Profiles
Meet some current and alumni members of AGE-WELL’s EPIC training program:
Kelly Davison (British Columbia)
It’s difficult to define narrowly the work Kelly Davison does to advocate for the health of local communities and Indigenous people, including Métis like himself. It’s multi-faceted and spreads across multiple organizations, but health equity is always at the core.
Dr. Shital Desai (Ontario)
Dr. Shital Desai may have spent much of her academic life studying machines and robots, but she never forgets about the people who use them. In her role as an Assistant Professor, Interaction Design at the School of Arts, Media, Performance & Design (AMPD) and York Research Chair in Accessible Interaction Design at York University, her work depends on her ability to understand the needs of others. Her goal is to keep the human component of technology front and centre.
Swati Katyarmal (Ontario)
A first-year graduate student in the Design for Health (DHEA) program at OCADU, Swati Katyarmal is an architect from India whose work is largely focused on hospital design. Her research revolves around exploring the design elements (interior design and architecture) and their implementation to support long-term care (LTC) and aging in place settings.
Sofija Spasojevic (Ontario)
When Dr. Sofija Spasojevic chose to pursue postdoctoral studies in Canada, she fully anticipated returning to Europe at the end. After three years, she not only decided to stay but discovered a passion for data science that prompted her to leave academia for a career in this field.
Lawrence Ly (Ontario)
Lawrence Ly’s passion for supporting healthy aging started with his grandmother at the age of fifteen. He was a 2018 AGE-WELL scholarship recipient and now works at Healthcare Human Factors to design better healthcare experiences.
Sayeh Bayat (Alberta)
As a newly-minted Assistant Professor at the University of Calgary, Dr. Sayeh Bayat is already encouraging her students to become AGE-WELL trainees – an experience she calls “incredible” in her own advancement as a researcher in technology and aging.
Mashrura Tasnim (Alberta)
Coming from Bangladesh to Canada, adapting and growing as a researcher was difficult at first for Mashrura Tasnim. Luckily, her PhD supervisor introduced her to the AGE-WELL network and encouraged her to get involved.
Jesse Mastrangelo (Ontario)
Jesse Mastrangelo didn’t set out to become an entrepreneur. But things changed when he discovered “hackathons.” Soon enough, he had signed up for AGE-WELL’s EPIC training program.
Karen Lok Yi Wong (British Columbia)
Karen Lok Yi Wong’s role as an AGE-WELL affiliate trainee was a dynamic two-way exchange. Wong brought the perspective of a social worker, while AGE-WELL exposed Wong to an extraordinarily interdisciplinary team.
Dr. Peyman Azad Khaneghah (Alberta)
Dr. Peyman Azad Khaneghah realized that people might need help sorting through the often confusing array of health apps on the market. So he created an app rating system, which he’s now refining and putting online as part of a research project funded by AGE-WELL.
Benett Axtell (Ontario)
When Benett Axtell became an AGE-WELL trainee in 2015, her father had just inherited a massive collection of family slides. Watching as he digitized and struggled to organize myriad images spanning decades, she was determined to apply her research on human-computer interaction to help older adults browse pictures, share memories and manage such collections.
Lupin Battersby (British Columbia)
Only two years after graduating from AGE-WELL’s EPIC training program, Lupin Battersby is making good progress toward achieving her five-year career goal: a management role at a research centre or network, where she oversees and supports projects through knowledge mobilization and commercialization.
Howard Chiam (Ontario)
As an AGE-WELL trainee, Howard Chiam created computer games geared to stroke survivors—work, he says, that was key to getting his dream job at ATS Automation in his hometown of Cambridge, Ontario.
Dr. Mohamed-Amine Choukou (Manitoba)
When he graduated as a kinesiologist, Dr. Mohamed-Amine Choukou imagined his future as a researcher working to improve quality of life and increase the mobility and social participation of vulnerable populations.
Dr. Ayse Kuspinar (Ontario)
Dr. Ayse Kuspinar is putting her experience as an AGE-WELL trainee to work in her position as assistant professor of physiotherapy in the School of Rehabilitation Science at McMaster University.
Dr. Rita Orji (Nova Scotia)
Dr. Rita Orji says her experience as an AGE-WELL trainee while doing postdoctoral work at McGill University helped her to see the sheer scope of what could be accomplished in the field of technology and aging.
Dr. Patrick Plante (Quebec)
Dr. Patrick Plante’s role as an AGE-WELL HQP doing postdoctoral work in digital educational games for older people proved to be the perfect launch pad for his new career as professor and researcher at TÉLUQ University, North America’s only French-language distance education university.
Dillam Diaz Romero (Alberta)
In just two years, Dillam Diaz Romero’s passion for creating technology to improve the lives of older adults has taken him from Colombia to Canada and Germany. Born and raised in Colombia, the AGE-WELL trainee and MSc student in Computing Science at the University of Alberta is on his way to achieving his goal: to do work that has global impact.
Danette Starblanket (Saskatchewan)
Danette Starblanket’s goal is to improve the quality of life for Canada’s Indigenous People―and she believes her involvement with AGE-WELL will help her to succeed.
VIDEO
Why do so many young researchers and professionals take part in AGE-WELL’s EPIC training program? Watch these videos to learn more.