MERST - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Co - Director
- Associate Professor at the School of Nursing
Diana is an Associate Professor at the School of Nursing at McMaster University, and Co-Director of the McMaster Evidence Review and Synthesis Team. Diana has a PhD from McMaster University and completed a 3-year Postdoctoral Fellowship with the Heart and Stroke Foundation. Her primary research interests include evidence-informed decision making, knowledge synthesis and diabetes self-care, including diabetes coaching.
Job Titles:
- Senior Research Coordinator and Scientific Manager
Donna is the Senior Research Coordinator and Scientific Manager at MERST where she has worked for the past 10 years. Donna has a Master of Social Work degree with a focus on Social Welfare Policy from McMaster University. Her graduate work examined risk and reintegration of federally sentenced women in a Canadian context. At MERST, Donna has lead and co-authored several major systematic reviews. Donna has exceptional organizational skills which have ensured that the MERST maintains the highest methodological quality while delivering excellent products on complex topics in a timely manner.
Meghan is a Research Coordinator for MERST in the Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatics department. A graduate of the MA in Community Psychology program at Wilfrid Laurier University, she has a strong background in program evaluation and research methods (quantitative and qualitative). She has extensive experience working with diverse communities (consumer/survivors, low-income families, lone mothers, and LGBTQ). Her graduate work focused on working closely with community stakeholders to identify the needs of LGBTQ youth in the Kitchener-Waterloo area. She has 14 years of evaluation experience ranging from community-based program evaluation (as part of the Offord Centre for Child Studies) to large scale systematic reviews (with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and presently, MERSC). She has contributed to numerous systematics reviews and co-authored publications in peer-reviewed journals.
Usman Ali is currently working as an Epidemiologist at MERST, where he has applied his clinical knowledge and statistical theory to conduct both quantitative and qualitative synthesis for various systematic reviews. Ali has a Doctor of Medicine degree from University of Health Sciences and Master of Science degree in Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics from University of Western Ontario. Ali has comprehensive knowledge and skills in the field of clinical and evidence-based medicine, epidemiology and biostatistics. He is proficient in performing various statistical analyses such as meta-analysis, meta-regression, regression & survival analysis, decision analytic modelling, Monte Carlo simulations and sensitivity analyses. He has also authored/co-authored numerous publications in peer-reviewed high impact journals.