The Education Development Fund (EDF) Grant aims to advance medical education research while nurturing grassroots scholarship. The EDF prioritizes projects that are emergent, curiosity-driven & methodologically rigorous. This grant is for newly engaged or early career researchers and funds rigorous research or innovation that does one or more of the following:

• Addresses a longstanding or emergent education issue relevant across the continuum of medical and health professions education;
• Answers a curiosity driven question with the potential to impact education theory and practice locally and globally;
• Proposes to experiment with or explore new practices in education that are potentially transformative within the TFoM and beyond, and/or;
• Addresses any of the elements of the Medical Education Strategic Plan or similar documents articulating core priorities for the medical education portfolio.

In this session, Dr. Mahan Kulasegaram and Dr. Clyde Matava, Co-Chairs of the Education Development Fund Adjudication Committee, will answer questions about what makes a successful EDF grant application. We’ll cover what kinds of projects are eligible for this grant, who is eligible to hold the grant, the application and selection process, and what other medical education research funding is available within the Temerty Faculty of Medicine. We encourage participants to submit questions in advance by writing to: medicine.awards@utoronto.ca.

Dr. Kulamakan (Mahan) Kulasegaram

Dr. Kulamakan (Mahan) Kulasegaram is a Scientist at the Wilson Centre and Temerty Faculty of Medicine where he is the Temerty Chair in Learner Assessment and Program Evaluation. Additionally, he is an Associate Professor and Director of the Office of Education Scholarship in the Department of Family & Community Medicine. Mahan’s research advances our understanding of how assessment can be used to help learners develop clinical reasoning as well as how education programs can use assessment as a tool to systems and outcomes for learners. His research examines educational assessment as an opportunity to enhance learning and in particular, how to support the transfer of learning that is required to develop clinical expertise in medicine. This involves re-examining the entire context of assessment – the objectives, process, tools, learners, and assessors – from theoretical perspectives informed by psychology and educational measurement. This program of research has led to significant changes in the practice and design of assessment at multiple levels of the education continuum for physicians. The next stage of this research – supported by the Temerty Chair in Learner Assessment – is utilizing assessment big data to understand opportunities to optimize programs and their impact on learners, teachers, and eventual clinical care. He is developing models with national and international collaborators to facilitate education data sharing within and between institutions as well as identifying best practices in this new area for medical education. Notably, in 2021-22, he co-lead the development of a national consensus statement on principles for ethical and equitable data sharing governance informed by national stakeholders in medical education (www.dataconnection.ca). Mahan also conducts research in instructional design, curriculum design, as well as in admissions and selection to medical education.

Dr. Clyde Matava

Dr. Clyde Matava is a Staff Anesthesiologist at SickKids Hospital and an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto. He is the Associate Chief of Perioperative Services for Bioinformatics and the Director of Anesthesia Informatics, Innovation and Technology in the Department of Anesthesia at SickKids. In addition, Dr. Matava has designed and developed numerous apps, and has been recognized with several teaching and innovation awards. His current research involves the use of cutting-edge technologies such as informatics, data from clinical systems, and machine learning to advance and improve patient outcomes. His areas of clinical interest include airway management and regional anesthesia. He has served as the President of the Canadian Pediatric Anesthesia Society and currently serves as President-Elect on the Society for Technology in Anesthesia Board of Directors, and also as Chair of the Epic Speciality Steering Board. He is an Editor at the journals Pediatric Anesthesia and the Journal of Medical Systems. Dr. Matava is also the co-director of CHISIL, a VR lab at SickKids and the University of Toronto, where he has explored the use of virtual, augmented, and mixed reality in medicine.