RESEARCH TEAM

Dr. Ivan D. Florez is a pediatrician, MSc in Clinical Epidemiology, and a PhD in Health Research Methodology. He is a full Professor at the Department of Paediatrics and co-leader of the UNED (Unit of Evidence and Deliberation for. Decision Making) at the University of Antioquia (Colombia), Pediatrician at the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, Clinica las Americas-AUNA (Both in Medellin, Colombia) and an Adjunct Professor (part-time) at McMaster University (Hamilton, Canada). Dr. Florez is the leader of the AGREE collaboration and Editor-in-Chief of Clinical and Public Health Guidelines (Guidelines International Network official journal), and he is also a member of the GRADE Working Group, Director of Cochrane Colombia, and member of the Cochrane Conflicts of Interest Panel. His research work has focused on knowledge synthesis (systematic reviews and network meta-analysis) to inform decision-making at different levels and in methods for guidelines development, knowledge synthesis, knowledge translation, and paediatrics.

Dr. Scott Halperin is a Professor of Pediatrics and Microbiology & Immunology at Dalhousie University. He is Director of the Canadian Center for Vaccinology and Nominated Principal Investigator of the Canadian Immunization Research Network. He was formerly Co-Principal Investigator of the Immunization Monitoring Program–Active (IMPACT) and a member of the Canadian Association for Immunization Research and Evaluation (CAIRE) Executive Committee. He played a foundational role in the establishment of Canadian collaborative research networks, undertaking evaluative vaccine research that informs public health policy. Dr. Halperin’s area of expertise is pertussis; his research focuses on the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of pertussis and other vaccine-preventable diseases. His team has conducted over 250 clinical trials, including more than 20 phase 1 studies. These trials have included phase 1 and early phase 2 studies of vaccines against SARS-CoV-2, Ebola virus, group A Streptococcus, Bordetella pertussis, influenza, and RSV as well as phase 3 HPV, varicella-zoster, meningococcal B, and hepatitis B studies.

Based on his lived and living experience of chronic and acute illnesses and invisible disability, combined with professional and academic expertise in health communication, Maxime has been sharing his experience of surgery and health research since 2017 in numerous forums. His insights and advice have led to clinical policy changes, the maturation of patient engagement programs, improvements in patient safety and care quality, and more tailored research outcomes. 

Professionally, Maxime is founder and principal consultant of Lê & Co. Health Communication Santé, a bilingual health communications consulting firm located in the heart of Canada's capital. The firm specializes in providing communications services for healthcare organizations and health research teams with an expertise in growing patient partnership programs and converting insights from patient and caregiver partners into action. 

David Moher is a clinical epidemiologist who directs the Centre for Journalology, at the Methodological and Implementation Research Program, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute. He is also a full professor in the School of Epidemiology and Public Health, University of Ottawa. Professor Moher has a long history of working on reporting guidelines. He led the team that developed the initial guidance on how to develop a reporting guideline. Professor Moher led the team that developed SORT considered the first modern reporting guideline (Standards of Reporting Trials; The Standards of Reporting Trials Group. A proposal for structured reporting of randomized controlled trials and subsequently led the team that developed the original CONSORT Statement in 1996. Professor Moher also led the team that developed the original PRISMA Statement and its precursor, QUOROM. The PRISMA Statement is the sixth most cited paper of all time (Van Noorden R. These are the most cited research papers of all time. Nature. 2025 Apr;640(8059):591).

Methodological and Implementation Research, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute

I am a Scientist in the Methodological and Implementation (MIR) program at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute and program lead for the Office for Patient Engagement in Research Activities (OPERA). I work with researchers across specialities to support patient engagement in their research whether it is a systematic review, survey, priority setting exercise, or clinical trial. I have contributed to several projects to improve research practices, including the development of the REporting of Studies Conducted Using Observational Routinely-Collected Health Data (RECORD) guideline and its extension for pharmacoepidemiology studies, RECORD PE. In addition, I was I was also involved in work led by Centre of Excellence of Partnership with Patients and the Public (CEPPP) to develop a Patient & Public Engagement Evaluation Framework. My research has been cited by government and non-governmental bodies as well as international guidelines in the Northwest Territories, Canada’s Drug Agency, the World Health Organization, the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare (Socialstyrelsen), the National Institute of Public Health and the Environment in the Netherlands, and the French National Authority for Health (Haute Autorité de Santé).

Barney Reeves is a Professor Emeritus in Health Services Research, carrying out Health Technology Assessment primarily in hospital settings. He is a trialist and methodologist with particular expertise in designing evaluations of non-commercial interventions and diagnostic tests prioritised by the UK NHS. He is also a co-convenor of the Cochrane non-randomised studies of interventions methods group.

Dr. Manish Sadarangani is Director of the Vaccine Evaluation Center at the BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute and an Associate Professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases, UBC Department of Pediatrics. He completed his undergraduate medical training and pediatric residency in Cambridge, Oxford and London in the UK. He then completed his DPhil with the Oxford Vaccine Group in the UK, developing novel vaccine candidates for protection against capsular group B meningococcal disease, and completed a Fellowship in Pediatric Infectious Diseases in Vancouver in 2013 before returning to Oxford to work as a Pediatric Infectious Diseases physician. He is an international expert in translational vaccinology, whose work uniquely encompasses laboratory, clinical and epidemiologic research. His scientific expertise enables him to respond quickly to changing priorities to tackle diverse knowledge gaps rapidly and produce high quality research findings to inform policy. Specifically, his research improves understanding of immune responses to vaccination, identifies high-risk groups to target immunization programs, and evaluates vaccine effectiveness to inform evidence-based policy.

Hugh is an economist and environmental health specialist, focusing on impact evaluations of Global Development and Health programmes using randomised, quasi-experimental and mixed-methods designs, systematic reviews and meta-analysis. He is an elected Co-Chair of the Campbell Collaboration Climate Solutions Coordinating Group, a Methods Editor with Campbell Systematic Reviews and Co-Lead of Cochrane's Non-Randomised Studies of Interventions Methods Group. He founded the Systematic Reviews Programme and London Office of the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie) and has worked for extended periods in the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning in the Government of Rwanda in Kigali, the World Bank's Independent Evaluation Group in Washington, DC, the UK National Audit Office and the Poverty Research Unit at Sussex University.

Beverley Shea, PhD is a health outcomes researcher based in Ottawa, Canada, with expertise in evidence synthesis, clinical trial methodology, and patient-reported outcomes. She is the lead developer of AMSTAR 2 (A MeaSurement Tool to Assess systematic Reviews), an internationally used tool for critically appraising systematic reviews of healthcare interventions. Dr. Shea also serves as Co-Convenor of the Cochrane Non-Randomized Methods Group, contributing to the development and refinement of methods for synthesizing complex evidence beyond randomized controlled trials. She is an active member of the OMERACT (Outcome Measures in Rheumatology) collaboration, where she contributes to international working groups. Her research emphasizes the development, validation, and selection of outcomes and instruments, with a strong focus on methodological rigor, international collaboration, and meaningful patient engagement in rheumatology research.

Maria Sundaram, MSPH, PhD, is an Associate Research Scientist at Marshfield Clinic Research Institute in the Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Population Health. She is an infectious disease epidemiologist whose research focuses on respiratory viruses and the vaccines that prevent them. Her research has included estimating influenza vaccine effectiveness with the CDC-based US Influenza Vaccine Effectiveness Network, and describing the epidemiology of RSV in young children and older adults in rural areas. More recently, her research showed COVID-19 testing inequities had the potential to create bias in COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness estimates.

Dr. Wells is a Professor in the School of Epidemiology and Public Health at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Cardiovascular Research Methods Centre at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute. He is also a Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Ottawa. His research interests are in the design and analysis of clinical trials, health technology assessment, statistical methodology related to health care delivery, systematic reviews and meta-analysis, economic evaluations and the development and assessment of decision support technologies for patients and practitioners. Dr. Wells is the author or co-author of over 1100 peer-reviewed articles and over 1070 scientific abstracts. He has been the principal investigator or co-investigator on over 330 research projects. His H-index score in Google Scholar is 214 and Scopus 168 and Web of Science 166. He has taught at the University graduate and undergraduate level for 45 years and has supervised over 112 graduate students. Dr. Wells has worked extensively with national and international government and non-government research organizations, as well as private pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. He has been on the executive and steering committees of national and international research programs, external safety and efficacy monitoring committees, scientific grant review committees, editorial committees, and scientific advisory committees. He is currently an Associate Editor of the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology and on the Editorial Committee of the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

Krista is an infectious disease epidemiologist and Manager of the Vaccine Sciences Unit within the NACI Secretariat at the Public Health Agency of Canada. Her work centers on interpreting and translating vaccine science to inform technical advice and guidance on emerging vaccine-related issues. Krista holds a PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Manitoba, where her dissertation examined the effectiveness and duration of protection of pertussis vaccines over a 30-year period in Manitoba. She is a graduate of the Canadian Field Epidemiology Program and brings extensive experience in public health across multiple levels of government specializing in infectious disease surveillance, outbreak response, and vaccine science.