assessment and market access to projects with local and global pharmaceutical companies, device manufacturers and start-ups. As a senior health economist at the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, she worked closely with policy teams and senior decision-makers on government priorities and strategic initiatives. In her current role at the Accessing Centre for Expertise (ACE), Rebecca brings her extensive consulting and health system expertise to challenges faced by a variety of health system stakeholder project partners. She lives in Toronto with her husband, two sons and a puppy acquired during the COVID pandemic.

MAUREEN SMITH

Maureen Smith, M.Ed., has a long history of collaboration with the healthcare system after a rare disease diagnosis in childhood. She has served as patient member on the Ontario Committee to Evaluate Drugs since 2014 and the Ontario Health Technology Assessment Committee for the past four years. is the Chair of the Cochrane Consumer Network Executive. Maureen has been a board member of the Canadian Organization for Rare Disorders since 2008. She is the Chair of the Cochrane Consumer Network Executive and involved in several Cochrane projects. She is an enthusiastic patient partner in several CIHR funded studies.