Wendy Ungar, MSc, PhD
Senior Scientist, Child Health Evaluative Sciences, The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids)
Professor, Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation (IHPME), University of Toronto
Adjunct Scientist, Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences, Toronto
As Director of TASK, Dr. Ungar’s primary research interests include health economic methods research, medication cost-sharing and health outcomes in children with asthma and health technology assessment of interventions and programs for children.
For more information, please visit Dr. Ungar’s profile.
Vercancy Wu, MA
Vercancy Wu joined TASK in May 2022. He has completed his Honours Bachelor’s Degree in Economics with finance specialization at the University of Waterloo. He holds a Master’s degree in Economics with Health Economics concentration from McMaster University. His main research interests are Health Technology Assessment and Economic Evaluation.
Robin Hayeems, PhD, ScM
Dr. Robin Hayeems is a Scientist in Child Health Evaluative Sciences (CHES) at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) and an Assistant Professor in the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation (IHPME) at the University of Toronto. Dr. Hayeems is trained in genetic counselling (ScM, Johns Hopkins University), public health and bioethics (PhD, University of Toronto), health policy research (University of Toronto, IHPME Postdoctoral Fellowship), and health services research (University of Toronto, Institute for Clinical and Evaluative Sciences Postdoctoral Fellowship). Her work focuses on the delivery, evaluation, and governance of genomic screening and diagnostic tools in the prenatal, newborn, and early childhood periods. As a member of several Advisory Committees, her work informs and is informed by policy development in this area.
For more information, please see Dr. Hayeems’ profile.
Viji Venkataramanan, MA (Psychology)
Viji Venkataramanan joined TASK in March 2016.
She is interested in the field of genetics, child health, patient experience, arthritis and health policy. She is passionate about research. One of the main projects she is working on explores the trajectory of care following genetic testing including Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS), especially in children with heart conditions, and understanding the types of health services utilization and associated costs.
Stephanie Luca, HBSc, MA
Stephanie Luca completed an Honours Bachelor of Science (majoring in Human Biology and Psychology) at the University of Toronto and a Master of Arts in social psychology at Wilfrid Laurier University. One project she is working on is the development and validation of a measure of the clinical utility of genetic testing. She is also using qualitative interviews to research the perceptions and experiences of Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) for parents of children with medical complexity.
Myla Moretti, PhD
Myla Moretti is a Senior Research Associate and Health Economist at the Hospital for Sick Children’s Clinical Trials Unit (http://www.ochsu.ca/en/OCHSU). She has completed a PhD in health services research and health economics from the University of Toronto’s Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation. Her research focuses on performing health economic evaluations alongside clinical trials in a pediatric setting. She also holds a masters degree in Clinical Pharmacology and has co-authored over 60 peer reviewed publications and 15 book chapters.
Avram Denburg, MD, MSc, FRCP(C)
Dr. Avram Denburg received his medical degree from McMaster University in 2006. He completed both a residence in paediatrics and a fellowship in haematology/oncology at the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids). Dr. Denburg has a Master of Science in Health Policy, Planning and Financing from the London School of Economics and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, pursued with the support of a Commonwealth Scholarship. He trained at Harvard University as a National Institutes of Health-funded Pediatric Scientist Development Program Fellow. He has recently completed the requirements for a PhD in health policy at the Centre for Health Economics and Policy Analysis at McMaster University.
Dr. Denburg’s research focuses on the political, ethical and economic dimensions of child health policy, in both local and global contexts. His doctoral research examines normative and methodological issues in the assessment of child health technologies, with specific focus on pharmaceutical policy and drug coverage decisions for children.
For more information, please see Dr. Denburg’s profile.
Petros Pechlivanoglou, MSc, PhD
Dr. Petros Pechlivanoglou, PhD, is a Scientist at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) Research Institute and an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto, Institute of Health Policy Management and Evaluation. He studied economics in his native country, Greece, econometrics at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands and obtained a PhD in health econometrics from the same university. He completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Toronto, within the Toronto Health Economics and Technology Assessment (THETA) Collaborative where he focused on methodological aspects around the application of decision analysis in health-care policy.
Dr. Pechlivanoglou is currently involved in projects around the economics of pre-term birth prevention, the economic evaluation of oncology and ophthalmic interventions in children and adolescents and the economic impact of obstructive sleep apnea and COPD in adults.
For more information, please visit Dr. Pechlivanoglou’s profile.
Eleanor Pullenayegum, PhD
Dr. Eleanor Pullenayegum is a Senior Scientist in Child Health Evaluative Sciences (CHES) at the Hospital for Sick Children and an Associate Professor in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health. She is a biostatistician whose research focuses on methods for analyzing longitudinal data when visit times are irregular, and on handling uncertainty in health utilities obtained through multi-attribute utility instruments.
For more information, please visit Dr. Eleanor Pullenayegum’s profile
Dhayo Khangsar, BHS
Dhayo Khangsar joined TASK in January 2023.
She holds a Bachelors of Health Studies degree (Honours in Health Management) from York University and a post-graduate certificate in Project Management from George Brown College. She has over 3 years of fundraising, administrative and non-profit project experience, having previously worked in SickKids Foundation and Plan International Canada. She currently provides administrative assistance to three principal investigators including Dr. Wendy Ungar and their labs.
Aranie Vijayaratnam, MSc
Aranie Vijayaratnam is a MSc student at IHPME (Health Technology Assessment stream) at the University of Toronto. She received her Honours Bachelor of Science in Biology from the University of Toronto and holds a certificate in Research Analysis and Program Evaluation from Humber College. Prior to starting her graduate studies, she worked as an Evaluator and Analyst for Stella’s Place and the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness. Aranie is interested in understanding health economic impacts on children and their families.
Roaa Shoukry, MSc
Roaa holds an honours bachelor degree in neuroscience and physiology from the University of Toronto and is currently pursuing a masters degree in health economics at the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation. In her free time she is typically tending to her plants and thinking about which plants to buy next.”