Three department researchers awarded Canada Research Chairs

Jay Shaw 

Last year, Jay Shaw was awarded a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Responsible Health Innovation. Jay’s work centres around two connected areas of focus. One is about artificial intelligence and technology, which is becoming increasingly important, and the other is how we organize and deliver health care, especially primary and community care.  

In Canada and around the world, health care systems are facing many challenges including worker burnout and widening health disparities. Through the CRC, Jay and his team are working to understand how to better design health care systems to innovate and meet the needs of structurally marginalized communities to ensure they have access to safe, high quality health care. By partnering with health system decision-makers nationwide, Jay's research will lead to improvements in community-based care across the country. 

Kelly O’Brien 

Kelly O’Brien holds a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Episodic Disability and Rehabilitation. This was renewed in January 2023 and continues until December 2027. Kelly’s research is focused on the experiences of people aging with chronic disease and multi-morbidity and aims to better understand and characterize the episodic nature of their disability. Her work primarily looks at the experiences of people living with HIV but with the renewal of the grant, has expanded to include persons living with Long COVID in her research. 

Persons living with HIV, Long COVID and other complex conditions may experience health-related challenges that are multidimensional in nature where some symptoms may fluctuate; they can get better, they can get worse, and they can do both over a period of time. This can include uncertainty and worry about the future for people living with these conditions.  

Kelly’s research can be broken down into three parts: 

1. Developing a better understanding and description of episodic disability; 

2. Developing the Episodic Disability Questionnaire (EDQ) — a tool to measure the presence, severity and episodic nature of disability; and  

3. Evaluating the impact of rehabilitation interventions to improve health outcomes for people aging with episodic disability. 

In the past year, Kelly and her team have taken the Episodic Disability Framework, which they developed in collaboration with persons living with HIV, and assessed the extent that the framework applies to adults living with Long COVID. As Long COVID is a growing cause of disability for many Canadians, this Framework can help health care professionals, caregivers, friends and family better understand the nature and extent of disability and the potential areas for rehabilitation. 

Kristin Musselman 

Since 2021, Kristin Musselman has held a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Multi-morbidity and Complex Rehabilitation. Through her research, Kristin will be developing innovative approaches to help people living with complex health conditions regain their physical abilities, like walking and balance control, which are essential to preventing falls. Kristin and her research team are looking at people across the lifespan, including young children who have been diagnosed with cerebral palsy, adults with spinal cord injury and older adults in their nineties who are living with the effects of stroke to explore and develop innovative approaches to therapy. 

One of these tools is electrical stimulation, which involves putting a low-level electric current over a peripheral nerve or muscle to stimulate it and create movement. In the past year, Kristin has received funding to create a toolkit that will help physical and occupational therapists learn more about the different uses of electrical stimulation so they can incorporate it into their practice.  

Kristin’s research on innovations for rehabilitation will help people living with multi-morbidity and complex health issues and build clinical capacity in Canada.