Nancy M Waite, BScPhm, PharmD
Full Professor
Associate Director, Practice-Based Education and Professional Outreach
Ontario College of Pharmacists Professor in Pharmacy Innovation
Co-Principal Investigator, Ontario Pharmacy Research Collaboration
School of Pharmacy, University of Waterloo
Dr. Waite is a highly motivated pharmacy practice educator and researcher with more than 20 years of Canadian and American experience in providing clinical pharmacy services, leading creative curriculum reform, development and assessment, and conducting innovative pharmacy education and practice research.
As one of the first faculty members appointed to the School of Pharmacy, Nancy has been central in its development and expansion. Her accomplishments include leading the development, design and delivery of an accredited four-year BScPhm program with a full co-op component. Most recently, she led the development of the School’s entry-to-practice PharmD program submission, a professional degree designation approved in April 2013 by the Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities.
Nancy’s research program examines the development and assessment of pharmacy curricula to produce graduates prepared to provide medication management in an evolving healthcare landscape, and explores the impact of novel pharmacist interventions and pharmacist scope of practice changes on medication management and health outcomes. In 2013, she received a $5.7 million grant from the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care to lead a multi-investigator and multi-institutional collaborative research program known as OPEN to foster innovation in pharmacy practice and to evaluate the effectiveness of Ontario pharmacist-led medication management programs.
Nancy believes in a team approach, supported by strong leadership and motivational and team-building skills. She chairs and is a member of numerous committees and boards of local, provincial, state, national and international pharmacy organizations. Her many awards from peers – most recently the Ontario College of Pharmacists Professorship in Pharmacy Innovation, a $600,000 professorship to provide leadership in educational and research initiatives – attest to her passion for pharmacy education and practice advancement.
Nancy received her BScPhm from the Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Toronto and her PharmD from Wayne State University in Detroit, where she also completed postdoctoral studies.
Dana Church, BA (honours), PhD
Research associate
Pharmacists as immunizer project, OPEN
Dana is a research coordinator on OPEN’s Pharmacists as immunizers project, where she applies her extensive experience in survey development, application of theoretical frameworks, hypothesis generation and testing expertise, and measurement, data analysis and communication skills.
Before joining OPEN, Dana was a project manager and recruitment coordinator at the University of Waterloo’s Propel Centre for Population Health Impact. Her responsibilities included reviewing scholarly and grey literature on clinical and population approaches to smoking cessation, developing, validating and assessing survey instruments, preparing grants, and acting as a liaison between researchers and community stakeholders.
Dana graduated in 2005 with a PhD in psychology from the University of Ottawa. She also graduated from the University of Ottawa summa cum laude in 1999 with a BA Honours in psychology.
Katie Cook, MA
Educational Research Coordinator
Research Coordinator, Ontario Pharmacy Research Collaboration —
Gender and Vulnerable Populations Team
Katie graduated with a master’s degree in community psychology from Wilfrid Laurier University in June 2010. Since then, she has been developing her career as a qualitative research specialist, working in both academic and community-based organizations on a variety of diverse projects. She has worked with the School of Pharmacy at the University of Waterloo since July 2010, with a large focus of her work on evaluating and understanding the School’s community service-learning initiative.
More recently, Katie has begun working as a research coordinator with OPEN — the Ontario Pharmacist Research Collaboration — on the Gender and vulnerable populations team. This position combines her research expertise, connections to pharmacy practice, and principles of community psychology in novel and interesting ways.
Katie navigates and understands the world through a critical, anti-oppressive lens and seeks inclusive, respectful, and inspiring community in her professional, personal and academic endeavours.
Brad Jennings, BA, BEd, MEd
Educational Research Coordinator
Capacity Building Team, Ontario Pharmacy Research Collaboration
Brad provides instructional design and project management support for OPEN’s Capacity-building team.
Brad has 14 years of post-secondary educational design and development experience in multiple healthcare disciplines, as well as with business and language programs. He has managed educational programs and projects in Canada and Asia.
His current area of interest is in better understanding the role that online learning experiences, especially simulated experiences, play in learning in applied contexts.
Marina Mikhail, BSc Biology
PharmD student, Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Toronto
Pharmacists as immunizers project
Marina completed a three-year Bachelor of Science degree in biology at the University of Western Ontario.
She is now a pharmacy student in the final year of the PharmD program at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy at the University of Toronto.
Marina is working as a research assistant as part of the PharmD Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experience rotations on OPEN’s Pharmacists as immunizers project.
Sara Marshall, BSc (honours), MSc
Program manager, Ontario Pharmacy Research Collaboration
Sara assists OPEN’s Lead and Co-lead with the overall management of the research program, ensuring that the goals of the program are achieved. She is responsible for tracking program and project activities, deadlines and outcomes, and overseeing OPEN’s financial management. She also ensures administrative and reporting deadlines are met, coordinates communication between program teams and with media, manages logistics and operations, and coordinates OPEN events.
Sara has been managing programs, projects and events in various non-profit settings, such as a primary healthcare project in Malawi, sport for development programming and events in Namibia and South Africa, and Katimavik’s community-based youth service project in Niagara. She has experience with program planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation, reporting and financial management, as well as stakeholder management with government, funding agency, business and non-profit partners.
Sara received her BSc kinesiology from the University of Waterloo and graduate certificate in event management from Niagara College Canada. More recently, she received her MSc in management and implementation of development projects from the University of Manchester and is interested in community health and well-being, capacity building and translating research into practical program delivery within Canadian and international contexts.
Joe Petrik, BSc (honours), MSc, MA
Communications coordinator, Ontario Pharmacy Research Collaboration
Joe Petrik has more than 15 years of experience in research, writing, editing, photography, digital image editing, visual messaging and branding, layout and design, publication production and delivery, and website development.
Joe is OPEN’s communications coordinator. He is responsible for facilitating communications across OPEN’s projects and teams and is responsible for creating and managing OPEN’s internal and external print and online communications.
He has held a a variety of research and communications positions: as the manager of publications at the International Institute for Sustainable Development, a research associate and communications specialist at the University of Kentucky, a research associate (scientific writing and editing) at the University of Waterloo’s School of Pharmacy, and as the communications manager at the Canadian Water Network.
Melinda Recchia, BA (Honours)
Administrative assistant, Ontario Pharmacy Research Collaboration
Working closely with the program management team at the Ontario Pharmacy Research Collaboration, Melinda is responsible for providing administrative and financial support for the program, including meeting planning, execution and follow-up.
She is also the frontline contact for external and internal inquiries, as well as coordinates activities and communications across OPEN’s projects and committees.
Melinda recently completed an undergraduate degree in psychology at the University of Waterloo
Lisa Wenger, BA, MA, PhD
Research coordinator, Applied health research question process
Research coordinator, Pharmacists as immunizers project
Research coordinator, OPEN program
Lisa is a research coordinator with OPEN on several research projects — (1) an applied health research question on bias in clinical interactions between patients and pharmacists, (2) the Pharmacists as immunizers project, where she assists with two subprojects (the pharmacist perspective and patient perspective surveys), and (3) research on the OPEN collaboration itself.
Before joining OPEN, Lisa held a variety of research positions within university, local government, and community-based organizations. Within her experience, she has contributed as a research coordinator for an SSHRC study on families and time use, as a public health planner with Region of Waterloo Public Health, as a manager of special projects with the Centre for Behavioural Research and Program Evaluation (now Propel Centre for Population Health Impact, University of Waterloo), as a strategic partner and supervisor of graduate student interns with the Institute for Community Engaged Scholarship/ Research Shop (University of Guelph), and as a senior research associate with a study engaging arts-based methods to understand experiences of disability and difference within the health system (University of Guelph).
Lisa completed an MA at the University of Waterloo (2003), a PhD at the University of Guelph (2012), and a postdoctoral fellowship in psychosocial oncology at the University of British Columbia (2013). Her grounded theory doctoral research focused on how men with cancer navigate help-seeking across the course of their illness, and she maintains a keen interest in gender dynamics in health experiences and outcomes.
Blake Ziegler, BSc (honours) Biochemistry
PharmD student, Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Toronto
Pharmacists as immunizers project
Blake completed his undergraduate degree in biochemistry at University of Waterloo. He is a pharmacy student in the final year of the PharmD program at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy at the University of Toronto.
Blake is currently working as a research assistant as part of the PharmD Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experience rotations on OPEN’s Pharmacists as immunizers project.