Celebrating Department Success
Whether you're a prospective student, a current member of our department, or a collaborator, we invite you to explore the incredible work being done by our faculty and staff. Their dedication to research, education, and community engagement is what makes our department thrive.
Help us celebrate by making submissions for this page here.
Fall 2025 Spotlight Stories
Faculty Excellence
- Dr. Finlay Maguire named to The Royal Society of Canada | La Société royale du Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists!
We’re proud to congratulate Dr. Finlay Maguire on being named to the The Royal Society of Canada | La Société royale du Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists! Dr. Maguire is a global leader in genomic epidemiology and data science. His work has shaped national and international responses to public health emergencies—including SARS-CoV-2, avian influenza, and antimicrobial resistance—translating complex genomic insights into real-world clinical and public health impact.
This prestigious honour recognizes mid-career leaders whose research and innovation are driving meaningful change across disciplines.
Empower: A Documentary
Empower is a compelling documentary featuring the work of Dr. Gabriela Ilie, faculty member in the Department of Community Health & Epidemiology at Dalhousie University. The film captures the voices of prostate cancer survivors and their caregivers, illuminating the healing power of peer support and community connection
Premiered at Dalhousie and recognized at international film festivals, Empower is both a research-informed narrative and a celebration of resilience. We invite you to explore the full documentary, learn about the team behind it, and view highlights from its premiere.
Staff Achievements
- Coming soon!
Student Success
- Shirin Mehrpooya (MSc) awarded one of two Dr. Doris Campbell Memorial Student Travel Awards from the Nursing Network on Violence Against Women International (NNVAWI)
Shirin Mehrpooya, a second-year MSc student in the Epidemiology and Applied Health Research Program at Dalhousie, has been awarded the prestigious Dr. Doris Campbell Memorial Student Travel Award. This honour, presented in memory of Dr. Doris W. Campbell—an internationally recognized nursing leader and founding member of NNVAWI—celebrates students whose work reflects a commitment to advancing health equity and addressing violence against women and children. Shirin’s achievement highlights her dedication to impactful research and her alignment with Dr. Campbell’s legacy of scholarship and service. Congratulations, Shirin! Read more here.
- 6th Annual CH&E Research Day - Winners of the Poster Presentation - MSc Students Sahin Berke & Claire Thiessen
The 6th Annual Research Day showcased the impressive work of sixteen second-year MSc students, each presenting a poster highlighting their innovative research projects. Congratulations to Sahin Berke and Claire Theissen, recipients of this year’s MSc Poster Presentation Competition awards.
Claire Theissen was recognized for her project, “Immigration and Lung Function Decline Among Canadian Adults.”
Sahin Berke received the award for “The Association Between Socioeconomic Status, Geographic Distance, and Health Outcomes in People with Cystic Fibrosis in Nova Scotia.”
Their outstanding contributions reflect the depth and impact of graduate research in our community.
- Ghislain d'Entremont was awarded a 2025-26 AI for Public Health (AI4PH) Trainee Scholarship!
Funded by CIHR, AI4PH is focused on building capacity in AI and big data skills for transformative change in addressing population and public health challenges, and understanding how these tools impact health equity. Ghislain's PhD thesis aims to understand the role of AI in evidence syntheses of healthcare treatments. Congratulations, Ghislain! Read more about this work.
- Recent CH&E MSc graduate Jordan Edwards taking on two incredible new roles!
Congratulations to recent grad Jordan Edwards who has been appointed an Inaugural Early Career Scientist at Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS) and Assistant Professor in Pediatrics (part-time) at McMaster University. Jordan’s dedication to advancing health research and education is inspiring. This is a huge step forward in shaping the future of pediatric care and scientific innovation.
Recent Publications & Projects
Highlights from recent research, community initiatives, and strategic collaborations.
- Haptoglobin Phenotype and Cardiovascular Risk: The ACCORD Blood Pressure RCT
Congratulations to CH&E MSc graduate Samantha Lavallée, who just published her thesis in Hypertension—the world’s leading journal for hypertension research! Her groundbreaking study shows that a simple, once-in-a-lifetime blood test for #HaptoglobinPhenotype could help identify people with Type 2 Diabetes who would truly benefit from intensive blood pressure control therapy—and those who wouldn’t. This approach could save time, reduce stress, cut costs, and minimize side effects by avoiding ineffective treatments. Read the full paper in Hypertension and join us in celebrating this incredible achievement!
Recognizing Enrique Villacis Alvarez, Research Associate in the Department of Community Health & Epidemiology, is part of a multidisciplinary team behind a newly released publication examining the organizational and systems-level barriers and facilitators that influence health professionals’ readiness to address domestic and sexualized violence in Nova Scotia. The findings stem from the Interprovincial Violence Against Women Project (The IPV Project), an integrated knowledge translation study led in partnership with knowledge users across the health and violence against women (VAW) sectors. This work contributes critical insights into how institutional structures and intersectoral collaboration can better support frontline responses to gender-based violence.
- Child and Adolescent Virtual Mental Health Care and Duration of Treatment: Retrospective Cohort Study
We’re thrilled to celebrate recent graduate Allyson Cruickshank on her successful first-authored publication stemming from her Master’s thesis research. Her paper, Child and Adolescent Virtual Mental Health Care and Duration of Treatment: Retrospective Cohort Study, was recently published in JMIR Mental Health. This work represents an important step in understanding patterns of health service use in episodes of care, addressing clinically relevant questions that emerged during the rapid implementation of virtual mental health care in the COVID-19 pandemic.A big thank you to Pan Andreou, Debbie Emberly, Sandra Meier, and Daniel Dutton for their contributions to this project.
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