Team

This work was supported by a grant from the Ontario Ministry of Children Community and Social Services' Ontario Autism Program (OAP) Workforce Capacity Fund - Sector Innovation Stream

NEST is comprised of scientists, researchers, educators, patient/family/caregiver partners, community partners, and learners.

Core Team

Meet the members of our core Teaching and SLED-Vast Operations teams

Learners

Learners are integral and foundational parts of our SLE communities and work.

Community

NEST projects and SLED-VAST are supported by a community of partnerships.

Consortium

Ensuring that the SLED-VAST initiative is a genuinely and meaningfully partnered co-creation

Core Team

This includes the Core Teaching Team and the SLED-VAST Operations team,
who are also the Co-PI of the OAP Workforce Capacity grants.

Amanda Binns

PhD, SLP - CCC Reg. CASLPO

Clinician, Researcher, Educator

Education Development Lead, Clinical Teaching, Centre for Faculty Development
Assistant Professor, Department of Speech-Language Pathology, University of Toronto
Adjunct Research Professor, School of Communication Sciences and Disorders
Western University, Autism Spectrum and Language Disorders Lab

How can we optimize Speech-Language supports and services to fit child, family and system needs? Amanda is a clinician, researcher, and educator in the field of Speech-Language Pathology whose work aims to address this crucial question. Her program of research extends from over 15 years of experience working as a SLP. Using a combination of practice based research and implementation science Amanda is working to increase system wide adoption of compassionate, collaborative, and evidence-informed services.
Amanda's work has taken her across the globe, with over 45 invited presentations to professionals, parents, and policy makers in North America, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and South America. She is Adjunct Research Professor at Western University, and Assistant Professor in the Department of Speech-Language Pathology, University of Toronto. In her role at Holland Bloorview, she is clinical manager of an innovative virtual Student-Led Environment that is supporting autistic children and families in Ontario.

Farah Friesen

Researcher, Educator

Manager, Research & Knowledge Mobilization, Centre for Advancing Collaborative Healthcare & Education (CACHE), Temerty Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto
Education Investigator I, The Institute for Education Research (TIER), University Health Network

Alifa Khan

Family as Faculty, Autism Student-Led Environment

Vice Chair of the Research Family Engagement Committee (RFEC), Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital

Alifa Khan is a second-generation bi-racial cis-gendered Muslim woman who identifies with the pronouns she/her/hers. She worked within healthcare for 22 years in patient and non-patient-facing settings. Khan is the mother of three children, two who are neurodiverse and one with a congenital heart defect. She passionately partners in the health and educational systems at the micro, meso, and macro levels to deepen capacity and foster ripples of transformation, training the next generation of change agents in healthcare.
Presently, her most notable roles include being the Vice Chair of Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital (HBKRH) – Research Family Engagement Committee (RFEC), a member of Family as Faculty (FaF) at HBKRH, an Acceptance Commitment Training Facilitator for Caregivers of People with Disabilities, a Patient Surveyor at Accreditation Canada, a Peer Reviewer at Health Standards Organization (HSO), a member of her local Ontario Health Team (OHT), and a member of the Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility (IDEA) Task Force at HBKRH. Through genuine and meaningful collaborations, Alifa has successfully partnered and led initiatives that drive high-quality, safe care and transformational education for clients, families, students, clinicians, and health care providers. She won the 2020 Canadian Patient Safety Week Safety Story for “Understanding Virtual Care: A Resource for Clients and Families” and in 2019, she was the recipient of both an Ontario Volunteer Service Award and The Beryl Institute – Team Innovation Award. In 2023, as part of a collaboratively led Student-Led Environment for Virtual Autism Supports during wait Times (SLED-VAST), her team won the Ministry of Colleges and Universities’ 2021/22 Minister’s Award of Excellence in the category of Future-Proofing Ontario’s students.

Stella Ng

PhD, RegCASLPO

Director, Scientist, Educator

Director & Scientist, Centre for Advancing Collaborative Healthcare & Education (CACHE)
Associate Professor, Speech-Language Pathology & Institute of Health Policy, Management & Evaluation, Temerty Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto
Scientist, The Wilson Centre & The Institute for Education Research, University Health Network

Stella began her term as Director of the University of Toronto's (UofT) Centre for Advancing Collaborative Healthcare & Education (CACHE) in 2021. She spent the previous eight years with the UofT's Centre for Faculty Development at St. Michael's Hospital where she served as Director of Research and co-developed the Teaching for Transformation program. Stella is passionate about the transformative potential of education, particularly critical reflection and critical pedagogies to foster collaborative, compassionate, and ethical health care and health science. This passion was sparked by challenges experienced as a pediatric audiologist in the public-school system, which motivated her to complete her PhD on how people learn and practice in the face of value-conflict and uncertainty. Stella is an Associate Professor in the Dept. of Speech-Language Pathology and Institute of Health Policy, Management & Evaluation, and a Wilson Centre Scientist.

Gunjan Seth

Family as Faculty, Autism Student-Led Environment

Co-Chair, Family Advisory Committee (FAC), Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital
Member, Patient and Family Advisory Committee (PFAC), Ontario Health

Through the journey & joy of raising her son, with autism, she has acquired a lived experience & training exposure that has strongly motivated her to volunteer, share with and advocate for the parents and caregivers. As a Family advisory committee (FAC) member of various advisory committees/workgroups of Autism Speaks, Autism Treatment Network (ATN) and Autism Learning Health Network (ALHN), Gunjan sits on various advisory committees /work groups including the Sleep committee, Behavioral sciences committee, ADHD and anxiety learning lab. She is also a Parent advisor with ECHO Ontario Autism. She recently gave an Ignite talk at Autism Speaks ALHN session.
Gunjan is deeply passionate about lending a voice to the community and being a proud immigrant herself, she is passionate about helping newcomers navigate through support networks. She strongly believes in building a community that uplifts one another.
Gunjan is the winner of the 2022 Children’s Healthcare Canada (CHC) Patient & Family Leadership Award, which recognizes outstanding leadership by a parent or caregiver who has served to improve the patient and family experience for those accessing pediatric healthcare in Canada. It is presented to an individual who has exemplified courage, commitment and resilience in promoting systemic change at local, regional and/or national levels.

Kathryn Parker

PhD

Associate Director, Evaluation Specialist, Educator

Associate Director, Transformative Change, Centre for Advancing Collaborative Healthcare & Education (CACHE), University Health Network
Associate Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Temerty Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto

Kathryn received her PhD in program evaluation from the University of Toronto in 2006. She has presented her work at various national and international conferences and has applied her program evaluation skills when working with numerous academic/clinical groups to facilitate and direct program evaluation efforts. She is an Associate Professor with the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Toronto and was also the recipient of the 2013 AMS Phoenix Fellowship. She currently serves as the Senior Director of Academic Affairs at Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital.
She came to the Centre back in 2009 as an evaluation advisor. Her current role at the Centre is an Associate Director with a focus on supporting the development of Student-led Learning Environments (SLEs) and also serves as faculty in both the Centre’s Collaborative Change Leadership program and the Ehpic© program.

Learners

Student-Led Environments (SLE) such as SLED-VAST would not be possible without the enthusiastic learners that are integral and foundational parts of our SLE communities and work.

This list includes learners who wished to be represented on this website. These individuals engaged with us during their time as learners in their health professions education programs, though many have since graduated and may be practicing clinicians or pursuing other academic and professional endeavours.

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Community

NEST projects and SLED-VAST are supported by a community of partnerships.

Consortium

The SLED-VAST Consortium is responsible for ensuring that the SLED-VAST initiative is a genuinely and meaningfully partnered co-creation of a new SLE; building partnerships and establishing connections to ensure representation and impact; and informing, reflecting on, and sharing practical developments, including future opportunities for scale-up and sustainability.

Sincerest appreciation to Consortium members who have been there since day 1!

Gayle Adams-Carpino, Faculty, Interprofessional Education-Laurentian University Division of Human Sciences, NOSM University

Michelle Addison, Director, Health Professions & Collaborative Practice, Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre; Assistant Professor, Clinical Sciences Division, NOSM University

Amanda Binns, Clinical Manager & Co-Lead, SLED-VAST and Clinical Education Development Lead, Centre for Faculty Development

Victoria Boyd, Post-doctoral fellow, CanChild, McMaster University

Wenonah Campbell, Associate Professor; John and Margaret Lillie Chair in Childhood Disability Research; Scientist, CanChild, Speech-Language Pathology Program School of Rehabilitation Science

Farah Friesen, Operations Manager & Co-Lead, SLED-VAST and Manager, Research & Knowledge Mobilization, CACHE

Sharon Gabison, Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream, Department of Physical Therapy, Temerty Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto

Sylvia Langlois, Associate Professor, Department of Occupational Science & Occupational Therapy, University of Toronto and Associate Director, Academic, CACHE

Dean Lising, Lecturer, Department of Physical Therapy, University of Toronto and Integration Lead, Collaborative Healthcare & Education, CACHE

Stella Ng, Director & Scientist, CACHE, Associate Professor, Department of Speech-Language Pathology, University of Toronto, Scientist, Wilson Centre, and AMS Phoenix Fellow in Compassion and AI/Digital Technology

Kathryn Parker, Associate Director, Transformative Change, CACHE; Fellow, AMS Phoenix Project; Assistant Professor, Department of Paediatrics, Temerty Faculty of Medicine University of Toronto

Mike Ravenek, Director, Health Sciences and Program Development, NOSM University

Nicole Woods, Scientist & Associate Director of Operations/UHN, The Wilson Centre, Director, The Institute for Education Research (TIER) at UHN, and Associate Professor, Department of Family and Community Medicine, Temerty Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto