Cody Callon, BA, is the Coordinator of Community Based Research at UHRI. He has worked for UHRI since 2004, performing front-line data collection for the VIDUS, ACCESS, and ARYS cohorts. Cody is also working on a master’s degree in Social Work at the University of British Columbia, and his research areas of interest include structural and environmental determinants of health, grassroots community development, and popular education. His current work is focused on the development of a community-based public education strategy focused on HIV and hepatitis C testing, treatment, and disease monitoring among people who inject drugs.

Tricia Collingham, BSc, is the Program Coordinator for the Urban Health Research Initiative. She provides administrative support to the Directors and to program and support staff.

Danya Fast, MA, is a UHRI Ethnographer whose work focuses on the social factors that influence youth initiation into street life and transitions in drug use. Danya's master's thesis dealt with health issues of young men living and working on the streets of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Previously, Danya worked with the Canadian International Development Agency on an education development project in southern Vietnam. Danya is also the executive director of Urban Project, an organization which promotes employment, education and safer living opportunities for disadvantaged urban youth around the world.

Eric Fu, MSc, is a Statistician with the UHRI data team and has been working on projects involving various cohorts, including the At-Risk Youth Study (ARYS) and the Vancouver Injection Drug Users Study (VIDUS). Eric also works extensively with cohorts from Gender and Sexual Health Initiative (GSHI). He provides statistical consultation and support to students, epidemiologists and medical doctors working with UHRI or GSHI.

Deborah Graham, LLB, has held the position of Research Coordinator with the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS since 2005. After completing degrees in philosophy and law at the University of British Columbia, Deborah worked in the Faculty of Law at UBC as a research analyst. She is also an experienced technical writer, editor, and consultant. Deborah oversees the administrative functioning of UHRI and, among other things, manages grants and budgeting, ethical approval of research studies, journal submissions, and website content.

Scott Hadland, MD, MPH, a Research Assistant with UHRI, holds an MD degree from Washington University in St. Louis and an MPH degree from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where his studies focused on epidemiology, biostatistics, and child and adolescent health. He is currently a resident in pediatrics at Children’s Hospital Boston and Boston Medical Center, affiliated with Harvard University and Boston University, respectively. He has been appointed Chief Resident for the academic year 2012-13. His clinical and research interests focus on adolescent health, particularly with regard to risk behaviours among marginalized youth populations.

Kanna Hayashi, MIA, MPH, is UHRI’s Project Coordinator for the Mitsampan Community Research Project (Bangkok, Thailand) and a PhD candidate in the Interdisciplinary Studies Graduate Program (ISGP) at the University of British Columbia. After working for the Japanese embassy in Vienna and for the Secretariat for the 7th International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific, Kanna completed double masters degrees in International Affairs and Public Health at Columbia University in New York City. Kanna has also worked with UNAIDS in Thailand and Transatlantic Partners Against AIDS/Global Business Coalition in Russia. The topic of Kanna’s research is “Impact of international drug policy: Social and structural influences on health outcomes and health care access among injection drug users in Bangkok, Thailand.”

Caitlin Johnston, MSc-PPH, has been involved with the Vancouver Injection Drug Users Study (VIDUS) since it began. More recently, she has worked on VIDUS II, ACCESS, and the Scientific Evaluation of Supervised Injecting (SEOSI). As a UHRI Research Coordinator, Caitlin oversees all front-line staff, coordinates front-line activities, liaises with the community and the principal investigators, and contributes to ongoing study design and development. Her independent research activities have focused on the HIV risk environment of hard-to-reach, indoor commercial sex workers in Vancouver. Caitlin also supports two youth organizations who provide HIV education through theatre: Projecto Payaso in Guatemala and U-Tena in Kenya.

Steve Kain, RN, has been a Registered Nurse for 15 years. He began work for the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS on the VIDUS project in 1997 and is currently the Nursing Coordinator for the VIDUS, ACCESS and ARYS studies. Steve has also been involved in many other research and clinical programs in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, including the Maximally Assisted Therapy program, the NAOMI project, Insite and SEOSI.

Daniel Miles Kane is a Data Officer with UHRI and has been working with UHRI investigators on research projects since 1999. Daniel has extensive experience in collecting, coding, and linking data obtained for large epidemiological studies. He has contributed to several special data collection efforts for UHRI, including the collection of detailed information from the Provincial Coroner’s Office on all overdose deaths occurring in the province of British Columbia from 2001-2006. He has also worked on several community-based research projects and has been involved in training and overseeing peer research teams working on UHRI projects. Daniel also assists with the linking of UHRI survey data to several external administrative databases.

Andrea Krüsi, MSc, PPH, is a member of the qualitative UHRI research team. She conducts in-depth, semi-structured interviews with health service providers and people who inject drugs, analyses textual data, and prepares research reports. Andrea recently completed a master's degree in population and public health at Simon Fraser University, where she was awarded the Dean of Graduate Studies Convocation Medal for Academic Excellence. Andrea’s research interests focus on the perspectives of persons with substance use issues on access and quality of health care and social services.

Calvin Lai, MMath, PStat, is UHRI's Database Manager and Senior Statistician. Calvin joined the Centre after working at UBC for many years in statistics and IT. He currently manages the UHRI data team of statisticians, analytic co-ordinator and data officer. One of his key responsibilities is to ensure UHRI data quality, integrity and safety. He organizes and maintains a data warehouse for all UHRI cohort-related data. Calvin develops Oracle database applications, tracking various study cohorts and corresponding lab test results. He also handles all data resulting from data linkages to various external health data sources. In addition, he runs statistical analyses whenever time permits. Calvin holds a master of mathematics degree in statistics from the University of Waterloo and has the designation of Professional Statistician from the Statistical Society of Canada (SSC).

Brandon Marshall, PhD is UHRI's Analytic Coordinator and is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. His research interests focus on substance use epidemiology and the social, environmental, and structural determinants of health among vulnerable populations. As Analytic Coordinator, Brandon oversees data requests, develops novel analytic approaches, and provides assistance to students developing study designs and analytic strategies.

M-J Milloy, PhD, is the Research Coordinator of ACCESS, an ongoing prospective cohort of HIV-positive individuals who use illicit drugs, and a post-doctoral candidate at the University of British Columbia. As ACCESS Coordinator, M-J is involved with the development of analyses using ACCESS data, as well as the operation of the cohort. His research focuses on identifying the social and structural factors associated with HIV disease progression and suboptimal HAART outcomes among drug users. During his five years with UHRI, he has authored more than a dozen articles on topics including incarceration and the risk of HIV infection, patterns of fatal overdose, and the effects of Insite, Vancouver's supervised injection facility. His post-doctoral training is supported by awards from the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

Michaela Montaner, BA, is a Research Assistant with UHRI and a master’s student in the Interdisciplinary Studies Graduate Program at the University of British Columbia. She is responsible for coordinating and evaluating UHRI communications efforts promoting evidence-based illicit drug policy nationally and internationally. Michaela’s research interests focus around the impacts of health communications and knowledge translation in the contexts of print and social media and health policy development. Her current research focuses on the portrayal of Insite, Vancouver’s supervised injection facility, in the mainstream media over the last decade. 

Jiezhi Qi, MSc, is a Biostatistician with the UHRI data team. Before joining UHRI, Jiezhi worked in various areas of statistical analysis, including epidemiology. Her main job responsibilites are data manipulation, statistical analysis and result interpretation on UHRI’s research projects. She also provides statistical consultation and assistance to researchers and students at UHRI. Jiezhi is currently on maternity leave.

Lindsey Richardson, MPhil, is a UHRI Research Assistant and a doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Oxford. Her research focuses on socio-economic and structural influences on risk behaviour, health outcomes, and vulnerability among marginalized populations, and her work with UHRI includes both quantitative and qualitative studies on the subject, with a specific focus on labour market participation and general patterns of employment and income generation of people who use drugs in Vancouver. Lindsey is a Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Doctoral Scholar, a recipient of a doctoral award from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and her research has been supported by a University of Oxford Clarendon Scholarship and a doctoral award from Nuffield College, Oxford.

Carmen Rock, BA, is an Administrative Assistant at UHRI. After completing a degree in political science at Simon Fraser University, Carmen worked as a research assistant at the BC Centre for Disease Control. Carmen assists with UHRI’s day-to-day operations and provides administrative assistance to Dr. Evan Wood. 

Will Small, PhD, coordinates the UHRI qualitative research program and the UHRI community-based research study undertaken in partnership with the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU). He has used his expertise in the social sciences to promote an ecological perspective on public health issues by identifying the influence of social and structural factors, including law and policy, in shaping health inequalities and HIV risks among injection drug users. His work is supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research.

Lianping Ti, BSc, is a master's student in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University. She discovered an interest working in urban health after spending a summer as a drug demand reduction intern at UNODC in Thailand. Lianping is currently working as a research assistant with UHRI on the Mitsampan Community Research Project in Bangkok, Thailand. Her research areas of interest include the use of community-based approaches to develop policies and practices, as well as promoting the use of safer harm reduction practices among people who use drugs.

Peter Vann, BA, has been with the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS since 1998. His administrative duties have included the preparation of grants, manuscripts, conference presentations, reports, questionnaires, forms, websites, lectures and information tables for community and scientific events. In 2009 Peter joined the UHRI team as a Research Coordinator.

Dan Werb, MSc, is a Senior Research Assistant with UHRI and a doctoral student in the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia. He is also a Research Coordinator with the International Centre for Science in Drug Policy. His current research focuses on transitions into and out of injection drug use, illicit drug market participation, and the effect of drug law enforcement on public health. He is a former research fellow at the Senlis Council, a European drug policy lobby group, and has worked as a journalist reporting on drug policy and public health. He is the recipient of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Canada Graduate Scholarship and the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Junior Graduate Studentship Award.

Front-Line Staff: The foundation of the Urban Health Research Initiative is the work conducted by the many dedicated nurses, interviewers, data entry clerks, transcriptionists and others who are responsible for gathering the data on which UHRI research findings are based.