Karen Faith (Thematic Working Group Member: Duty to Care) is currently the Director of the Clinical Ethics Centre at Sunnybrook & Women's College Health Sciences Centre, as well as a member of the Research Ethics Board. Karen is also part of the Clinical Ethics Group at the Joint Centre for Bioethics, University of Toronto.  Karen continues to write, teach and collaborate on research pertaining to areas of interest in clinical ethics.

Barbara Gibson (Thematic Working Group Member: Duty to Care) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physical Therapy at the University of Toronto and a Scientist at the Bloorview Research Institute. Barbara coordinates and teaches the Ethics and Professionalism Cross-curricular Theme in the Department of Physical Therapy Professional Masters program. Barbara’s research uses theoretically informed mixed methods to examine the social and ethical dimensions of disability, rehabilitation and community care.  Her current research projects explore the relationship between ventilators-users and their personal support workers, social meanings of walking and how they shape rehabilitation for children with cerebral palsy, and how the “quality of life” of disabled children is conceptualized and measured in health research and practice.

Jennifer Gibson (Thematic Working Group Member: Priority Setting) is the Director of Partnerships & Strategy at the Joint Centre for Bioethics and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Policy, Management, and Evaluation at the University of Toronto. She has a PhD in philosophy (with a specialization in Bioethics) from the University of Toronto. Her current research focuses on priority setting in health care organizations and organizational ethics.  In addition to her research activities, Jennifer teaches in the Master of Health Science in the Clinical Ethics program at the University of Toronto.  Jennifer also provides ethics consultation to hospitals on organizational ethics issues (including priority setting and resource allocation), and facilitates strategic planning workshops for hospital ethics programs.

Alejandro (Alex) Jadad ((Thematic Working Group Member: Risk Communication) is a Senior Scientist in the Division of Clinical Decision-Making & Health Care at the Toronto General Research Institute (TGRI), is the Rose Family Chair in Supportive Care, and is a Professor with the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto.  By the time Alex was 20 years of age and still a medical student, he became a leading medical expert on cocaine in Colombia and an internationally sought after speaker. In 1990 he joined the University of Oxford (Balliol College and the Oxford Pain Unit), where he obtained a doctorate in pain management, becoming one of the first physicians in the world with a doctorate in knowledge synthesis and meta-analysis of clinical trials.  In 2000, Alex moved to Toronto, where he created the Centre for Global eHealth Innovation, a setting designed as a simulator of the future, to study and optimize the use of ICTs before their widespread introduction into the health system. He is also spearheading the creation of a ‘mini-model’ of the world, a network of people, tools and settings working together to assess the impact of ICTs in health and health care, globally. He is developing virtual clinical tools to transform the encounter between patients and health professionals, interactive tools to promote knowledge translation and education of health professionals and the public, and a platform to respond to major public health crises (e.g., pandemics) and to enable young people to shape the health system.

Jennifer Keelan (Thematic Working Group Member: Risk Communication) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences at the University of Toronto. After completing her PhD at the University of Toronto's Institute for History and Philosophy of Science and Technology in 2004, she was awarded a SSHRC postdoctoral fellowship (2004-06) held at the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine, University College of London, and in Program on Science, Technology, and Society at The Kennedy School of Government, at Harvard University. Her research interests include public health policy, civic and social epistemology, the Public's understanding of science, and the history of medicine. She is completing a monograph that compares the resistance movements and legal challenges to compulsory immunization in the U.S., Canada and the UK. Current policy research projects include an examination of the need for, and possible design of, a no-fault medical insurance program to address vaccine injuries that arise through compliance with government-recommended immunization policies.

Randi Zlotnik Shaul (Thematic Working Group Member: Duty to Care) is a bioethicist at The Hospital for Sick Children. In that role Randi teaches health care professionals and bioethics students, provides ethics consultation services and policy support to individuals and committees within the hospital. For the past 3 years she has been an active member of The Hospital for Sick Children's Research Ethics Board. Randi has academic appointments in the departments of Paediatrics and Surgery and is a member of the University of Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics.  Randi has published in the areas of health law, priority setting and research ethics. Her current research interests include accountability in research ethics and innovation and public health.