Marie Beaulieu, PhD

Marie Beaulieu is a full professor at the School of Social Work University of Sherbrooke and a researcher at the Research Centre on Aging (Integrated to the Public Health and Social Services of Québec). She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Since November 2010, she has held the position of Research Chair on Mistreatment of Older Adults financed by the Québec Government. Since July 2017, she is co-directing a World Health Organisation Collaborative Centre at the Research Centre on Aging specialised on Age-friendly communities and countering mistreatment. The principal focus of her 30-year + career has been countering mistreatment of older adults (and related issues such as criminal victimisation, insecurity, bullying), promoting a wellness care approach and ethics. She is involved in several national and international associations and networks; for example, she is a board member of the International Network for Prevention of Elder Abuse.

Marie-Noël Campbell, LLM

Marie-Noël Campbell is Seniors First BC’s Executive Director and an Elder Law Clinic lawyer. She was called to the Bar in British Columbia and New York State.  She holds a Master's degree in Business Law from Paris Nanterre University and a LL.M in American Business Law from Tulane Law School. She also attended UBC Law School during an exchange year. Most of her career has been dedicated to serving vulnerable individuals through various non-profit organizations. She started her legal career in Vancouver at a non-profit organization where she launched and managed  pro-bono programs to represent low-income individuals appearing before various tribunals,  and was later appointed an adjudicator for one of them.

Eilon Caspi, PhD

Eilon Caspi  is a gerontologist and an assistant research professor at the University of Connecticut. He is the founder and director of Dementia Behavior Consulting LLC and a founding member and board member of Elder Voice Family Advocates. He started working in the aging field in 1994 as a nurse aide in a nursing home where his grandfather lived. Since then, he worked as a social worker, consultant, applied researcher, educator, author, and elder care advocate. His research focuses on the prevention of abuse, neglect, resident-to-resident incidents, financial exploitation, and theft of opioid pain medications in long-term care homes.

Carole Estabrooks, PhD

Carole Estabrooks holds a Canada Research Chair in Knowledge Translation in the care of older adults in long-term care (LTC) settings at the University of Alberta and has been Scientific Director of the pan Canadian research program, Translating Research in Elder Care (TREC) since 2007. She received her undergraduate degree in nursing from the University of New Brunswick, her graduate degrees from the University of Alberta, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Toronto. Her  awards and distinctions include  the Order of Canada and Betty Havens Prize for Knowledge Translation in Aging. She is a fellow in the Royal Society of Canada, Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, American  and Canadian Academy of Nurses. She is a member of the National Seniors Council, the National Long Term-Care Standards Development Committee and Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Institute of Aging Advisory Board.

Gloria Gutman, PhD

Gloria Gutman developed the Gerontology Research Centre and Department of Gerontology at SFU and was director of both from 1982-2005.  Currently, she’s Research Associate/Professor Emerita at SFU, Vice-President International Longevity Centre-Canada and President, North American Chapter International Society for Gerontechnology. She is past president Canadian Association on Gerontology, International Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics, and International Network for Prevention of Elder Abuse. Her awards and honours include Order of British Columbia, LLD (honoris causa- Western University), Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee medal and Order of Canada.  She is author/editor of 23 books. Topics of her research and publications include seniors’ housing, long-term care, health promotion, gerontechnology, prevention of elder abuse,  LGBT+ aging, advance care planning, and seniors and disasters. 

Penny MacCourt MSW, PhD

Penny MacCourt has worked for many years with seniors in LTC, community and acute care settings as a social worker and as a mental health consultant. She has conducted national projects and research related to seniors’ social isolation, mental health, and to caregiving.  She is on the Older Adult Advisory Committee to the Mental Health Commission of Canada and recently developed a report Supporting Mental Health and Well-Being in Residential Care for the Canadian Coalition for Seniors Mental Health. She is currently Chair of Action for Reform of Residential Care (ARRC) BC, a citizen's advocacy group aiming to reform  LTC.

Alex Mihailidis, PhD, PEng

Alex Mihailidis is Associate Vice-President for International Partnerships at the University of Toronto (UofT), and Scientific Director of the AGE-WELL Network of Centres of Excellence, which focuses on development of new technologies and services for older adults. He is a Professor in the Department of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy  at U of T and in Biomedical Engineering, with a cross appointment in the Department of Computer Science. He has conducted research on technology to support older adults for the past 17 years  and also has been very active in the rehabilitation engineering profession, currently as the Past-President of RESNA (Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America). He was named a Fellow of RESNA in 2014, one of the highest honours within this field of research and practice, and a Fellow in the Canadian Academy of Health Science (CAHS) in 2021 for his contributions to the health and well-being of older Canadians.

Sara Pon, LLM 

Sara Pon has a background in law and gerontology. She has worked at the Canadian Centre for Elder Law (CCEL) as a researcher for the last 3 years and is currently articling there. She is co-chair of the BC Adult Abuse and Neglect Prevention Collaborative. Sara completed her master’s degree in law at York University and obtained her JD from the University of Victoria. At SFU, Sara completed a minor in Gerontology and an Honours in Psychology. Her LLM thesis was a comparative analysis of supports for caregivers of the elderly in Canada and Australia using a feminist lens. During her JD and LLM studies, her writing focused on health care consent and informal caregivers of the elderly. At CCEL, Sara has written on a range of topics, including elder abuse, supported and substitute decision-making, health care professional regulation, health care law, and COVID-19 restrictions.  

Samir Sinha, MD, DPhil, FRCPC, AGSF

Samir Sinha is the Director of Geriatrics at Sinai Health System and the University Health Network in Toronto, a Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto,  and Director of Health Policy Research at Ryerson University’s National Institute on Ageing.

A Rhodes Scholar, Dr. Sinha is a highly regarded clinician and international expert in the care of older adults. He is the Architect of the Government of Ontario’s Seniors Strategy and in 2014, Maclean’s proclaimed him to be one of Canada’s 50 most influential people and its most compelling voice for the elderly.  Dr. Sinha is a member of the Government of Canada’s National Seniors Council, and is also currently leading the development of new National Long-Term Care Standards for Canada.