Shari Thompson is an EDI Program Coordinator and educator at Temerty Faculty of Medicine. She is a Doctorate candidate at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education; Social Justice Education and has been facilitating workshops and teaching for 15 years with a focus on social justice, equity, and empowerment. Her passion for education, social action and culture led her to complete a master’s degree with distinction in Digital Media, Culture and Education from the University of London. Shari has worked in healthcare since 2017, supporting injury prevention practitioners nationally and globally and is the former host and producer of Sunnybrook’s Centre for Injury Prevention podcast - Injury is NOT Equal. Shari brings not only a critical equity lens to her work, but her pedagogy is grounded in a trauma-informed and anti-oppressive practice.

New & Evolving Academic Leaders Program

Full Professor, Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, University of Toronto
Canada Research Chair in Sexual and Gender Minority Youth 

Dr. Shelley L. Craig is Full Professor at the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work (FIFSW) at the University of Toronto and Canada Research Chair in Sexual and Gender Minority Youth (SGMY).  Dr. Craig has served in a range of community and academic leadership roles for the past twenty-five years, including as the Governing Board Co-Chair of organizations such as the National Board of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG), WorldPride, the Council of Sexual Orientation and Gender Expression and Identity of the Council of Social Work Education (CSWE), Heartstrong and as Board member of the Ontario Association of Social Work (OASW). As Executive Director, she has led organizations supporting victims of familial violence, created systems of care for SGMY and served as leader in interprofessional care in emergency care centers. She recently completed her term as Associate Dean, Academic at FIFSW and developed competencies for graduate education, particularly as it relates to the health and mental health of marginalized populations and equity, diversity and inclusion in organizations and programs.

Scientist, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and Interim Director of Research in Education Cross-Appointed Scientist, Wilson Centre for Research in Education, University Health Network & University of Toronto
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto
Assistant Professor, Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of Toronto

Dr. Sophie Soklaridis is a Senior Scientist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). She is an Associate Professor at the Department of Psychiatry and Department of Family & Community Medicine at the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, and the Vice-Chair of Mental Health Equity and EDIIA at the Department of Psychiatry.  She is a Scientist at Wilson Centre for Research in Education as well as the Canadian Lead and a core faculty member for the Master of Health Sciences Education in Ethiopia through the Toronto Addis Ababa Academic Collaboration (TAAAC). Her research takes a critical sociological approach on the issues of power, identity and relationships. Her scholarly foci include patient/clients as partners in research and mental health education and the influence of power and privilege on academic medicine. She is a widely published and well-funded scientist who has received multiple awards for her research.

CFD Program Faculty: Stepping Stones

Director & Scientist, Centre for Advancing Collaborative Healthcare & Education
Program Lead, Teaching for Transformation and Best Practice in Education Rounds Centre for Interprofessional Education
Associate Professor, Dept. of Speech-Language Pathology and the Institute for Health Policy, Management & Evaluation, and Wilson Centre Scientist, UofT

Stella is passionate about the transformative potential of health professions education, particularly critical pedagogies to enhance the collaborative, compassionate, and ethical aspects of health care practice. This passion was sparked by challenges experienced as a pediatric audiologist in the public-school system, which motivated her to study how people respond to value-conflicted, uncertain zones of interprofessional and collaborative practice. Her tri-council-, ministry-, and foundation-funded research thus explores theories of reflective practice and optimizes educational approaches that foster critical reflection, which she mobilizes into her education and leadership work.

Director, Simulation & Digital Innovation
CAMH Education

Stephanie Sliekers (she/her), MEd, is the Manager, Simulation and Digital Innovation at Canada's largest mental health teaching hospital, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). She is a leader and health professions educator focused on using simulation education and digital learning to create a more equitable and accessible mental health care system. As a Master’s student, Stephanie’s research focused on continuing education in the health professions. Her major research paper, “Written Assessments in Continuing Education: Examining the Tension between Constructivist Learning and Logical Positivist Evaluation,” was a driving factor in focusing her career on simulation and innovation in health care education. In her current role at CAMH, she manages Canada’s first Simulation Centre at a mental health hospital. She oversees CAMH Education’s digital innovation team, who develop and disseminate digital mental health education products, including online courses and podcasts. She brings to her work expertise in adult learning, education theory, instructional design, digital user experience/design, project management, and co-creation and co-design.

Atelier, Education Scholars Program

Fellow, AMS Phoenix Project
Director of Scholarship & Education Researcher
Professor, Department of Paediatrics
Scientist and Strategic Lead International, Wilson Centre for Research in Education
Academic Educator, Centre for Faculty Development, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto

Dr. Maria Athina (Tina) Martimianakis is Professor and Director of Medical Education
Scholarship at the Department of Paediatrics, and Scientist and Associate Director
Collaborations and Partnerships at the Wilson Centre, University of Toronto. Tina studies the
material effects of discourse and the socio-politics of education with a particular focus on how
we influence learning and the construction of health professional identities through structure,
culture and discourse.   Her work has explored the effects of discourses such as globalization,
collaboration and compassion in health professional education. Her educational practice is
closely aligned to her research program. As an educator, Tina employs critical and social
cultural pedagogies to develop programming to address hidden curriculum effects, improve the
learning environment and to enable health professionals to incorporate complex negotiations of
the social world in their educational planning and implementation. 

Registered Dietitian, St. Michael's Hospital, Unity Health Toronto

Tova has been working as a registered dietitian at St. Michael's hospital in acute care and critical care for the past 15 years. In addition to her clinical role, Tova has been teaching at George Brown College and Ryerson University at both the undergraduate and graduate level, supporting various future health professionals in their learning. Tova's clinical interests include gender sensitivity and inclusivity as well as clinical mentorship.

Research Fellow, Wilson Centre
PhD student, Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation (IHPME), Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto

Victoria Boyd is a PhD Candidate in the Health Professions Education Research (HPER) concentration at IHPME, University of Toronto and Fellow at the Wilson Centre, UHN. Victoria aims to advance our understanding of dialogic approaches to education in the health professions. Dialogue may represent a possible antidote to the division of our times. Victoria’s doctoral research has demonstrated the powerful impacts of dialogic teaching and learning on students’ ability to practice in critically reflective ways. She also has many complex and nuanced questions for the field of HPE as it continues to grow in relation to a complex and changing society.

Scientist, The Wilson Centre and Post-MD Education
Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto

Walter Tavares’ an Assistant Professor and Scientist at the Wilson Centre and Post-MD Education (Post-Graduate Medical Education and Continuing Professional Development) at the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine and University Health Network, and Institute or Health Policy, Management and Evaluation. His research includes the study of performance based assessment, validity, rater cognition, simulation and continuing professional development.