Dr. Gillian Einstein
Dr. GILLIAN EINSTEIN is a faculty member at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and the Department of Psychology at the University of Toronto, and holder of the inaugural Wilfred and Joyce Posluns Chair in Women's Brain Health and Aging. She joined Duke University in 1989 as an assistant professor and moved to the Centre for Research on Women's Health at Women's College Hospital in 2004. In 2006, Einstein established the University of Toronto’s Collaborative Graduate Program in Women's Health (now known as the Collaborative Specialization in Women's Health). This program is based at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, and is affiliated with the Women's College Research Institute (based at the Women's College Hospital). Dr. Einstein led the program as a Director from 2006 to 2016. In 2007, Dr. Einstein edited Sex and the Brain for MIT Press. Dr. Einstein's work is focussed on women's health, specifically, the anatomy of the female brain. With 72% of Canadian Alzheimer's sufferers being represented by women, Dr. Einstein explores why brain disorders like Alzheimer's disproportionately affect women. Dr. Einstein's research looks at the relationship between early menopause and decreased estrogen levels, and how this may negatively affect cognition. Further to the differences that gender may play on the human brain, Einstein further posits that the social and cultural context that accompanies being female or male can also have a significant effect on our biology. Dr. Einstein has been outspoken on the subject of gender disparity in clinical health research. She participated in the scientific discussion that led to the US National Institutes of Health to form policies requiring even gender distribution in cell and animal studies. In 2016, Dr. Einstein was awarded the inaugural Wilfred and Joyce Posluns Chair in Women's Brain Health and Aging.This chair is supported through the Wilfred Posluns' Family Foundation, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Alzheimer Society of Canada, and the Ontario Brain Institute.
Dr. Cheryl Wellington
Dr. CHERYL WELLINGTON obtained her PhD at the University of British Columbia and performed postdoctoral fellowships at Harvard Medical School, the University of Calgary, and the University of British Columbia. She joined the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of British Columbia in 2000 and was promoted to Professor in 2011. Dr. Wellington’s research program encompasses the genetic and environmental risk factors that affect dementia, including apolipoprotein E metabolism, history of traumatic brain injury (TBI), and cerebrovascular dysfunction. Her current research projects include drug discovery efforts to increase apolipoprotein function in the brain for application to both Alzheimer’s Disease and TBI, understanding the relationships between TBI and dementia, and innovative tissue engineering approaches to investigate cerebrovascular function in health and disease. Dr. Wellington’s niche expertise affords her a truly unique perspective. She is a highly sought-after speaker who has given well over 100 presentations in the last five years to both scientific and lay audiences and an active member of a wide range of multidisciplinary teams, committees, and grant review panels. She has served on the Editorial Board for the Journal of Lipid Research, and has demonstrated strong leadership in heading a team from the Canadian Consortium on Neurodegeneration of Aging. Dr. Wellington has published 95 peer-reviewed articles and 24 invited reviews. Her work has been cited over 6,000 times, as reflected by her h-factor of 43 (SCOPUS). In addition to her impressive body of research, Dr. Wellington is an enthusiastic mentor, and is actively engaged in service to the UBC community. She has supervised 38 research trainees, and founded a UBC Collaborative Grant Workshop Program that provides post-doctoral fellows with advanced skills in grant writing and reviewing.
