Josep-Eladi Baños

Josep-Eladi Baños is an M.D. from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. He received his Ph.D. degree in Medicine (Pharmacology) at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, was a visiting researcher at CNRS (Gif-sur-Yvette) and the Allegheny University of Health Sciences (now Drexel University in Philadelphia), and was a visiting professor at Universidad de Chile and Università di Firenze. He served as Vice-Dean and Vice-Rector of Teaching and Academic Affairs at UPF. He was Executive Secretary of the Spanish Society of Pharmacology and the Director of its Teaching and Learning Commission. His interests are focused in the use of active methods in teaching health science students, and the contribution of medical humanities (mainly literature, history, cinema, and ethics) to the training of medical students. He has (co-)authored more than 100 publications devoted to educational issues. He has received several awards for his contributions in education, including the Prize of the Spanish Ministry of Education for teaching innovation and the Generalitat de Catalunya Vicens Vives Award for professional achievement. He chairs the Margalida Comas program for the improvement of teaching and learning in Catalan Universities of the Generalitat de Catalunya. He has been Professor of Pharmacology at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and Universitat Pompeu Fabra. He is president of the Universitat de Vic – Universitat Central de Catalunya (Vic, Spain).

Krish Bilimoria

Krish Bilimoria is a second-year medical student at the University of Toronto and Junior Fellow at Massey College. He completed his Bachelor of Health Sciences degree in Global Health at McMaster University. He has worked broadly across research in genetic and molecular epidemiology, global health impact investment, and global health ethics. At the University of Toronto, he served as a teaching assistant for HST 440 (Health and Pharmaceuticals), and at McMaster, he served as an undergraduate teaching assistant for HTH SCI 2Q06 (Patient Care in a Historical Context), and HTH SCI 4TE3 (The Teaching Hospital). His current research interests include exploring Bayesian methods of clinical trial analysis, reproducible clinical research, and diagnostic reasoning.

Damien Joseph

Damien is a recent graduate from the Honours Life Sciences program, currently pursuing a career within the field of digital health with a particular interest in knowledge translation. He hopes to be able to play a part in bridging the gap between research and clinical practice. His interest in this work stems from his passion for making education more widely accessible and relevant to every individual, which led him to the work of Dr. Del. Damien deeply resonated with Dr. Del’s mission to shake the world of education to its core in his push for student-centered learning—breeding numerous leaders and change-makers along the way. In his spare time, Damien continues to work towards his goal of making education more accessible through his blog and podcast. This work is particularly geared towards young adults, with the mission of aiding their growth into healthy, wealthy, and wise adults.

Brian D’Monte

As an undergraduate alumnus of the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India, I vacillated between psychiatry and biochemistry as a postgraduate specialty before finally choosing the latter. A fortunate choice, because although research was what drew me to biochemistry, it was undergraduate teaching (oops!) that attracted me the most. In the middle of an experiment one day, I was asked to stand in for a colleague to deliver a lecture to the students. I will never be able to fathom why I agreed, but I did; however, my ‘lecture’ was not a monologue but, instead, a two-way discussion and exchange of ideas between them and me. Both parties enjoyed it—I suspect I more than they. I gave up test tubes and ultracentrifuges thereafter and spent my academic life in the company of undergraduates, during which time, together, we learned a little about the biomedical sciences and a lot about life. Constantly under the threat of never rising in the ranks of the faculty on account of the publish-or-perish syndrome, I remained amongst the lower echelons. Nevertheless, I was very satisfied with being in the exalted company of students—as I remain to this day. If I were given an opportunity to relive my life, I’d do precisely the same; I have led a privileged existence in the company of my fellow learners.

Many dear people have shaped my behaviour, and in doing so have shaped my interactions with students: my father with his love of books, my mother with her ways of dealing with life, my uncle Aloy Dyer and his daughter Marilyn, my daughter Sunita and Zoltan, my son Sunil, and my grandchildren Jasmine and Rohan, as well as Chari and G.P. Talwar.

Chaya Gopalan

Dr. Chaya Gopalan earned her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Bangalore University, India and received her Ph.D. in medical physiology from the University of Glasgow, Scotland. Upon completing two years of postdoctoral training at Michigan State University, she began her teaching career at St. Louis Community College. She wanted to experience teaching at a professional school and hence joined the St. Louis College of Pharmacy and later moved on to the departments of Applied Health, Primary Care, and Health Systems at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. Her teaching is in the areas of anatomy, physiology, and pathophysiology at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Dr. Gopalan has been practicing evidence-based teaching using team-based learning, case-based learning, and most recently, the flipped classroom techniques. She has received several grants in support of her research interests. In 2020, Dr. Gopalan was named the American Physiological Society’s Arthur C. Guyton Educator of the Year.

David M. Harris

David M. Harris has been an Associate Professor of Physiology at the University of Central Florida College of Medicine since 2011. Previous to that, he was at the Drexel University College of Medicine. He has led the medical physiology courses at both institutions and has experience in three different type of curricula. He is a proponent of student-centred and active learning methodologies and has published over 10 articles on these methods. He is an active member of the American Physiological Society (APS) and the International Association of Medical Science Educators (IAMSE). He currently serves as an Associate Editor for Advances in Physiology Education and BMC Medical Education. Dr. Harris is one of the basic science leaders for the Aquifer Sciences Initiative, has served as the physiology lead to develop that curriculum, and currently serves as the Editor in Chief for it. The purpose of the curriculum is to facilitate the integration of basic and clinical science to promote safe clinical decision-making. Dr. Harris has been recognized by the APS, IAMSE, and at UCF for his innovative teaching and mentorship to medical students.

John G. Kelton

Dr. John G. Kelton, Distinguished University Professor, is the Executive Director of the Michael G. DeGroote Initiative for Innovation in Healthcare at McMaster University in Hamilton. He took the role after completing, in June 2016, a 15-year term as the McMaster’s Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences and Vice-President for Health Sciences. He had also concurrently been the Dean of the University’s Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine. During his term, McMaster rose to be one of the top 40 universities in the world in medicine and health sciences.

Dr. Kelton has an active clinical practice as a hematologist, along with an internationally-recognized research program into platelet and bleeding disorders. In recognition of his research, clinical, and administrative achievements, he has received three honorary degrees and is a member of the Order of Canada.

Jonathan Kibble

Jonathan Kibble received his Ph.D. in physiology in 1994 from the University of Manchester. He has held previous faculty positions in the United Kingdom (University of Sheffield), the West Indies (St. George’s University, Grenada), and in Canada (The Memorial University of Newfoundland). He is currently a professor of physiology at the University of Central Florida, College of Medicine in Orlando, Florida. Jonathan was recognized by the American Physiological Society in 2018 as the Arthur C. Guyton Physiology Educator of the Year and also received the Association of American Medical Colleges, Alpha Omega Alpha, Robert J. Glaser Distinguished Teacher Award in 2015. Jonathan is author of the textbook Medical Physiology, The Big Picture, and his research centres around assessment for learning. 

Debra Klamen

Debra L. Klamen, M.D., M.H.P.E, F.A.P.A. is Professor and Chair of the Department of Medical Education at Southern Illinois University (SIU) School of Medicine. She is also the Senior Associate Dean for Education and Curriculum. Until December 2003, she was the Director of Undergraduate Medical Education in Psychiatry at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the Associate Dean for Curriculum. Dr. Klamen earned her Bachelor’s degree in Genetics at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana and her medical degree at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. She completed a Psychiatric residency at the University of Illinois at Chicago and was chief resident her last year there. She completed a Master’s of Health Professional Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1998 and was named a Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association in 1999. Dr. Klamen serves on the Communication Task Force of the National Board of Medical Examiners and developed and implemented a qualitatively different third year of medical school. Dr. Klamen has written numerous articles on medical school education, particularly in the area of performance evaluation and assessment. She has spoken extensively on the topic of stress management for physicians around the country. Dr. Klamen’s interests include PBL, innovative curricular change, and clinical performance assessment. In her free time, Dr. Klamen likes to travel and competes nationally in the sport of dressage.

Joshua Koenig

Joshua Koenig is an instructor in the Bachelor of Health Sciences Program at McMaster University and a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Pathology and Molecular Medicine studying Immunology. In his research life, Joshua studies the emergence of allergen-specific IgE antibodies early in allergic immune responses. In his teaching endeavours, he primarily engages in alternative education (i.e., inquiry, PBL, group, discussion) in the realms of immunology, child health, and cell biology. Joshua’s educational practices focus on treating many society-level issues as educational issues, working to assuage power imbalances through educational techniques that prioritize individual growth, introspection, and community. Presently, Joshua is working to highlight and deconstruct discriminatory educational practices that violate Canadians’ fundamental right to equal education—principally those that affect students with disability and mental health considerations.

Kulamakan (Mahan) Kulasegaram

Mahan is a graduate of the BHSc program (2009). He is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Family & Community Medicine and an Education Scientist at the Wilson Centre at the University of Toronto. His interest in education as a field and an area of scholarship began during his time in the BHSc program. He continues this interest professionally as a researcher and consultant in health professions education. Like Del, he has a low tolerance for horseshit of which there is a lot in the education literature.

Chiu-Yin Kwan

I was quite lucky to join McMaster University as a postdoctoral fellow immediately after completing my Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania in 1976. This was less than a decade after McMaster University initiated an innovative approach to medical education, now known globally as “Problem-Based Learning (PBL)”, which is self-directed and student-centered. As a postdoctoral fellow conducting smooth muscle research, in preparation for an academic career, I volunteered to “teach” medical students using the PBL format, albeit with much skepticism. I soon realized that my students learned quite well, even without my teaching. In no time, I was fascinated by PBL as an active-learning, adult-learning, and life-long learning approach in which tutors are actually on par with students, and in which tutors and students engage in self-directed learning together. Not only was the PBL approach effective, it was also fun and satisfying, all while supplying me with new knowledge. I later served as a PBL tutor trainer for visiting educators worldwide, especially those from Asia where PBL was considered a relatively novel and even strange “teaching” concept.  From 1992–1997, I took a leave-of-absence to accept a post as Chair of Physiology at the University of Hong Kong, where I successfully helped place PBL in medical education. Upon returning to McMaster, for two consecutive years, I was nominated for an award of excellence for PBL tutoring by the medical students and eventually received the honor in 2002. Increasingly, I developed a personal passion to promote PBL in medical education in the Asia-Pacific region, so much so that I took an early retirement to move to Taiwan where I helped lay the foundation for PBL and established the Center for Faculty Development at China Medical University in Taichung, the first centre of such a nature in medical schools in Taiwan. To this date, my ardent passion for the promotion of PBL in Asia seems to be insatiable and continues to expand across China, although with unknown and unpredictable outcomes.   

The MacPherson Institute

Ashley Marshall

Ashley Marshall is a professor of communications at Durham College and former instructor for OntarioTechU’s Faculty of Humanities. Her work seeks to make visible how and why the city is (re)produced in specific ways so that students can better understand the way that built space intersects with social and political forces; and to provide a resource for students to intervene into this system and engage in their own forms of collaborative “city-making.” Her most recent work on space-based pedagogy focuses on the way culture is constructed in the everyday situations individuals participate in, and thus expands in the interaction between communities and structures of hierarchization. She deconstructs and interrogates hegemony and cultural accumulation by dispossession. Such a dialectical process creates possibilities for resistance and disruption, and thus new modes of being and seeing. A post-secondary lecturer since 2014, Ashley has valuable experience designing and delivering robust content surrounding liquid modernity, and engaging students to see and live more critically. Her project is a defense of the heuristic nature of art, a force that inspires freedom, imagination, and self-actualization for communities and individuals.

Mathew Mercuri

Mathew Mercuri completed his Ph.D. in Health Research Methods at McMaster University, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Medicine at Columbia University. In addition, Mathew holds faculty appointments within the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation and Victoria College at the University of Toronto and is a Research Associate at the Institute for the Future of Knowledge at the University of Johannesburg. Dr. Mercuri is currently pursuing a second Ph.D. at the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology (University of Toronto). In addition, he is the Editor-in-Chief for the Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice. Mathew’s research interests are focused on variations in medical practice, issues around radiation exposure from diagnostic imaging, and medical epistemology.

Sean Park

Sean Park, Ph.D., M.A. BHSc. (Class of ’04) unknowingly began his life-long love affair with education, teaching and learning in 2000. As part of the first cohort in the BHSc program at McMaster University, he had a disorienting and life-changing foray into inquiry-based learning under the guidance of Dr. Del Harnish. After dropping out of law school, Del offered Sean opportunities to run a range of educational ‘experiments’ with complexity theory and inquiry, leading to his M.A. degree in Education at the University of Toronto. Sean’s next adventures into theatre, Daoist martial arts, psychotherapy, and Buddhist meditation unleashed a fervour for holistic education, contemplative inquiry, and creativity, and he holds a Ph.D. at Simon Fraser University in Arts Education with a specialization in curriculum theory and implementation. Further training in cybernetics and global healing traditions with Drs. Bradford and Hillary Kenney continues to disrupt and guide his educational practice and scholarship. Sean is currently an Assistant Professor in Medicine at McMaster. He lives in Hamilton with his wife and two children and can often be found playing in the streets with the Hammer City Samba community orchestra.

P.K. Rangachari

P.K. Rangachari Professor (Emeritus) Medicine at McMaster University has a medical degree (All-India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India, Ph.D. in Pharmacology, U. Alberta). His post-doctoral research at the Cardio-Vascular Research Institute, San Francisco, California, Hopitaux Necker and Bichat, Paris, Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Hospital, Boston involved ion transport and inflammatory mediators. He has taught in a variety of programmes—undergraduates (health sciences, life sciences, Arts and Sciences), medicine, nursing, physiotherapy, pharmacy, and biomedical engineering—for 30 years at McMaster University. He has published papers on ion transport and education, has organised teaching symposia for ASPET, APS and IUPHAR, and has participated in workshops on problem-based learning in a number of countries. He has co-authored several books, including The Design of Smooth Muscle (Grover, Rangachari), Problem-Based Learning in Medicine (David, Patel, Burdett, Rangachari), and Students Matter: The Rewards of University Teaching (SIU School of Medicine) which was edited with Kevin Dorsey and which has been translated into Japanese and Chinese as well. He was the Claude Bernard Lecturer for the American Physiological Society in 2010.

Stacey A. Ritz
During my undergraduate degree in biology at McMaster in the 90s, I had the great good fortune of encountering Del Harnish early and often—first as the professor of my 2nd year Cell Biology course, then around the Life Sciences Building when I worked in one of his colleague’s labs for the summer, and then as my 4th year virology prof and co-supervisor of my 4th year thesis in allergy and immunology. Del demonstrated for me that university teaching didn’t have to be formulaic, didactic, or impersonal. As a mentor in a course on teaching in higher education, and as the first Assistant Dean of the BHSc (Hons) Program, Del gave me opportunities to develop as an educator, including teaching in the nascent years of the program. After a post-doc at UCLA and 10 years at Canada’s newest med school (the Northern Ontario School of Medicine), I had the honour of returning to McMaster and attempting to fill Del’s shoes as his successor in the BHSc (Hons) Program starting in 2015. Although my scholarship began in the field of allergy and immunology and the influence of air pollution on the immune system, my focus now is on the incorporation of sex and gender considerations in experimental biomedical research, and the use of critical discourse analysis as an educational tool.

Felicia Vulcu
I am an Associate Professor (teaching) in the Department of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences (BBS) at McMaster University. My primary teaching focus is on laboratory-based courses and curriculum design. My teaching practices focus on three central tenets: safety, respect, and positivity. I constantly strives to create safe, nurturing environments conducive to life-long learning. Highlights from my current teaching portfolio include the creation of an 8-month-long undergraduate laboratory course (2nd year) aimed at introducing students to a directed research project. I use a number of teaching practices such as team think tanks, flipped-classroom case studies, and Labster virtual labs. In the last five years, I was fortunate enough to be part of the design and implementation of a brand new program launched by the BBS department: Biomedical Discovery and Commercialization (http://bdcprogram-mcmaster.ca ). I have also created a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) called DNA Decoded. The course was created in collaboration with Dr. Caitlin Mullarkey, MacPherson Institute, and Labster virtual labs. It is currently featured on the Coursera platform.
Check out the DNA Decoded course: https://www.coursera.org/learn/dna-decoded
Check out the DNA Decoded course trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEFaPccIE9Y

Harold B. White, III

Professor Emeritus Harold B. White, III graduated with a degree in biochemistry from Pennsylvania State University. He joined the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Delaware in 1971 after a postdoctoral research fellowship in Chemistry at Harvard University and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Brandeis University. His research interests were in the structure, function, and evolution of vitamin-binding proteins. He was one of the early advocates of RNA enzymes. After the mid 1990’s, his interests focused on undergraduate education. Between 1994 and 1998, he served as Principal Investigator on Delaware’s first NSF/DUE grant on Problem-Based Learning (PBL). As a member of the Education and Professional Development Committee of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) and the Institute for Transforming Undergraduate Education, he conducted numerous PBL workshops. As an associate editor for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education, he wrote commentaries on PBL. Hal received the College of Arts and Sciences Outstanding Teaching Award in 2005 and the Howard Barrows Award for exceptional undergraduate teaching from McMaster University in 2011. In 2013, he was named Delaware Professor of the Year and elected as an AAAS Education Fellow. He was honored with the 2014 ASBMB Award for Exemplary Contributions to Education and the 2015 Delaware Bio Educator of the Year Award. For 18 years, he directed Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Undergraduate Science Education Program at the University of Delaware. Regionally, Hal is known as an expert on dragonflies and published a book on the Natural History of Delmarva Dragonflies and Damselflies.