Niagara Health Knowledge Institute - Research Training and Mentorship

Heather O’Grady – Postdoctoral Fellow

Heather O’Grady joined the team in September 2024 as a Postdoctoral Fellow. A post-doctoral fellowship is a stepping stone between doctoral studies and an independent research career, allowing early-career scientists to refine their skills and expertise. Heather’s primary focus is building capacity for patient and family involvement in research at Niagara Health.

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Emily Baker – PhD Candidate

Emily Baker – PhD Student

Emily is a PhD student in the Health Research Methodologies Program at McMaster University, supervised by Dr. Jennifer Tsang. Her research aims to strengthen research capacity in community hospitals, with a particular focus on identifying systems-level strategies to support these institutions across Canada.

Lukas Shum-Tim – Clinical Investigator Program

Lukas is a general surgery resident at McMaster University and based at the Niagara Regional Campus (NRC). He is currently enrolled in the Clinician Investigator Program (CIP) at McMaster with Ministry of Health funding. He is pursuing a Master's degree at the University of Illinois Chicago in Health Professions Education, where he is getting formal training in medical education. He hopes to make use of his scholarly interests in curriculum development and simulation to contribute at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels at NRC in partnership with the NHKI.

Past trainees

Kian Rego – Masters

Kian Rego joined the team in May 2022 as a research student while completing her Master’s degree in Applied Health Sciences at Brock University. Supervised by Drs. Jennifer Tsang and Madelyn Law, her thesis used qualitative research methods to explore how to foster an organizational culture of research in Canadian community hospitals. In September 2025, Kian will begin a PhD in Business Administration with a specialization in Health Policy and Management at McMaster University.

Publications

Rego, K., Gehrke, P., Law, M. P., Halverson, K., Piquette, D., Orlando, E., Jack, S. M., Cook, D., Marticorena, R. M., Binnie, A., & Tsang, J. L. Y. (2024). Embedding a culture of research in Canadian community hospitals: A qualitative study. Health Research Policy and Systems, 22(1), 164. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12961-024-01243-2

Gehrke, P., Rego, K., Orlando, E., Jack, S., Law, M., Cook, D., Marticorena, R. M., Binnie, A., & Tsang, J. L. Y. (2024). Factors influencing community intensive care unit research participation: A qualitative descriptive study. Canadian Journal of Anesthesia/Journal Canadien d’anesthésie, 71(12), 1755–1768. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12630-024-02873-4

Rego, K., Orlando, E., Archambault, P., Geagea, A., Mitra, A. R., Vazquez-Grande, G., Marticorena, R. M., Patterson, L., DiDiodato, G., Rewa, O. G., Senaratne, J., Law, M., Binnie, A., & Tsang, J. (2024). Developing a toolkit for building a community hospital clinical research program. Canadian Journal of Anesthesia/Journal Canadien d’anesthésie, 71(12), 1646–1652. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12630-024-02883-2

Rego, K., Jomy, J., Patel, P., DiDiodato, G., Nademi, A., Binnie, A., & Tsang, J. (2024). The research activities of Ontario’s large community hospitals: An updated scoping review. BMC Health Services Research, 24(1), 1137. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-024-11454-6

Rego, K., Patel, P., Binnie, A., & Tsang, J. (2025). The research activities of Canadian community hospitals: A bibliometric analysis. Healthcare Management Forum, 08404704251345312. https://doi.org/10.1177/08404704251345312

Tsang, J. L. Y., Rego, K., Binnie, A., Lee, T., Mccarthy, A., Cowan, J., Archambault, P., Lellouche, F., Turgeon, A. F., Yoon, J., Lamontagne, F., Mcgeer, A., Douglas, J., Daley, P., Fowler, R., Maslove, D. M., Winston, B. W., Lee, T. C., Tran, K. C., … For CAPTIVATE Investigators. (2024). Community versus academic hospital community-acquired pneumonia patients: A nested cohort study. Pneumonia (Nathan Qld.), 16(1), 31. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41479-024-00143-x

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