Robert Hogg

PhD
Director, SIRCH
Professor, Faculty of Health Sciences, Simon Fraser University
Senior Scientist, BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS

Research Areas

• The health status of persons with HIV/AIDS
• Current treatment and management practices for persons with HIV/AIDS
• The health status of marginalized populations
• The health status of indigenous peoples

Biography

Robert Hogg is a Professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University and Senior Research Scientist at the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS. His academic training includes graduate degrees in Anthropology from the University of Victoria (Victoria, BC, Canada) and in Demography from the Australian National University (Canberra, ACT, Australia).

Robert Hogg has established a national and international reputation in population health research with emphasis on HIV/AIDS, antiretroviral therapy, and marginalized populations. He has published extensively and received  support from the National Health Research Development Program (1995 to 2000), Canadian Institutes of Health (2001 to 2022), and Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research (2001 to 2006).

Dr. Hogg has developed three independent lines of research that uniquely integrate anthropology, demography and epidemiology. He hopes his work will continue to positively impact those living with HIV in Canada and elsewhere.

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Surita Parashar

PhD
Research Scientist, BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS
Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Health Sciences, Simon Fraser University

Research Areas

• Social determinants of health
• Housing and homelessness
• Mixed methods research
• Community based approaches to HIV research 

Surita Parashar coordinates 'At Home At Howe Street', an evaluation of a supportive housing intervention for people living with HIV. This prospective cohort study, conducted in partnership with McLaren Housing Society of BC and funded through a CIHR Population Health Intervention Research grant, investigates the impact of a supportive housing complex on the health of individuals and families affected by HIV. 

This study stemmed from Surita's doctoral research at Simon Fraser University's Faculty of Health Sciences, a community based initiative entitled, “The way I see it: a photographic exploration of housing and health among persons living with HIV in Vancouver.” Surita contributes to a number of other studies within the Division of Epidemiology and Population Health including the Dr. Peter Study, the Engage Study and the Longitudinal Investigations into Supportive and Ancillary Health Services (LISA) project.

Please click here for more information on Dr. Parashar's research. 

Mark Brockman

Associate Professor, Faculty of Health Sciences
Canada Research Chair Tier II in Viral Pathogenesis and Immunity

Research Interests

• Molecular and cellular biology
• Virology
• Pathogenesis, and the host immune response to HIV
• Population-level analyses of HIV epidemic

Biography

Dr. Mark Brockman received his PhD in Virology from Harvard University in 2001. He completed postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital.  In 2007, he was appointed as Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School.  Dr. Brockman arrived at SFU inSeptember 2009 as Associate Professor in the Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, and he joined the Faculty of Health Sciences in September 2011.

Dr. Brockman is also an active member of theCanadian HIV Cure Enterprise (CanCURE).

The Brockman laboratory uses molecular and cellular biology approaches to investigate questions at the interface of virology, pathogenesis, and the host immune response to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).  Current studies focus on understanding the impact of HIV immune escape mutations on cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) recognition and on viral protein function; measuring the ability of T cell receptors (TCR) to recognize HIV-infected cell targets; and assessing the relevance of viral tropism and cellular compartmentalization on disease progression.  The laboratory has developed in vitro strategies to examine HIV protein function and host T cell activity, allowing unique population-level analyses of this epidemic that may assist in the development of a vaccine against HIV/AIDS.

Dr. Brockman has published a career total of 42 peer-reviewed manuscripts in the fields of Virology and Immunology.

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Zabrina Brumme

PhD
Associate Professor, Faculty of Health Sciences, Simon Fraser University
CIHR New Investigator, MSFHR Scholar

Research Interests

• Molecular biology, epidemiology and computational approaches to study HIV evolution in response to selection pressures imposed by the human cellular immune response.

Biography

Zabrina Brumme received her Ph.D. in Experimental Medicine in 2006 from the University of British Columbia.   She then went on to complete a post-doctoral fellowship at the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard University (formerly known as the Partners AIDS Research Center), in Boston, Massachusetts.  She joined SFU FHS as Assistant Professor, Molecular Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases, in September 2009.

Dr. Brumme’s current research integrates molecular biology, epidemiology and computational approaches to study HIV evolution in response to selection pressures imposed by the human cellular immune response.  One of the greatest challenges to HIV vaccine design is the virus’ capacity to evade immune recognition through rapid mutation, a process called “immune escape”.  Through the analysis of population-based cohorts of HIV-infected individuals in Canada and worldwide, Dr. Brumme has helped to create “maps” of the HIV genome that systematically identify specific sites and pathways of immune escape in viral proteins.  Dr. Brumme is also interested in studying how human immune selection pressures have shaped HIV evolution over the course of the epidemic, and the implications of this on vaccine design.  Most recently, Dr. Brumme’s work has focused on assessing the consequences of immune escape mutations to HIV replication and viral protein function.

Please click here for more information on Dr. Brumme's research. 

Kora DeBeck

PhD
Research Scientist, BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS
Assistant Professor, School of Public Policy, Simon Fraser University
CIHR New Investigator  
MSFHR/St. Paul's Hospital Foundation - PHCRI Career Scholar

Research Areas

• Substance Use among Vulnerable Youth
• Drug use trajectories among vulnerable youth
• Structural interventions to reduce risks and harms for people who use illicit drugs
• Access, engagement, and outcomes associated with substance use treatment among vulnerable youth who use illicit drug
• Non-medical prescription opioid use trends and impacts among vulnerable youth 
• Knowledge translation and exchange 

Biography

Kora DeBeck is an Assistant Professor in the School of Public Policy and a Research Scientist with the Urban Health Research Initiative (UHRI) at the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS.  She holds a Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research/St. Paul's Hospital Foundation-PHCRI Career Scholar Award and a Canadian Institutes of Health Research New Investigator Award. Kora is also the Principal Investigator for the At-Risk Youth Study (ARYS). ARYS is a longitudinal cohort study of street-involved youth in Vancouver that began in 2005 and is funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the US National Institutes for Health Research.

Her research interests involve informing and evaluating health and policy interventions to reduce health and social harms among vulnerable drug using populations. She has published in many areas of urban health and addiction including: initiation into injection drug use, addiction treatment, illicit drug policy, drug law enforcement, supervised drug consumption, low-threshold income generation, and emerging risks for HIV among people who inject drugs.

Prior to joining the School of Public Policy in 2013, Kora was a CIHR funded post-doctoral fellow with the Division of AIDS in the Department of Medicine at UBC and the Centre for Public Health and Human Rights at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She holds a PhD in Interdisciplinary Studies from UBC (2010) and is an MPP alumni (2006).  

Please click here for more information on Dr. DeBeck's research. 

Shira Goldenberg

PhD
Assistant Professor, Simon Fraser University Faculty of Health Sciences
Research Scientist, Gender and Sexual Health Initiative, BC CfE

Research Areas

• Key populations,
• HIV/STI prevention,
• Women
• Global health
• Structural interventions

Shira Goldenberg is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University and a Research Scientist with the Gender & Sexual Health Initiative of the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS. With the support of a prestigious Fulbright award, Dr. Goldenberg received her PhD in Public Health at the University of California, San Diego and San Diego State University, where she specialized in global health.

Dr. Goldenberg’s research aims to improve sexual health and access to healthcare for marginalized populations, including migrants, sex workers, and women living with HIV in Canada, Latin America, and other international settings.

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Naveed Gulzar

PhD
University Research Associate, Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, SFU

Research Areas

• Vaccine design
• Broadly neutralizing antibodies
• HIV/HCV co-infection

Biography

Dr. Naveed Gulzar is currently a University Research Associate in the Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry at Simon Fraser University (SFU). Dr. Gulzar received his doctorate degree in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of Ottawa (2008), where he examined the susceptibility of T-cell populations to HIV infection. He joined the Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry at SFU as a post-doctoral fellow (2009), developing novel vaccine strategies to elicit protective, neutralizing antibodies that target the HIV envelope protein; he was a recipient of a MSFHR fellowship.

Dr. Gulzar’s current research interests lie at the intersection of molecular virology and immunology, studying the complex interplay between host immune responses and viral pathogenesis in chronic infections (i.e. HIV, HCV). A lack of understanding of the host immune response in a co-infection setting has hampered our ability to successfully develop treatment strategies. His research examines the development of the neutralizing antibody response in HIV/HCV co-infected individuals. Dr. Gulzar is also currently examining study populations in concentrated HIV epidemics, to the feasibility of developing a vaccine (or set of) that targets viruses that are genetically similar. Such studies will have a profound impact upon the advancement of preventative and therapeutic strategies to manage chronic viral diseases.

Please click here for more information on Dr. Gulzar's research. 

Angela Kaida

PhD
Associate Professor, Faculty of Health Sciences,
Canada Research Chair Tier II in Global Perspectives in HIV and Sexual and Reproductive Health

Research Interests

• Access to HIV treatment and prevention services
• Sexual and reproductive health in the context of HIV
• Women, men, and youth living with or affected by HIV

Biography

Dr. Angela Kaida is a global health epidemiologist interested in the linkages between HIV and sexual and reproductive health. She received her PhD in 2010 from the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia (UBC). She then completed a brief post-doctoral fellowship jointly at the Women’s Health Research Institute at BC Women’s Hospital and the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at UBC. In addition to her academic training, Dr. Kaida has substantial experience as a public health practitioner, having worked with the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), the Alberta Ministry of Health and Wellness, and the Public Health Division of the Capital Health Authority. Dr. Kaida joined the Faculty of Health Sciences as an Assistant Professor in September 2010. She commenced her Canada Research Chair in January 2012.

Please click here for more information on Dr. Kaida's  research.

Cari Miller

PhD
Associate Professor, Faculty of Health Sciences, Simon Fraser University 

Research Interests

• HIV prevention and treatment
• Vulnerable youth
• Addiction
• Gender
• Interdisciplinary HIV research
• Translational research that informs the public health policy agenda.

Biography

Dr. Cari Miller joined the Faculty of Health Sciences in September, 2008.  Since completing a BA in political science from Carleton University in 1999, Cari completed an interdisciplinary MSc in 2002 and a PhD in 2006 from the University of British Columbia. She has over 30 peer reviewed publications and has received funding from the Canadian Institutes for Health Research and the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research. Her research uses mixed methodologies to explore young people’s HIV, sexual and reproductive health with a particular focus on young women. Cari has worked at the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS from 2000 – 2006 with the Vancouver Injection Drug Users Study (VIDUS), the Drug Treatment Program and the At Risk Youth Study (ARYS).  Her two main research focuses are an international collaboration exploring HIV prevention among adolescents in Soweto, South Africa and a national collaboration looking at risk and resiliency among young Aboriginal people across the province of BC.    

Please click here for more information on Dr. Miller's research.        

Bohdan Nosyk

PhD
Associate Professor, Faculty of Health Sciences, Simon Fraser University
St. Paul's Hospital CANFAR Chair in HIV/AIDS Research

Research Interests

• Health economic evaluation and statistical and mathematical modeling in substance abuse and HIV/AIDS
• Health policy in illicit drug dependence and treatment
• The treatment and prevention of HIV/AIDS and Viral Hepatitis

Biography

Dr. Nosyk was appointed as Associate Professor and Endowed Chair, Economics of HIV/AIDS at the SFU Faculty of Health Sciences in February 2013. Dr. Nosyk holds a Master’s degree in Economics and a doctorate in public health, with a concentration in health economics, both from the University of British Columbia.  He previously served as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles and remains a Research Scientist at the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS and Adjunct Scientist at the UCLA Integrated Substance Abuse Programs.  He currently holds a Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Scholar Award.   

Please click here for more information on Dr. Nosyk's research. 

Ralph Pantophlet

PhD
Associate Professor, Faculty of Health Sciences

Research Areas

• Broadly neutralizing antibodies & vaccine design 

Dr. Pantophlet is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences and an Associate Faculty member of the Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry. Dr. Pantophlet joined the Faculty of Health Sciences in 2008 and heads the Laboratory of Infectious Diseases Immunology.

Dr. Pantophlet received his B.Sc. degree in medical microbiology from the Hogeschool Rotterdam & Omstreken (The Netherlands) (1995) and his Ph.D. degree from the University of Leiden (The Netherlands) (1999) for his work on the immunochemical properties of Acinetobacter lipopolysaccharides (performed at the Research Center Borstel, Germany). He moved to The Scripps Research Institute in California (2000) for postdoctoral research on anti-HIV antibodies and vaccine design under the mentorship of Dr. Dennis Burton. Dr. Pantophlet returned to the Research Center Borstel for a brief postdoctoral period (2002) and then rejoined the Burton laboratory as a senior postdoctoral fellow to focus on HIV vaccine design (2003).

Research work in Dr. Pantophlet's laboratory is focused on investigating antibody responses to HIV and other viruses of biomedical interest, particularly in the context of host-virus interactions and anti-viral antibody responses.

Please click here for more information on Dr. Pantophlet's research. 

Hasina Samji

PhD
Lecturer, Faculty of Health Sciences, Simon Fraser University
CIHR New Investigator, MSFHR Fellow

Research Areas

Epidemiology; biostatistics; infectious diseases; implementation science methods; marginalized populations; health services provision; global health; health innovation.

Biography

Dr. Hasina Samji is an infectious disease epidemiologist. She received her Ph.D. from the Department of Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where she also undertook Masters’ training. She has worked with a number of local and national organizations, including the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, Health Canada’s First Nations and Inuit Health Branch, and the BC Centre for Disease Control.

Her research examines barriers to access to care for marginalized populations. She received a New Investigator Award from the Canadian Association for HIV Research in 2011 and a Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2015. She joined the Faculty of Health Sciences in 2015 as a Lecturer.

Please click here for more information on Dr. Samji's research. 

Jamie K Scott

MD, PhD
Professor, SFU Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry and Faculty of Health Sciences
Canada Research Chair Tier 1 in Molecular Immunity

Research Areas

• Molecular basis for antigen recognition by antibodies 
• Vaccine design

Biography 

Professor Jamie K. Scott holds joint appointments between the Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry and the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, BC, Canada.

Professor Scott received her Ph.D. from the University of Missouri-Columbia in 1985 (Cell & Molecular Biology) and her M.D. from St. Louis University in 1989.  Her postdoctoral training was at the University of Missouri-Columbia in the lab of George P. Smith, the inventor of phage display, and at The Scripps Research Institute in the laboratories of John Tainer and Elizabeth Getzoff.  In 1993, she was recruited to Simon Fraser University as an Assistant Professor.

Dr. Scott was awarded a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Molecular Immunity in 2004.  She was a member of the Canadian Bacterial Diseases Network of Excellence and the Biotechnology Review Committee of the Science Council of B.C., and has served on a number of review committees for NIAID, NCI and IAVI. Her research has been supported by the NIH, Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and the Natural Sciences & Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).

Dr. Scott’s research career has centered on the study of antibody function, structure and genetics, and more recently, the cellular and genetic bases of the antibody response.

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William Small

PhD
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Health Sciences, Simon Fraser University
Research Scientist, BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS

Research Areas

• Applied social science research examining the implementation and effectiveness of HIV prevention among PWUD
• Application of qualitative methods in multidisciplinary collaborations to develop an ethno-epidemiological approach
• Knowledge transfer activities involving stakeholders to inform public health programs

Dr. Small received his doctorate from the Interdisciplinary Studies Graduate Program at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in 2010. He then completed two and a half years of postdoctoral training within the Department of Medicine (Division of AIDS) at UBC and the Australian National Centre for HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research (now the Kirby Institute) at the University of New South Wales. Dr. Small joined the Faculty of Health Sciences at SFU as an Assistant Professor in September 2012. He is also a Research Scientist at the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS. He currently holds a Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Career Investigator Scholar Award.

Dr. Small’s work has applied social science methods to study public health problems among illicit drug users, with a focus on HIV prevention and interventions designed to reduce drug-related harm. His current research program applies ethno-spatial epidemiological methods to examine the impact of social, structural and physical environments on HIV risk behaviour and HIV treatment-related outcomes among illicit drug users. This work employs an interdisciplinary approach integrating ethnographic observational fieldwork, in-depth interviews, and geo-spatial mapping techniques in connection with three prospective epidemiological cohort studies of illicit drug users based in Vancouver. These cohort studies include the At-Risk Youth Study (ARYS) of street-involved drug using youth, the Vancouver Injection Drug User Study (VIDUS) of HIV-negative injection drug users, and the AIDS Care Cohort to Evaluate Access to Survival Services (ACCESS) composed HIV-positive drug users.

Please click here for more information on Dr. Small's research. 

Malcolm Steinberg

MBBCH, DoH, MSc Epid
Clinical Assistant Professor
Director Public Health Practice
Chair MPH Program
Faculty of Health Sciences

Biography

Dr. Steinberg received his MD and post graduate diploma in Occupational Health from the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa and his MSc in Epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Dr. Steinberg has extensive experience in research programme management, health strategy, policy and programme development and evaluation, chronic disease management, public health consulting in Sub-Saharan Africa and South East Asia, and public health teaching. Dr. Steinberg has managed two national health programmes in South Africa (Occupational Health Epidemiology Unit of the National Centre for Occupational Health and the National HIV/AIDS Programme of the Medical Research Council). He also co-founded and led an occupational health NGO to support health and safety programs for the emerging black trade union movement in South Africa and later set up and led an independent health consulting company specialising in HIV/AIDS until it was acquired by Abt Associates. Dr Steinberg moved to Vancouver in 2004 and is currently a Physician Epidemiologist with the Division of STI/HIV Prevention and Control at the BC Centre for Disease Control with a cross appointment in the Health Sciences Faculty at SFU. He is currently involved with two research projects. He is leading a 5-year CIHR study to investigate acute HIV infection in gay men and is a co-principal investigator in a study in Uganda to investigate HPV self collection as a screening approach for cervical cancer.

Please click here for more information on Dr. Steinberg's research. 

Krisztina Vasarhelyi

PhD
The IRMACS Centre - Project Lead, IMPACT-HIV Group
Faculty of Health Sciences - Adjunct Professor
VCH Department of Family and Community Practice - Research Staff

Research Areas

• Collaborative modelling of infectious disease epidemiology
• System dynamics and system thinking
• Operations research for optimizing health service delivery
• Marginalized and underserved populations and jurisdictions
• Policy modelling and analyses

Biography

Krisztina Vasarhelyi received an M.Sc. in Medical Genetics from the University of British Columbia, and a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Zurich, Switzerland and conducted post-doctoral studies with the Population Genetics and Genetic Epidemiology Group at University of Ferrara in Italy. Together with Dr. Robert Hogg, she co-founded IMPACT-HIV in 2008. Krisztina’s research has always been conducted in collaboration with mathematicians and she acquired extensive experience in managing interdisciplinary research collaborations. She has also worked as a consultant on several public health projects. Krisztina’s research ranged from statistical studies of human chromosome abnormalities, population genetic reconstruction of relationships in endangered primate groups, reconstruction of prehistoric demographic processes in Europe and HIV epidemiology and modelling. Krisztina is the project coordinator for the IMPACT-HIV group.

Please click here for more information on Dr. Vasarhelyi's research.