Lead Site Investigators

Margaret Penning
Lead site investigator – University of Victoria

Dr. Margaret Penning is a professor in the Department of Sociology and Centre on Aging, University of Victoria, British Columbia. Her research interests include issues of aging, health and health care with a particular focus on coping with chronic illness and disability in later life; patterns of self, informal and formal care; structural inequalities in health and health care; and the implications of health care restructuring and reform for older adults and for community-based care. Dr. Penning’s research has been funded by SSHRC, CIHR, the MSFHR and other national and provincial funding agencies. She also serves as editor-in-chief of the Canadian Journal on Aging.

Max Cynader
Lead site investigator – University of British Columbia

Max Cynader is director of the Brain Research Centre and the Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health at Vancouver Coastal Health and the University of British Columbia (UBC). He holds the Canada Research Chair in Brain Development at UBC and is professor of ophthalmology.  He is also a member of the Order of Canada (CM), member of the Order of British Columbia (OBC), fellow of The Royal Society of Canada (FRSC), fellow of The Canadian Academy for Health Sciences (FCAHS) and a principal investigator in Canada’s Network of Excellence in Stroke.  His interests in neuroscience range from molecular neurobiology through systems neuroscience and on to computational neuroscience. He has contributed in areas as diverse as development of new viral vectors for gene therapy, and computational models for hearing.  He is also the co-founder of two successful neurotechnology companies that have taken lab-based inventions to patients and the general population.

Andrew Wister
Lead site investigator – Simon Fraser University

Andrew Wister, PhD, is chair and professor, Department of Gerontology, and acting director, Gerontology Research Centre, Simon Fraser University (SFU). He is a co-investigator on the Canadian Longitudinal Study of Aging (lead on the SFU Data Collection Site). Dr. Wister has conducted extensive research and he has over 150 publications covering: population health, health promotion and evaluation; healthy lifestyle interventions; self-care, self-help and mutual aid; chronic illness and aging; and living environment transitions. His most recent books include Baby Boomer Health Dynamics: How Are We Aging? (2005) published by University of Toronto Press, and Aging as a Social Process: Canadian Perspectives, 5th Edition (2008) published by Oxford University Press (with B. McPherson).

David Hogan
Lead site investigator – University of Calgary

David B. Hogan is a specialist in geriatric medicine. Born in Baie Comeau, Quebec, his education took place at St. Francis Xavier University, Dalhousie University, University of Alberta, University of Ottawa and the University of Western Ontario. In 1990, he moved to the University of Calgary where he founded the Division of Geriatric Medicine, Department of Medicine, and became the first Brenda Strafford Foundation Chair in Geriatric Medicine at the University of Calgary, which he still holds. His research interests include cognitive impairment and dementia. Dr. Hogan is the author of about 450 publications and has participated in a number of provincial and national research and data synthesis initiatives.

Verena Menec
Lead site investigator – University of Manitoba

Verena Menec is a professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and the Director of the Centre on Aging at the University of Manitoba. She received a doctorate in social psychology from the University of Manitoba. She currently holds a Canada Research Chair in Healthy Aging. Her main research interests lie in the areas of healthy aging, determinants of healthy aging, age-friendly communities, and health care utilization among older adults, particularly at the end of life.

Parminder Raina
Lead site investigator – McMaster University

Parminder Raina is the director of the Evidence-based Practice Center and a professor in the Department of Clinical Epidemiology & Biostatistics, McMaster University. Dr. Raina specializes in epidemiology of aging, injury and knowledge transfer. Dr. Raina is the lead principal investigator of the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging and has served as a lead investigator for the Hamilton site of the Canadian Study of Health and Aging (population study of dementia). Dr. Raina holds the Raymond and Margaret Labarge Chair in Research and Knowledge Application for Optimal Aging.

Larry W. Chambers
Co-lead site investigator – Bruyère Continuing Care

Larry W. Chambers is the immediate past president of the Élisabeth Bruyère Research Institute, a position he held for ten years. He continues to be a scientist at the Institute as well as professor in the Departments of Epidemiology and Community Medicine and Family Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ottawa and professor emeritus, Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Faculty of Health Sciences, McMaster University. He is a fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences and the American College of Epidemiology. In addition, he is an honorary fellow the Faculty of Public Health (United Kingdom).  Prof.Chambers research interests focus on older adults issues in quality of health services, public health programs and continuing professional development of healthcare personnel.

Vanessa Taler
Co-lead site investigator – Bruyère Continuing Care

Vanessa Taler is an assistant professor in the School of Psychology at the University of Ottawa and a scientist at the Élisabeth Bruyère Research Institute, where the CLSA data collection site is located. She has a B.A. in linguistics from University of Auckland, New Zealand; an M.A. in linguistics from McGill University and a Ph.D. in biomedical sciences, with a specialization in neuropsychology, from Université de Montréal. Dr. Taler’s research is supported by the Alzheimer Society of Canada and CIHR. Her research interests focus on language and neurocognitive processing in older adults and people with cognitive impairment and dementia. Current research focuses on the impact of bilingualism on language and cognitive processing; development of neuropsychological testing materials for detection of dementia; and changes in brain activity in cognitive impairment and dementia.

Christina Wolfson
Lead site investigator – McGill University

Christina Wolfson is a medical scientist at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre and a professor in the Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics & Occupational Health and the Department of Medicine at McGill University, Montreal. She is also a fellow of the American College of Epidemiology. She is trained both as a biostatistician and epidemiologist, and her program of research lies in the epidemiology of neurodegenerative disorders, particularly dementia and multiple sclerosis, and in population-based studies of the needs of seniors living in the community. Dr. Wolfson is the co-principal investigator of the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging and she was the Montreal site (joint McGill-Université de Montréal) principal investigator for the Canadian Study of Health and Aging for 10 years.

Hélène Payette
Lead site investigator – Université de Sherbrooke

Hélène Payette is a professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at the Université de Sherbrooke, and a researcher at the Research Centre on Aging of the Health & Social Service Center – University Institute of Geriatric of Sherbrooke. She specializes in nutrition, epidemiology and aging. Her research interests include healthy eating and its determinants, body composition and functional capacities in the aging individual as well as screening for nutritional risks and evaluation of nutritional interventions in the community-dwelling frail elderly. She was awarded the Centrum Foundation New Scientist Award by the Canadian Society for Nutritional Sciences (2004) and presently holds the Merck-Frosst chair on epidemiology of aging. Dr. Payette is currently the principal investigator for the Québec Longitudinal Study on Nutrition as a Determinant of Successful Aging (NuAge) funded by CIHR.

Susan Kirkland
Lead site investigator – Dalhousie University

Susan Kirkland is a professor and clinical research scholar in the Department of Community Health and Epidemiology and the Department of Medicine at Dalhousie University, Halifax. She is the associate director (population studies) of the Geriatric Medicine Research Unit at Dalhousie, affiliate scientist at the QEII Health Sciences Centre, and a founding member of the Atlantic Centre of Excellence for Women’s Health. She is trained as an epidemiologist, with expertise in epidemiological methods, health services utilization and women’s health and aging.  She is also a co-principal investigator of the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging.

Gerry Mugford
Lead site investigator – Memorial University

Gerry Mugford is an associate professor with the Faculty of Medicine in the disciplines of medicine and psychiatry at Memorial University. He is interim associate dean of research and graduate studies and director of the Clinical Epidemiology Graduate Medicine Program. He is a psychotherapist and certified medical and analytical hypnotherapist. Dr. Mugford is a founding member of Atlantic Canada HIV Education (ACHIVE) and the Atlantic Interdisciplinary Research Network for Social and Behavioural Issues in HIV and HCV (AIRN). He is also a member of CIHR Centre for Research Evidence into Action for Community Health in HIV/AIDS (REACH) and the National CIHR Research Training Program in Hepatitis C (NCRTP-Hep-C). Dr. Mugford conducts research in HIV/HPV and the risk of oral, anal and cervical cancers in HIV-positive Atlantic Canadians as well as investigations in a cohort of Newfoundland arthritis patients.