ICES Research Forum

Vu Ngo believes technology should serve people, not systems. As founder of C3LABS.AI, he partners with Fortune 500 companies and public institutions to ensure digital transformation and AI are rooted in equity, putting community needs first.

For 20+ years, Vu has bridged tech and social impact, championing ethical AI, data equity, and systems that empower, not exclude. His work extends to public health and youth mentorship, where he centres marginalized voices in policy and design.

Morning panel: How will AI shape the future of ICES? Perspectives on the promise of AI for ICES

Laura Ferreira-Legere is the Senior Manager, Public & Community Engagement, Knowledge Translation at ICES. As a registered nurse, she has held professional roles in clinical nursing practice in Atlantic Canada and nursing guideline development in Ontario. In her current role, Laura supports scientists and project teams to incorporate meaningful and equity-centered public and community engagement in research and analysis. Her team also supports facilitation for the ICES’ PAC and provides guidance on appropriate use of social and race-related data at ICES.

Breakout session: Bringing data to life: Using innovative knowledge translation (KT) approaches to humanize data and communicate the ‘story’ of your research

Tara Gomes is Scientific Director of the Urban and Community Health Pillar at Unity Health Toronto, Program Director of the Ontario Drug Policy Research Network, and a Scientist at the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute of St. Michael’s Hospital and ICES. She is also an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto and holds a Canada Research Chair in Drug Policy Research and Substance Use. Her research program focuses on pharmacoepidemiology, drug safety and drug policy research, with a specific interest in developing evidence to inform policies that address the ongoing drug toxicity crisis across Canada and that integrate perspectives of impacted communities.

Afternoon panel: Research partnerships with people with lived experience: Perspectives on shifting paradigms 

Dr. Daniel Myran is a Public Health and Preventative Medicine physician, a Family Physician, and researcher. He holds a Canada Research Chair in Social Accountability at uOttawa and is an assistant professor in the Department of Family Medicine. He is also a scientist at North York General Hospital. His program of research involves using health administrative data to examine the burden and societal impact of mental health conditions and substance use. His primary focus is evaluating the impacts of public policy on overall health and across systematically disadvantaged groups. He has completed some of the major studies of non-medical cannabis legalization in Canada. As a secondary area of interest, he uses big data to examine the health of physicians in Ontario.  

Breakout session: From evidence to action: Using health data to drive legislative change

Dr. Kyla Naylor is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Medicine and Epidemiology & Biostatistics at Western University, an Adjunct Scientist in the ICES Kidney, Dialysis and Transplantation Program, and a Research Scientist at London Health Sciences Centre Research Institute. She completed her PhD in Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Western University in 2015 and completed her post-doctoral training at ICES in 2018. Kyla’s research is primarily focused on using administrative healthcare databases to understand and improve access to kidney transplant. She is a recipient of a Canadian Institute of Health Research Health System Impact Embedded Early Career Researcher Award where she will spend four years working with two provincial organizations, the Trillium Gift of Life Network and Ontario Renal Network (Ontario Health), as an Embedded Scientist to improve equitable access to kidney transplant. 

Rapid fire sessions: Defining pre-emptive living kidney donor transplantation as a quality indicator

Michael Paterson joined ICES as a research coordinator in 1992 and became a scientist in 2008. He currently leads the ICES Chronic Disease and Pharmacotherapy Research Program. Mr. Paterson is an assistant professor in the Department of Family Medicine at McMaster University and an assistant professor in the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto. He holds a bachelor’s degree in human biology from the University of Guelph and a master’s degree in physiology from the University of Toronto. 

Rapid fire sessions (Moderator)

Deborah Richardson, LL.B, BA, is a proud Mi’gmaq woman from the Pabineau First Nation in New Brunswick and is the first Indigenous woman to serve as a Deputy Minister within the Ontario public service.

Over the past nine years, she has held diverse Deputy Minister positions across the OPS, including Deputy Minister of Treasury Board Secretariat, Deputy Solicitor General, Correctional Services, and Deputy Minister of Indigenous Affairs.

Deborah is a seasoned executive, business-savvy lawyer, and a change-maker with almost three decades of private, not-for-profit and public experience. She is known for her caring, collaborative style, and ability to nurture relationships, which has contributed to her reputation as an authentic leader and humanitarian.

Read Deborah’s full bio

Dr. Rinku Sutradhar is a Senior Scientist and Biostatistician at ICES, where she leads the Cancer Research Program. She is also a Professor of Biostatistics at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto. Her research is centered on developing innovative statistical methodologies for analyzing longitudinal data, with a particular focus on evaluating health services use among cancer patients and survivors in Ontario. More recently, her work has explored the integration of machine learning techniques to enhance the development of prediction models in healthcare. 

Breakout session: Seeing data differently: Regression for image prediction and a path toward neural networks