Vice-President, Public Health and Chief Medical Health Officer

Director, LAH

President & CEO, VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation

Angela has a 30-year track record of success in development, alumni relations, communications and marketing for universities and healthcare across three continents. January 1, 2020 Angela assumed the position of President & CEO, VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation, the primary philanthropic partner of Vancouver Coastal Health and one of Canada’s largest healthcare charities. Angela joined the Foundation in 2013 as the Senior Vice-President, Philanthropy, and became the Chief Development Office in 2018. Angela helped create and implement changes that resulted in a doubling of philanthropic revenues.

Prior to returning to her native Vancouver, Angela served as the Director, Advancement & Campaign, at the National University of Singapore, developing and executing Asia’s first billion-dollar fundraising campaign.

Angela has also lead development, alumni and external relations activities for the University of New South Wales Asia (Singapore), the Australian Graduate School of Management in Sydney, the Richard Ivey School of Business and the McGill Faculty of Law.

Angela serves on the Board of Directors of the Association of Fundraising Professionals (Canada), as well as the Audit & Finance Committee of GNW (Great Northern Way) Trust. She holds a BA in History & Russian from McGill University and an MBA from Université Laval.

Director of Operations, LAH

Dr. Joshi is responsible for functional operations at LAH including strategic planning, budgeting, reporting, partnerships, and stakeholder engagement. Prior to joining LAH, Dr. Joshi was the Managing Director of Program Operations at the Rick Hansen Institute (Praxis Spinal Cord Institute) where he was responsible for strategic and operational planning, reporting, performance evaluation, risk management, and regulatory compliance related to translational research and best practice implementation. Dr. Joshi received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of British Columbia and has published in diverse areas including genomics, gene therapy, drug discovery, and parasitology across several positions in academia and industry. Dr. Joshi has a passion for promoting and ensuring impact of research on patients and priority populations through collaborations and inclusion of diverse perspectives and voices.

Vice President, Research and Academic Affairs, Providence Health Care

Dr. Darryl Knight joined Providence Health Care as Vice-President, Research and Academic Affairs in 2019. His role also includes accountabilities as President, Providence Health Care Research Institute; Professor, Department of Anesthesiology, Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia; and Associate Dean, Research, Faculty of Medicine, UBC. Dr. Knight obtained his PhD from the University of Western Australia in 1993. In 2004, he was recruited to UBC as the Canada Research Chair in Airway Disease. He was recruited back to Australia in 2013 and was Professor and Head of School of Biomedical Sciences and Pharmacy at the University of Newcastle. Continuing this pattern, Dr. Knight was recruited back to Canada in 2019 taking up his current role.

Dr. Knight is a cell biologist with an international reputation in the area of lung and airway remodelling. His research career has focused on understanding how abnormal epithelial cell-fibroblast interactions influence the severity and chronicity of respiratory diseases. To date, he has published over 166 peer-reviewed manuscripts and book chapters (h-factor 55; 9120 citations – Google Scholar, May 2019).

Dr. Knight has a strong track record of obtaining research grant funding (>$20 million), including leading a successful application for $7 million from the CFI in 2012. He is regularly invited to present his work and chair sessions at major national and international meetings.

Dr. Knight has strong research leadership credentials. From 2009-2012 he was the Associate Director of the UBC James Hogg Research Centre and sat on the executive of the Institute for Heart and Lung Health. He sits on several national and international scientific research committees, and is on the editorial board of 5 international journals. Dr. Knight has been primary supervisor for 7 Post-doctoral fellows, 17 PhD and 2 MSc students and over 18 Graduate students.

Director, Infectious Disease Clinic and Physician Program Director for HIV/AIDS at Providence Health Care and Director, BC Centre of Excellence in HIV/AIDS

Dr. Montaner received his MD with Honours in 1979 at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. In 1981, he joined the University of British Columbia as a post-doctoral fellow, completed a residency in Internal Medicine and Respiratory Medicine and was Chief Resident for the Department of Medicine in 1986/1987.

In 1987 Dr. Montaner joined the Faculty at St. Paul’s Hospital/University of British Columbia as the Director of the AIDS Research Program and the Infectious Disease Clinic. He held a National Health Research Scholar of Health Canada (NHRDP) for a period of 10 years starting in 1988. He is a founding co-Director of the Canadian HIV Trials Network. He has held the Endowed Chair on AIDS Research at SPH/UBC since 1996. In 1997, he was appointed Professor of Medicine at UBC. He is the Director of the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS. He was the President of the International AIDS Society from 2008-2010 and currently is the Local Co-Chair of the 8th IAS Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention which will be held in Vancouver July 19-22, 2015. Recently, he has been assigned the position of Global Advisor on HIV Therapeutics to the Executive Director of the United Nations AIDS Programme.

Dr. Montaner has authored over 800 scientific publications on HIV/AIDS. He has focused his research in the development of antiretroviral therapies and management strategies. In the mid 90’s, as the PI of the INCAS Trial, he played a key role in establishing the efficacy of NNRTI based highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), which emerged as the new global Standard of Care at the 1996 Vancouver International AIDS Conference, of which he was a co-organizer. He then focused his attention to HAART access to hard to reach populations, including injection drug users, and the treatment of multiple drug resistant HIV infection with great success. Since the late 90’s he also pioneered the concept of Treatment as Prevention® (TasP® ). He was the first to advocate for the expansion of HAART coverage to curb the impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, in terms of decreasing progression to AIDS and death, as well as decreasing HIV transmission. Largely through his efforts, TasP® has now been implemented with great success in BC, and progressively embraced by UNAIDS, China, PEPfAR, the US Government, and France, among others. In 2013 TasP® was fully incorporated in the WHO Consolidated ARV Guidelines.

Dr. Montaner has received numerous awards and distinctions for his research work, among them the Knowledge Translation Award from the Canadian Institutes of Health (CIHR), Prix Galien Award, Albert Einstein World of Science Award, Hope is a Vaccine Award from the Global Alliance to Immunize against AIDS, and the David Barry DART Achievement Award that is given in recognition of invaluable contributions to the field of HIV drug discovery. He has received the Grand Decoration of Honour for Services to Austria, The Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal for contributions to the field of HIV/AIDS, “Senador Domingo Faustino Sarmiento” from the Argentina Senate of the Nation presented to him by the Honorable Amado Boudou, Vice President of Argentina, and the Honorable Maria Laura Leguizamon, Senator of Buenos Aires, three Doctor of Science honoris causa degrees from Simon Fraser University, Cordoba University and the University of Buenos Aires, and an honorary fellow at Douglas College. He is a Member of the Order of British Columbia and an Officer of the Order of Canada. He has been inducted into the Royal Society of Canada-The Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences (RSC) and into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame.

I am a Health Sciences College Educator and former Nurse Practitioner and Natural Health Practitioner. I have experience working in rural and remote areas (Nunavut) and in a variety of settings and diverse cultures.

My lived experience with chronic respiratory illness, chronic nerve pain (after a sports injury and delayed surgery), and as a cancer survivor, taught me the importance of being an informed patient and an equal partner in health care and decision-making. I was a long-time volunteer facilitator and Health Coach for UVic’s self-management programs and still am a “First Link” Peer Support for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

My engagement with the BC SUPPORT Unit and CIHR started as a co-facilitator for the CIHR pilot program for SPOR and later publication of “Co-building a patient-oriented research curriculum.” My interest is in advancing health research; improving health outcomes; and achieving equity, diversity, and inclusion for all. Besides the CSC, I am also a member of Clinical Trials BC and the BC SUPPORT Unit Advisory Council, and co-chair of the Provincial Patient Council.

Department Head of Family and Community Medicine, and Regional Medical Director of Primary Care, VCH

Dr. Nardia Strydom has been working as a family physician in BC for the last 25 years and loves her job! She enjoys the variety and unexpected nature of family medicine, the connections with her patients, and the comprehensive long-term care she can provide. As a “full-service family physician” her patients are newborns, seniors, and everything in-between. Nardia is a teacher and a learner and is stimulated by change and its possibilities. She is the Department Head of Family Medicine at Providence Health Care, Regional Department Head of Family Medicine, Vancouver Coastal Health and Providence Health Care and Regional Medical Director of Primary Care for Vancouver Coastal Health. Her family, friends, gardening, exercise and anything to do with food keep her life in balance.

Executive Director, VCHRI
Associate Dean, Research, UBC Faculty of Medicine

Dr. Teresa Tsang is associate head of research for the Department of Medicine at the University of British Columbia (UBC), as well as a cardiologist and director of echocardiography at Vancouver General Hospital (VGH) and UBC Hospital. She is the director of the VGH-UBC Echo Lab and the UBC AI Echo Core Lab, and co-leads the UBC Data Science and Health Research Cluster.

Dr. Tsang completed medical school at the University of Alberta, where she also completed fellowships in internal medicine and cardiology. During her cardiology fellowship she was awarded both Medical Research Council of Canada and Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research awards, under which she studied clinical epidemiology at the National Institutes of Health. After a year as staff cardiologist at Vernon Jubilee Hospital in B.C., Dr. Tsang began a fellowship in echocardiography at the Mayo Clinic, where she was subsequently offered a staff position in cardiology. She worked for more than 10 years as a clinician and researcher. She became a professor in the UBC Department of Medicine in 2009.

Dr. Tsang’s research program is principally focused on physiologic and pathophysiologic aging of the cardiovascular system, and the prediction and prevention of adverse age-related cardiovascular events, including atrial fibrillation heart failure, stroke, and cognitive dysfunction. Her team has been investigating the use of advanced echocardiographic techniques to detect changes in the structure or function of individual heart chambers and how these changes are associated with future development of disease. More recently, she and her team have developed machine learning models for echo imaging, enabling automated assessment of cardiac structure and function, and prediction of heart failure, stroke and other age-related adverse outcomes.

CPC Member