Keynote speakers

Ibukun Abejirinde is a Scientist at the Institute for Better Health, Trillium Health Partners, and an Assistant Professor (status) at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto. She conducts applied research to understand and address complex problems in healthcare through innovation, research, and collaboration, with a specific focus on translating health equity at a systems level. Within the context of accelerated shifts towards a digitally driven health care ecosystem, her research considers the intersections of technology and health inequities and its implications for how patients and caregivers experience and access quality healthcare. A trained Physician, her ethos is collaborative- working closely with policymakers, patients, community organizations, and researchers from diverse disciplines. Dr. Abejirinde has extensive implementation and evaluation research experience in various regions, including Sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe, and South Asia. She is co-lead of the digital health equity hub of the International Collaborative for Translational Digital Health- a trilateral partnership between the University of Toronto, University of Manchester and University of Melbourne. Dr. Abejirinde is a 2022 AMS Healthcare Fellow in Compassion and Artificial Intelligence and a Network Solution Member on the AI for Diabetes Prediction & Prevention project which aims to ethically deploy Artificial Intelligence (AI) models for the prediction and prevention of Type 2 Diabetes in Peel Region, Ontario.

Amélie Quesnel-Vallée holds the Canada Research Chair in Policies and Health Inequalities at McGill University, where she is Inaugural Chair and Professor in the Department of Equity, Ethics and Policy (Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences) and a Professor in the Department of Sociology (Faculty of Arts). She is the founding Director of the McGill Observatory on Health and Social Services Reforms and a founding member of the McGill Center on Population Dynamics. Finally, she also founded and is Executive Director of CAnD3 (https://mcgill.ca/cand3/), an international consortium of 38 academic, government, private and non-profit organizations delivering training in support of evidence-based decision making.

Quesnel-Vallée’s research examines the contribution of policies to social inequalities in health over the life course and has been recognized through awards from professional associations including the American Sociological Association, the Population Association of America, and the American Public Health Association. She is a two-time Fulbright Foundation awardee, most recently of a Distinguished Chair (2020). She is a Past-President of the Canadian Population Society and of the International Sociological Association’s Research Committee on the Sociology of Health. She has demonstrated experience in providing strategic advice to several complex organizations, notably the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, where she served as a board member for six years, and held leadership roles such as the inaugural Chair of the Standing Committee on Science (2022-2024) and as a Member of the Executive Committee (2021-2024). Committed to furthering public understanding of science, Quesnel-Vallée is frequently sought by media outlets such as National Public Radio, the New York Times and Business Week.

Co-Director of Experiences — Quebec Community of Patients, Caregivers, and Citizen Partners of the Quebec SSA Support Unit. Co-Chair of the Strategic Patient Partner Committee of the CHUS Research Center. Patient Partnership Lead for the CHUS Research Center. Co-Scientific Direction of Quebec SPOR Unit to the Learning Health System.

Confronted with the serious illnesses of her parents from an early age, Catherine quickly learned the critical role of caregivers in illness and end-of-life care. Later, other loved ones, including her spouse, faced cancer. Parallelly, she experienced the joy of becoming a biological as well as adoptive mother and later, grandmother. In 2018, it became her turn to face the reality of a cancer diagnosis with a grim prognosis. During this challenging time, an idea to improve the healthcare system led her to discover the field of patient partnership.

Since then, Catherine has embraced her role as a patient partner within the healthcare system. Her involvement spans research, oncology care and services, teaching future clinicians, public outreach, and governance — all with the goal of amplifying the voice of experiential knowledge at every level and across all domains of healthcare. For her, this represents a genuine pathway to creating value in a system that urgently needs care and attention itself.