We have a highly productive, multi-disciplinary team that includes maternal-fetal medicine specialists, biostatisticians, epidemiologists and data analysts, project managers, and research coordinators.
Team members currently supervising or seeking graduate students are noted.
Administrative Coordinator
Clinical Epidemiology Program, Ottawa Hospital research Institute
Faith is from Nigeria and has a master’s degree in Environmental Management and a bachelor’s degree in Microbiology from the University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria. She is fluent in English and has vast experience in Environmental Project Management. She has led several multi-dimensional international projects on environmental pollution abatement in Nigeria.
With a drive to develop and improve processes to be more efficient and a keen interest in details, Faith joined the OMNI Research Group in 2023 as a Research Administrative Assistant.
Senior Clinical Research Associate and Assistant Professor
BORN Ontario, Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO)
CHEO Research Institute
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Ottawa
School of Epidemiology and Public Health, University of Ottawa
Clinical Epidemiology Program, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute
Dr. Corsi is an early-career researcher. He completed his PhD in Health Research Methodology at McMaster and a postdoctoral fellowship at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. As part of the OMNI research group, he is developing a ground-breaking research program on modifiable perinatal exposures and their impact on children’s neurodevelopment.
Dr. Corsi has established an internationally recognized research program on substance use in pregnancy and its effects on mothers and infants. Thus far, he has achieved several high-impact publications in JAMA and Nature Medicine. Dr. Corsi and the OMNI team have received more than $1.5 million in CIHR funding and currently have a team grant on cannabis in pregnancy (Corsi PI). This research is made possible by the BORN Ontario registry, an exceptionally robust and powerful perinatal registry with more than 1 million mother-baby dyads.
*Dr. Corsi is currently supervising/seeking graduate students at the University of Ottawa
Data Analyst
Clinical Epidemiology Program, Ottawa Hospital research Institute
Sheryll holds a BHS Spec. Hons. in Health Informatics from York University and a MSc in Epidemiology from the University of Ottawa. While completing her graduate studies, she got heavily involved with research projects focused on the safety of Covid-19 vaccines during pregnancy using multiple linked databases. In her role as a data analyst, her research portfolios include cesarean delivery, substance use during pregnancy and gestational diabetes. Her interests include machine learning and data management and visualization in addition to perinatal and pediatric research.
Clinical Research Associate
Clinical Epidemiology Program, Ottawa Hospital research Institute
Robin received her Master of Science (MSc) in Epidemiology from the University of Ottawa in 2014. She garnered several years of research coordination experience both before and after her graduate studies. After the completion her graduate studies, Robin worked as a Methodologist at the Ottawa satellite of ICES for 5 years. She has developed expertise in a broad range of analytical methods in epidemiology and biostatistics, as well as expertise in a variety of research skills ranging from project management and coordination to large data manipulation and analysis. She has a particular research interest in maternal and newborn health.
Senior Clinical Research Associate and Adjunct Professor
BORN Ontario, Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO)
CHEO Research Institute
School of Nursing, University of Ottawa
Clinical Epidemiology Program, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute
Sandra earned her Bachelor of Nursing Science degree at Queens University, her Master of Education, and Master Science in Nursing degrees, and her Doctorate in Nursing at the University of Ottawa. In her role as Knowledge Translation Specialist for the Better Outcomes Registry & Network (BORN Ontario) she was involved in the development and implementation of an audit and feedback system (the Maternal Newborn Dashboard) designed to facilitate use of BORN data for quality improvement in hospitals providing maternal newborn care.
In addition to her current role as Senior Clinical Research Associate at OMNI, Sandra works with the IKTRN group at OHRI. She is also collaborating with an international group of clinical and knowledge translation experts to develop an Implementation Toolkit to support uptake of the WHO 2018 Intrapartum Care Guidelines. Sandra has an Adjunct affiliation with the School of Nursing, University of Ottawa. She has been involved in a number of research projects and published on topics related to: interprofessional shared decision making, decision coaching, breastfeeding, newborn pain management, shared decision making during antenatal counselling for extreme preterm birth, data quality assessment, clinical dashboard development and use of audit and feedback for quality improvement in hospital settings.
Clinical Research Coordinator
Clinical Epidemiology Program, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute
Kimberly holds a Master of Arts in Applied Health Science (Brock University 2009) and Honours Bachelor of Kinesiology (Brock University 2007). Kimberly has extensive experience in the research environment working as a clinical research coordinator (University of Ottawa, Faculty of Health Science), and a research coordinator and research assistant (Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute in the Healthy Active Living and Obesity research group). Ms. Grattan’s most recent role was at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute as a project manager in the Department of Cardiac Prevention and Rehabilitation, Ottawa Model for Smoking Cessation.
Notable projects that Kimberly managed prior to joining the OMNI group, was SmartMoms-Canada (PHAC), an app-based pregnancy intervention aimed at improving the health of both mother and baby by adhering to recommended gestational weight gain guidelines and the Activity Begins in Childhood trial (CIHR), a RCT examining the role of a physical activity daycare intervention on health outcomes in preschool-aged children.
Kimberly is passionate about health promotion and motivation for healthy lifestyle behaviours. She is mother to Alice, her active toddler and is proudly contributing to the health and wellness of women and children through coordinating various research projects for OMNI.
Adjunct Professor and Affiliate OMNI Investigator
BORN Ontario, Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO)
Clinical Epidemiology Program, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute
School of Epidemiology and Public Health, University of Ottawa
Dr. Guo is an epidemiologist with extensive experience using large health administrative databases for pediatric and perinatal research. Her research interests are in the short- and long-term maternal and child outcomes relative to perinatal exposures, in particular with regard to obesity, gestational weight gain and gestational diabetes.
Senior Scientist and Associate Professor
Clinical Epidemiology Program, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute
School of Epidemiology and Public Health, University of Ottawa
Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute
Adjunct Scientist, ICES
Dr. Hawken completed a Master of Science in Applied Statistics at the University of Guelph in 2001 and a PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Ottawa in 2015. He has nearly 20 years of experience working in the fields of biostatistics and epidemiology. As the Scientific Lead for Big Data analytics within the Ottawa Methods Centre, he provides methodological and statistical guidance to other researchers within the OHRI and The Ottawa Hospital.
He is currently working on a variety of projects in the areas of newborn screening metabolomics, maternal-newborn and pediatric epidemiology, and is serving as the lead Biostatistician and a Co-Investigator for a global preterm birth research program funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
*Dr. Hawken is currently supervising/seeking graduate students at the University of Ottawa
Senior Clinical Research Associate and Assistant Professor
Clinical Epidemiology Program, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Ottawa
Dr Muldoon is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Ottawa, a Senior Research Associate at OHRI, and collaborating researcher at ICES.
She specializes in social epidemiology with content expertise in sexual and gender-based violence, sexual reproductive health, and sex and gender-based analyses. She has a PhD in Epidemiology from UBC, Masters in Public Health from Simon Fraser University, a BSc in Psychology from McGill University and completed a Post-doctoral Fellowship at Columbia University with the Mailman School of Public Health. She has worked as a consultant with the United Nations, sits on the Ottawa Police Service Violence Against Women Advisory Board, and is a Content Expert with PHAC on gender-based violence.
Senior Clinical Research Associate
Clinical Epidemiology Program, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute
Malia has a PhD in Anatomy and Cell Biology from Queen’s University and completed a post-doctoral fellowship in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Kingston Health Science Research Centre. Her graduate and post-doctoral research focused on hypertensive disorders of pregnancy and women’s cardiovascular health, and involved supporting research initiatives conducted through the Postpartum Maternal Health Clinic; a clinic designed to support cardiovascular screening and education of women who have experienced hypertensive or metabolic complications in pregnancy.
Before joining the OMNI team in April 2019, Malia was the Academic Program Lead for The Ottawa Hospital mHealth Lab where she managed several maternal-child big data and global health innovation projects funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. At OMNI, Malia is heavily involved in the Substance use, COVID-19, and C-section research portfolios among others. In her role, she contributes to study conceptualization and development, scientific writing of manuscripts and research funding applications, and overseeing the patient partner program.
Clinical Research Coordinator
Clinical Epidemiology Program, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute
Serine graduated from Carleton University with a Master’s degree in Chemistry with a concentration in Food Science in December 2020, where she specialized in food chemistry and microbiology research.
Upon graduation, Serine was hired at Carleton University to teach the first year course: “Introduction to Food Science”. She also recently joined the OMNI team in early 2021 and she is excited to pursue a research career in maternal and fetal health.
Clinical Research Assistant
Clinical Epidemiology Program, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute
Sara has a Master’s degree in Human Kinetics from University of Ottawa (2021). During her graduate studies, Sara was involved in different research projects focused on pregnancy, gestational weight gain, and lifestyle. Combined, her research has contributed to identify and target potential factors associated with discordant gestational weight gain and healthy behaviours.
Prior to coming to Canada for her MSc, Sara received her Medical Degree from State University of Londrina, Brazil (2018). At OMNI, Sara seeks opportunities for growth and is eager to learn more to be able to contribute to the best of her abilities to advancing the work at hand.
Clinical Research Assistant
Clinical Epidemiology Program, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute
Karishma graduated from the University of Ottawa with Honors Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Sciences. During her studies, Karishma was involved in various research projects focused on renal health and COVID-19, while also holding previous employment and volunteer work in maternal and fetal health.
With a background in communications and interest in medicine, Karishma joined the OMNI team upon graduation. At OMNI, Karishma is involved in the Substance Use in Pregnancy research program and contributes heavily to knowledge translation initiatives. Karishma is excited to be at OMNI, and the opportunities for growth and learning.
Clinical Research Nurse
Clinical Epidemiology Program, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute
Brett Aston is originally from Southwestern Ontario. However, she received her Master’s of Science in Nursing at the University of Ottawa in 2021. During graduate school, she studied substance use in pregnancy and nurse-patient therapeutic relationships. Brett has also worked as a Registered Nurse since 2017. She has practiced in Neonatal Intensive Care Units in both London and Ottawa, Ontario.
Brett joined the OMNI team as a Clinical Research Nurse. Within this role, she assists in participant recruitment, research coordination, and sample collection. Brett is excited to use her clinical experience to facilitate Maternal/Newborn research and advance her career within the OMNI research group.
