Clinician Scientist Profiles

I completed my undergraduate degree in Neuroscience at the University of Toronto. For my Master’s degree, I worked under the supervision of Dr. Paul Frankland at the Hospital for Sick Children researching adult neurogenesis in the hippocampus using mouse models. I completed medical school at the University of Toronto and developed an interest in child and adolescent psychiatry. I am particularly interested in working with children with autism and hope to intertwine my future clinical practice with research in order to learn how to best understand and treat children with autism and co-morbid mental health disorders.

My parents have always been my fiercest advocates. As a child, my family moved continents to ensure that I received an education that would lead me to a boundless future. My parents’ example encouraged me to consider the lives of individuals with few advocates and how I could change their circumstances. In medical school, I served as the primary healthcare provider for marginalized populations in Ottawa, Hamilton, and Vancouver learning about novel harms reduction techniques including Prescribed Heroin, Managed Alcohol and Targeted Engagement and Diversion. My clinical work with underserved communities reinforced my research interests and I chose to partake in the Clinician-Scientist Program under the supervision of Dr. Vicky Stergiopoulos, the Physician-in-Chief of CAMH. My work evaluates the Supporting Transitions and Recovery Education (STAR) Learning Centre where individuals who are homeless or transitioning out of homelessness act function as experts to create classes and programming that they find useful. STAR challenges participants to guide their health treatments, learn skills, improve self-esteem and contribute to society in ways that they find meaningful. I am elucidating the key features differentiating STAR from other services, formulating the mechanisms that underlie the theory of change and determining health outcomes of participants. As a Clinician-Scientist, I will utilize rigorous research methods to create and evaluate interventions for individuals experiencing mental illness and homelessness and inform health policy initiatives to serve marginalized populations. For my commitment to marginalized communities, I have received the Ontario Volunteer Medal and the Governor General of Canada’s Caring Canadian Award 

Degree(s): MD, FRCPC, PhD (candidate)    Program (Year): CSP Graduate Stream, (PGY6)    Email: danielle.baribeau@mail.utoronto.ca    I attended the University of Toronto for both medical school and residency training in general Psychiatry, and will complete my subspecialty training in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at U of T in June of 2019. My initial projects in the CSP focused on the clinical, genetic, and neuroimaging associated differences in social functioning across neurodevelopmental disorders. For my graduate thesis in Clinical Epidemiology at the Institute for Health Policy Management and Evaluation, I am examining the longitudinal association between anxiety and repetitive behaviors in autism spectrum disorder. I am interested in better understanding the underlying mechanisms and developmental trajectories of common childhood conditions like autism, ADHD and OCD, in order to help develop new targeted interventions.    Project Title: Anxiety and Repetitive Behavior in Autism Spectrum Disorder    Supervisor(s): Drs. Simone Vigod, Peter Szatmari, Eleanor Pullenayegum, Evdokia Anagnostou    

Prior to residency, I studied Health Sciences at McMaster University, followed by a graduate degree (MSc) in neuroscience at Queen’s University and medical school at Western University. Throughout my training, I have been involved in multiple research projects including cultural comparison of stigma and deep brain stimulation. My current research interests include novel therapeutic modalities for psychiatric disorders, specifically neurostimulation. As a part of the research team at the MRI-guided rTMS clinic (Toronto Western Hospital), I am currently looking at novel targets and optimization of parameters of rTMS treatment for various psychiatric disorders including personality disorders such as Borderline Personality Disorder. 

June Lam is a fifth-year psychiatry resident and a Master's student in Clinical Epidemiology & Health Care Research at the University of Toronto. He has a clinical and research interest in working with underserved and marginalized populations, including with transgender and gender diverse, homeless, and new immigrant populations. He is part of the Clinician Scientist Program (CSP), working on a CIHR-funded qualitative study understanding the suicidal behaviour of Chinese and Chinese-Canadian women. His Master's thesis is looking at access to post-discharge mental health care for transgender and gender diverse individuals.

I completed my Bachelors of Health Sciences at McMaster University with a minor in psychology. Following this, I completed medical school at the University of Toronto. My research area of interest is in the genetics of schizophrenia in particular 22q11.2 deletion syndrome which confers a ~25% lifetime risk for schizophrenia. I currently work at the Clinical Genetics Research Program at CAMH and am studying predisposing factors and treatment of schizophrenia in individuals with this condition.

Martin Rotenberg's research focus is on the role of social and environmental factors on the incidence of psychotic disorders and pathways to care. He is also interested in rehabilitation with ethnic minority individuals with severe and persistent mental illness.  He will be starting a MSc. in Clinical Epidemiology and Health Care Research at the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation in July 2019.

Sarah Smith is a 5th year resident in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry with a research interest in eating disorders. Her clinical research to date has focused on outcomes of inpatient eating disorder treatment, disease progression and eating disorder education. Additional areas of interest include emotional dysregulation in eating disorder treatment and eating disorder psychopharmacology. She also has research and policy interests in physician health that she has pursued locally and nationally with multiple physician organizations.

I have a background in cognitive psychology and in studying brain oscillations in schizophrenia patients. At the beginning of my psychiatry training here at the U of T I had the opportunity to work with Dr. Daskalakis, a great supervisor and a renowned clinician scientist in this field. He is helping me to broaden my experience and learn more about using repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS) for both treating treatment-resistant psychosis or depression, as wells as for studying basic differences in how in schizophrenia the brain responds differently to rTMS compared to healthy controls. 

Dr. Tanya Hauck MD PhD FRCPC is completing the Bellwood Fellowship in addictions psychiatry and also currently completing a MSc degree in clinical epidemiology through the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto.  Her research interests include the clinical epidemiology of substance use disorders and their treatment, and the treatment of comorbid PTSD and substance use disorders.

Dr. Victor M. Tang is a Canadian resident physician in the clinician scientist program at the University of Toronto's Department of Psychiatry. He received a Bachelor of Science in Psychology and Master of Science in Neuroscience at the University of British Columbia, and completed his medical training at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. During his research and clinical training, he has published work on topics of oxidative stress in mood disorders, neuroimaging in stimulant addiction, history and clinical treatment of catatonia, and on Electroconvulsive Therapy and Magnetic Seizure Therapy. Currently his academic interests are in brain stimulation for treatment-resistant mental illness and addiction psychiatry.