Research Team
Bonnie Stevens, RN, PhD, is a Professor Emeritus at the Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing and Faculties of Medicine and Dentistry at the University of Toronto. She is a Senior Scientist Emeritus in the Child Health Evaluative Sciences program at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids). Dr. Stevens is the Chair of the Certification Committee for ChildKind International and a Fellow of both the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences and the American Academy of Nursing. She was the Director of the University of Toronto Centre for the Study of Pain from 2010 – 2019 and the Co-Director of the Centre for Pain Management at The Hospital for Sick Children from 2008 – 2019.
Dr. Bonnie Stevens focuses her research on the assessment and management of pain in hospitalized preterm newborn infants, and the effectiveness of knowledge translation (KT) strategies for changing clinical outcomes. She is the Principal Investigator of a Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Foundation Grant (2016-2023) that focuses on the development, implementation and evaluation of a web-based 7 step resource for changing health care professional pain practices. She is currently conducting a large international trial to determine the effectiveness of this resource in improving child outcomes.
Shirine Riahi, RN, MN, has worked at SickKids for the past 20 years, initially as a staff nurse on the 6A inpatient unit. After completing her master of nursing degree at the Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing at the University of Toronto, she joined Dr. Stevens’ lab in 2006 in a project coordinator role. In her current project manager role, she works with sites in the Sucrose for Pain in Neonates (SPiN) study and ImPaC Resource Trial with a focus on institutional and ethics approvals, and is involved in the day-to-day and long-term planning of Dr. Stevens’ research program.
Mariana Bueno, RN, PhD, completed her PhD at the School of Nursing of the University of Sao Paulo (Brazil). Bueno held faculty positions at the School of Nursing of the Federal University of Minas Gerais (2012-2014) and at the School of Nursing of the University of Sao Paulo Bueno (2014-2017) while her research was funded by national and international agencies. Bueno is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow in Dr. Steven’s lab and her current interests are neonatal and infant pain assessment and management, and implementation science to improve neonatal and infant pain practices.
Kate Pearson, RN, MN, has worked at SickKids for over 12 years in both clinical and research roles. She joined the Stevens Lab in November 2019. In her current role as Clinical Research Nurse Coordinator, Kate provides training and support to sites participating in the ImPaC Resource Trial.
Megha Rao, is a PhD candidate in Integrative Biosciences at the School of Kinesiology at Western University. Her doctoral work seeks to explore the processes, barriers, and facilitative components of early healthcare transitions within neonatal intensive care units. Megha joined Dr. Stevens lab in May 2019 and works on clinical trials aimed at improving neonatal pain assessment and management within an implementation science and knowledge translation framework as well as on a Covid-19 quality improvement initiative.
Deana De Rango Aquino, joined Dr. Stevens’ lab in November 2022 as an administrative assistant. Deana has focused on working in a challenging role within a healthcare setting for eleven years and plans to continue to grow towards administrative excellence at SickKids.