The Urban Health Research Initiative provides an exceptional research environment for promising undergraduate, graduate, and post-doctoral students. Meet the outstanding trainees currently working with us:

Cody Callon, BA, is a master's student in the School of Social Work at the University of British Columbia and 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’s research areas of interest include structural and environmental determinants of health, grassroots community development, and popular education. His masters research is a collaboration with the VANDU Injection Support Team evaluating their user-led educational campaign promoting safer injecting. 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.

Kora DeBeck, PhD, is a Postdoctoral Fellow with UHRI. Kora completed her doctoral degree in the Interdisciplinary Studies Graduate Program at the University of British Columbia in 2010. She also has a master’s degree in Public Policy from Simon Fraser University and has field experience as an intern in Kigali, Rwanda, providing administrative and coordination support for the development of a genocide memorial museum. Kora has published in many areas of illicit drug policy, including policing, incarceration, public drug use, income generation and emerging risks for HIV among people who injects drugs in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Her dissertation research focused on drug-related street disorder and the potential for structural policy initiatives in the areas of housing, employment and drug consumption facilities to address the health and social impacts of this policy problem. Kora’s postdoctoral training is co-supervised by Dr. Evan Wood (UHRI, University of British Columbia) and Dr. Chris Beyrer (Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health) and is supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

Nadia Fairbairn, BSc, is a fourth-year medical student at the University of Ottawa. Her previous work as a research assistant with UHRI examined the social and environmental factors that contextualize risk behaviours among injection drug users. Nadia was also project coordinator for a community-based research project involving drug users at Mitsampan Harm Reduction Center in Bangkok, Thailand. The title of this project is "HIV Risk Behaviours and Access to Harm Reduction and Treatment Services among Injection Drug Users in Thailand." Her interests include the use of novel community-based approaches to guide health policy in urban settings.

Danya Fast, MA, is a PhD student in the Interdisciplinary Studies Graduate Program at the University of British Columbia, and the Coordinator of Youth Ethnographic Studies at UHRI.  She has a master's degree in Medical Anthropology from the University of Amsterdam, and has worked previously in Tanzania and Vietnam. Danya received a New Investigators Award from the Canadian Association for HIV Research for her work exploring young people's experiences with drug use and violence in the context of the downtown Vancouver drug scene. Her current project, "Place and experiences of risk among young drug users in downtown Vancouver," is supported by a Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship and a Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Trainee Award.

Kanna Hayashi, MIA, MPH, is a PhD student in the Interdisciplinary Studies Graduate Program (ISGP) at the University of British Columbia. After working for the Embassy of Japan in Vienna, Austria and for the Secretariat for the seventh 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 also worked as IDU research intern with UNAIDS in Thailand and as consultant for Transatlantic Partners Against AIDS/Global Business Coalition in Russia. She is currently coordinating the Mitsampan Community Research Project in Bangkok, Thailand, and 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.” Kanna’s doctoral studies are supported through a UBC Four Year Doctoral Fellowship.

Chelsea G. Himsworth, DVM, MVetSc, Dipl ACVP, is a veterinarian and veterinary pathologist who is currently pursuing a PhD through the UBC School of Population and Public Health. Her main area of research is the ecology and epidemiology of zoonotic diseases (infectious diseases transmissible between animals and people). She is particularly interested in zoonotic diseases associated with urban wildlife, specifically rats. Her current project is focused on understanding whether rats pose a health risk to people living in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and how this risk can be monitored and mitigated. Chelsea is a recipient of the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship and is a Canadian Institutes of Health Research Bridge Strategic Training Fellow.

Andrea Krüsi, MSc, PPH, is a member of the qualitative UHRI research team and a doctoral student in the Interdisciplinary Studies Graduate Program at the University of British Columbia. Andrea has a master's degree in Population and Public Health from Simon Fraser University, where she was awarded the Dean of Graduate Studies Convocation Medal for Academic Excellence. Andrea is also the recipient of a Canadian Institutes of Health Research Doctoral Research Award – Canada Graduate Scholarship. Andrea’s research seeks to bring together theoretical perspectives from public health, sociology and medical anthropology in examining the perspectives of marginalized individuals on various social, structural, and environmental determinants of health. Her doctoral research will focus on the social and structural barriers to HIV treatment and care among individuals with a history of injection drug use. 

Brandon Marshall, PhD, is UHRI's Analytic Coordinator. He completed his PhD in epidemiology at the University of British Columbia School of Population and Public Health. He is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Epidemiology 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. He has published more than 30 scientific papers and has won numerous research and training awards, including the American College of Epidemiology 2010 Student Prize. He holds a postdoctoral fellowship from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and is the recipient of the International AIDS Society / National Institutes of Drug Abuse Fellowship Encouraging HIV & Drug Use Research.

Ryan McNeil, MPhil, is a doctoral student in the Interdisciplinary Studies Graduate Program at the University of British Columbia. He completed a master’s degree in Policy Studies at the University of New Brunswick and has worked as a researcher in a variety of community health settings. Ryan most recently coordinated a national study investigating palliative care services delivery to homeless persons. His current project, “An ethnographic study of the Dr. Peter Centre,” has been supported by a University of British Columbia Four-Year Fellowship and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council doctoral award.

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. 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 master’s student in the Interdisciplinary Studies Graduate Program at the University of British Columbia and a research assistant with UHRI. 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. Michaela has a bachelor’s degree in sociology from the University of British Columbia.

Lindsey Richardson, MPhil, is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Oxford. Her research focuses 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. She holds a master’s degree in Sociology from the University of Oxford and has worked on social development and drug policy for both the municipal government in Vancouver and the Canadian federal government. 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. The title of Lindsey’s doctoral project is “When work is much more than a job: Predicting employment and its impacts among people who inject drugs.”

Will Small, PhD, is an ethnographer and a Postdoctoral Fellow with UHRI. Will coordinates the qualitative and ethnographic research program UHRI, and for the past 5 years he has conducted fieldwork examining the health of injection drug users in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. In 2010 he completed his doctoral research in the Interdisciplinary Studies Graduate Program at the University of British Columbia. Will has recently begun his Postdoctoral training, which will take place in Vancouver and Sydney, Australia, and will be co-supervised by Dr. Thomas Kerr (UHRI, University of British Columbia) and Dr. Lisa Maher (National Centre for HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research, University of New South Wales). Funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research supports Will’s Postdoctoral research project.

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.

Dan Werb, MSc, is a doctoral student in the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia and Senior Research Assistant at UHRI. 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.