Speakers

Shoo Lee is a retired neonatologist and health economist. He is Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto and Honorary Staff Physician at Mount Sinai Hospital. He currently serves as US-China Commissioner for Child Health, Founding President of the Canadian Neonatal Foundation, Founding Chairman of the Canadian Neonatal Network, Founding Chairman of the Chinese Neonatal Network, and Chairman of the German Center for Child & Youth and Mental Health Review Board. He is an International Advisory Panel member for the Imperial College UK Center for Pediatrics and Child Health and the National University of Singapore Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, and a member of the WHO Maternal, Newborn and Child Health Working Group.

Dr. Lee received his medical degree from the University of Singapore, completed his paediatric training at the Janeway Children's Hospital in Newfoundland and neonatal fellowship training at Boston’s Children’s Hospital, and is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Canada. He received his PhD in Health Policy (Economics) from Harvard University, and the DHC in Medicine from Laval University. He was formerly Scientific Director of the Institute of Human Development, Child and Youth Health at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and Head of the Department of Pediatrics at Mount Sinai Hospital. He is an Officer of the Order of Canada.

 Cindy McEvoy, MD, MCR is Professor of Pediatrics at the Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) Doernbecher Children’s Hospital where she is the Credit Unions for Kids Endowed Professor in Pediatric Research, Director of Maternal Child Health Research for the Pediatric Department and Director of Research in Neonatology. She is a neonatologist and physician scientist whose research interest is on the primary prevention of childhood respiratory disease through in-utero and early life interventions with a focus on the use of pulmonary function testing to quantify outcomes. She currently has three NIH funded projects and 17 years of near continuous funding from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute to study interventions that will promote lifelong lung health.

Zubair Amin is a neonatologist and clinician-scholar at the National University Hospital (NUH) and Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore. He has worked in neonatal medicine for over two decades, with clinical and research interests spanning neonatal infection, preterm birth, patient- and family-reported outcomes, and antenatal steroid therapy. He has contributed to over 60 peer-reviewed publications in recent years, including work in JAMA Network Open, J of Hospital Infection, BJOG, BMC Medicine, J of Perinatology, and Archives of Disease in Childhood.

Beyond the clinical environment, he has a long-standing interest in health professions education and has co-authored several textbooks on medical education and assessment. He previously served as Head of the Department of Neonatology at NUH and as Assistant Dean for Curriculum and Assessment at NUS Medicine.

He has been recognised for his clinical and public service contributions, including the Distinguished Senior Clinician Award from the Ministry of Health Singapore and a Public Administration Medal (Bronze) from the Prime Minister’s Office, Singapore. He has been ranked among the top 2% of scientists globally by Stanford University in 2024 and 2025.

Dr. Robin Ohls has been active in clinical/translational research for over 25 years. She is the PI of an NHLBI-funded multicenter study evaluating neurodevelopmental effects of darbepoetin in preterm infants, currently being performed through the NICHD Neonatal Research Network. In addition she serves on the Executive Committee for the PENUT Study.

Dr. Ohls' translational and clinical studies evaluating the interaction of erythropoiesis stimulating agents (ESAs) with the developing human brain provided insights into mechanisms of neuroprotection, and were the first to report improved developmental outcomes of preterm infants administered ESAs during their initial hospitalization.

Samantha Johnson is a developmental psychologist and Professor of Child Development in the Department of Population Health Sciences, University of Leicester, UK. Her research interests are focused on the study of the developmental consequences of high risk birth and she has a programme of research focused on understanding and improving developmental assessment and educational outcomes for children born preterm. Her research includes longitudinal birth cohort studies and RCTs of perinatal and neonatal interventions. Samantha has contributed to national working groups including the UK's NICE Guideline Committee for the developmental follow-up of children born preterm guideline. She is a member of the Executive Committee of the British Association of Neonatal Neurodevelopmental Follow-up and of the Strategic Research Group of the British Academy of Childhood Disability. Samantha has developed free online training for education professionals to improve school support for children born preterm and she leads the research team that developed the Parent Report of Children's Abilities-Revised (PARCA-R), a parent-completed questionnaire that can be used for free to assess children's cognitive and language development at two years of age in research and clinical practice

Dr. Julia DiLabio completed training in Paediatrics and Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine at the University of Toronto. She pursued an additional subspecialty Fellowship year in Neonatal and Paediatric Transport Medicine with the Acute Care Transport Service (ACTS) at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids). She completed a Master of Education in Health Professions Education from the University of Ottawa. Her academic interests include medical education, quality improvement and patient safety, outreach and partnership with community hospitals, and resuscitation training in the neonatal intensive care unit.

Dr. Ting has been recognised as a top 2% scientist worldwide by Stanford University in 2024 and 2025.  As a Staff Neonatologist, he provides care for high-risk infants born at the threshold of viability, those with congenital heart diseases, and those requiring surgical intervention and multidisciplinary care. Throughout his clinical and research career, he has maintained a prolific research output, contributing to over 200 peer-reviewed publications, over 100 conference proceedings and three book chapters.

He has been deeply committed to mentoring and supervising >20 trainees in their research work, including 7 graduate students & post-doctoral research fellows, He currently serves as a member of the Executive Committee and the Annual Report Review Committee of the Canadian Neonatal Network. He has been nominated as the Associate Director and Co-Chair of the Nosocomial Infection Group within the Evidence-Based Practice for Improving Quality (EPIQ) initiative, a national multidisciplinary collaboration that facilitates the implementation of evidence-based practice changes to enhance neonatal outcomes. 

Dr. Jehier Afifi is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Dalhousie University and Neonatologist at IWK Health and Nova Scotia Provincial Perinatal Follow Up Program. Dr Afifi holds leadership roles in safety & quality locally, nationally, and internationally. She is the Chair of EPIQ Education Program Steering Committee and Co-Director of CNFUN. She is also the QI lead of Newborn Brain Society QI & Research Committee, and member of Brain Health Canada, POCUSNEO and Neonatal Neurocritical Care Accreditation (AFC). Her research area focuses on quality improvement, brain health, AI in risk prediction models and neurodevelopmental outcomes of high-risk infants, but extends to involve clinical interventions and family integrated care. Dr. Afifi’s clinical research and publications are interdisciplinary, collaborating with families, perinatology, neuroradiology, neurosurgery and geared both to contribute to the academic literature and to improve outcomes of newborn infants and parental experiences.

Dr. Sandesh Shivananda is an Associate Professor at UBC and a Staff Neonatologist at BC Women’s Hospital, with the Division of Neonatology.  Dr. Shivananda received his Medical Degree from the University of Mysore, 1998 and then was trained in Neonatology at the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, India (1997-2003) and at the University of Toronto, 2007. From there, Dr. Shivananda completed his Masters in Health Informatics at the University of Victoria, BC. His interests lie in knowledge translation, integration of technology, and quality improvement. His focus has been in designing, implementing, and evaluating QI programs. He is also the site investigator for the Canadian Neonatal Network’s - Evidence based Practice for Improving Quality. He co-chairs the Neonatal Leadership and Quality and Safety Improvement committees. He also serves as the EPIQ workshop lead facilitator.

Dr. Karel O’Brien is a Staff Neonatologist at Mount Sinai Hospital and Associate Professor of Paediatrics at the University of Toronto. She is a clinical teacher at a busy perinatal center that specializes in fetal diagnosis. She has trained in Clinical Epidemiology and Health Care Research. Her research has focused on improving the outcomes of preterm infants and infants born with complex needs such as congenital diaphragmatic hernia using different methodologies including cohort studies, randomized controlled studies and epidemiological research. She has also mentored several trainees in the critique, design and conduct of unbiased clinical studies. Her current research has focused on Family Integrated Care, a model that changes how we deliver care to families and their infants in the NICU, and she has recently completed an international trial of this model of care.

Dr. Marc Beltempo is a staff neonatologist and scientist at the Montreal Children’s Hospital - McGill University Health Centre (Montreal). His research focuses on evaluating how the organization of work affects outcomes of infants and identifying best care practices to improve care. Using clinical and administrative databases, he is studying the effects of different healthcare delivery models (nursing ratios, physician staffing), resource allocation (unit occupancy, nursing overtime) and interventions on quality of care and efficiency in the neonatal intensive care unit. As the Director of the Canadian Neonatal Network, he is leading a several studies that  aim to improve quality of care in the neonatal intensive care unit. He holds funding from the CIHR, Montreal Children’s Hospital Foundation, the Canadian Neonatal Foundation,  FRQ-S and the Ministry of Health. The overarching goal is to improve quality of care and improve efficiency in the delivery of care.

Dr. Prakesh Shah is the Pediatrician-in-Chief at Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto and Professor in the Department of Pediatrics and Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto, Canada. He has led the Canadian Neonatal network as Associate Director between 2010-12 and then was Director of CNN from 2012-2024. Currently, he is the Director of the Canadian Preterm Birth Network (CPTBN) and an International Network for Evaluation of Outcomes of Neonates (iNeo) whereby he oversees a project of benchmarking outcomes of very preterm neonates in 11 countries with population-level neonatal networks with an overarching aim of improving quality of care across 240 NICUs. Dr. Shah’s areas of interest include Patient and Disease oriented research in Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine, Health Services and Epidemiological Research in Maternal-Newborn care, Knowledge Synthesis and Quality improvement. He has evaluated and produced policy documents on interventions and programs for preterm birth for provincial and national agencies. He is engaged in policy and advocacy work with his role in executive committees and advisory board membership as local, provincial, national, and international levels.

Dr. Amit Mukerji is an Associate Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at McMaster University and is a staff neonatologist. He has received an Early Career Award (2019-2021) from Hamilton Health Sciences Foundation to support his work on non-invasive respiratory support strategies towards improved lung health outcomes in preterm neonates. He has a Master of Science degree in clinical epidemiology (2017) from the University of Toronto and has completed a certificate program in quality improvement (2019-2020) through the Centre for Quality Improvement and Patient Safety at University of Toronto. He has published >30 articles in peer-reviewed journals since joining the faculty as first/corresponding author, mostly in the realm of neonatal respiratory support/management and outcomes. He formed and chairs the PRVENT-BPD working group at MCH NICU aimed at standardizing practices towards preventing BPD, is the respiratory lead physician for the MCH NICU, he has served as the co-chair of EPIQ Lung Health and is currently the CNN Associate Director for Canadian Neonatal Network. 

Fabiana Bacchini is the Executive Director of the Canadian Premature Babies Foundation. She is a journalist and the published author of From Surviving to Thriving, a Mother’s Journey Through Infertility, Loss and Miracles. While in the NICU with her surviving twin born extremely preterm, she participated in the study of Family Integrated Care (FiCare). This led her to extensive volunteering in the NICU at Mount Sinai Hospital and to become an ambassador for FiCare, travelling across Canada and internationally to share her experience with this model of care. Her son was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, which continued to empower her to be a strong voice and advocate for premature babies and their families. She is dedicated to form connections with researchers to ensure that the viewpoints of parents are integrated into their studies. To this end, she has engaged in collaborations with numerous researchers, both in Canada and around the world, in various capacities.

The Canadian Premature Babies Foundation (CPBF) is a national parent-led organization dedicated to supporting families of premature babies. We empower parents through education, peer support, and advocacy, ensuring they are recognized as essential caregivers in the NICU and beyond.

CPBF works closely with healthcare teams to promote family-centered care, provide mental health support, and help families navigate life post-discharge. We also collaborate on research to optimize outcomes for preterm infants and create networks that connect families with peers and professionals for guidance, resources, and community support