Speakers

Dr. Mark Chilvers

Dr Mark Chilvers is an Associate Professor of Respiratory medicine in the Division of Pediatric Respiratory Medicine at the University of British Columbia and clinical investigator with the BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute. Since 2015 he has been on the Healthcare advisory committee and is currently co-chair. In 2020, Mark became the Provincial Medical Director for CF Care BC and in this capacity has been working towards improving provincial care for all patients with CF in BC. In addition, in 2022 he became Provincial Medical Director of Child Health BC to further the provincial mandate for Child Health. 

His clinical research focus is on childhood diseases in pediatric respirology, including cystic fibrosis (CF), non-CF bronchiectasis and Primary Ciliary Dyskinesia. He is a member of CF CANact, conducting clinical trials for Canadian patients with CF and is one of the Co-Directors of Canadian Burkholderia cepacia complex research and referral repository. 

Dr. Stephanie Cheng 

Stephanie Cheng, M.Sc. has worked extensively in the public sector in health services and epidemiologic research, with a focus on using population-level administrative databases and registries. Stephanie is currently the Director of the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis (CF) Registry at Cystic Fibrosis Canada, managing one of the longest-running and most complete rare disease registries in the country. In this role, she conducts research in collaboration with researchers across Canada and around the world, advocates for individuals living with CF, and advises on rare disease registry development. 

Dr. Meredith Chaisson 

Dr. Meredith Chiasson is a respirologist and associate professor of medicine at Dalhousie University who sub-specializes in the care of patients with cystic fibrosis and pre- and post-lung transplantation. Dr. Chiasson completed medical school at Dalhousie University and then residency in internal medicine at University of Western Ontario. In 2008, she returned to Halifax for respirology residency and then went on to do a fellowship split between Halifax and Toronto in cystic fibrosis and lung transplantation. Dr. Chiasson is a co-director with faculty development for Dalhousie and the head of continuing professional development for the department of internal medicine. She is the director for the cystic fibrosis program as well as the director for the lung transplant satellite program for Nova Scotia Health. She has worked on several pharmaceutically sponsored trials and has been the lead investigator in numerous quality improvement initiatives for the cystic fibrosis program. 

Dr. Adele Coriati 

Bio coming soon.

Dr. Patrick Daigneault

Patrick is a pediatric respirologist and CF clinic director at CHU de Québec - Université Laval since 2005. He has been a member of many CF Canada committees for the last 20 years and was closely involved in the implementation of CF newborn screening in Québec. He is the founder and co-director of the CF Clinical Research Group for Eastern Quebec and member of CF CanAct. He was awarded the Douglas-Crozier award in 2018. 

He is currently vice-dean for social accountability at the Faculty of Medicine at Université Laval. 

Dr. Paul Eckord

Dr. Paul Eckford holds a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Guelph and has spent most of his career studying cystic fibrosis. Dr. Eckford joined Cystic Fibrosis Canada in June 2021 and became the Chief Scientific Officer in 2023, leading the organization’s Mission work. 

Ms. Erin Fleischer

Erin Fleischer is a Paediatric Nurse Practitioner at the Children’s Hospital, London Health Sciences 

Centre. She completed her Bachelor of Science in Nursing with University of Victoria and went on to 

complete her Master of Nursing and Acute Care Nurse Practitioner certificate with the University of Toronto in 2009. Erin has been the Nurse Practitioner for the Paediatric Respirology division since 2011. Her areas of interest are cystic fibrosis, non-CF bronchiectasis and PCD as well as asthma. Erin has been caring for paediatric CF patients throughout her entire career. She is involved in many studies as well as QI projects within the CF clinic. 

Ms. Sarah Hempstead

Sarah Hempstead is the Practice Guidelines Sr. Manager at the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. She joined the organization in 2015 and manages the development of clinical guidelines and other clinical guidance documents for the CF Foundation. She earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Maryland and her master’s degree in biomedical Anthropology from Binghamton University. 

Dr. Rebecca Hull-Meichle

Rebecca L. Hull-Meichle (pronounced Mike-Lee) is the Canada Excellence Research Chair in 

the Islet Microenvironment and Professor of Cell Biology at the University of Alberta in 

Edmonton, Canada. Her research group is based at the Alberta Diabetes Institute. She received 

her PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Nottingham, UK and then undertook her 

postdoctoral training and developed her independent research program at the University of 

Washington in Seattle until her recent move to Edmonton (2024). She is an expert in islet 

biology and has contributed to our understanding of the pathogenesis of multiple forms of 

diabetes. Her group has been working on CFRD for the past several years, with a major focus 

on generating a comprehensive understanding of pancreas pathology in CF and elucidating 

mechanisms underlying islet failure in CFRD. 



Dr. Hull-Meichle’s expertise in this area is shared with the research community via her role on 

advisory boards such as the ADI IsletCore Internal Governance Committee and Network for 

Pancreatic Organ Donor’s with Diabetes (nPOD)’s tissue prioritization committee. Additionally, 

her work has been continuously funded by NIH/NIDDK since 2006 with additional support from 

CIHR, Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and US Department of Veterans Affairs. She has, and 

continues to serve on numerous editorial and grant review boards and international planning 

committees. 

Dr. Guatam Kumar

Dr. Kumar completed medical school and residency training at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) in Ottawa, where a deep appreciation for cystic fibrosis was sparked by inspiring mentors in respirology. For the past 15 years, Dr. Kumar has been a dedicated general pediatrician practicing in Sudbury, Ontario. In addition to clinical work, they have cultivated strong interests in pediatric critical care and medical education, currently serving as the Pediatric Residency Program Director at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine. Dr. Kumar is both honored and excited to contribute to this year's Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Conference, continuing a journey rooted in passion and advocacy for children living with CF. 

Ms. Jana Kocourek

Jana is the Director of Healthcare Programs at Cystic Fibrosis Canada. She works with the 40 Canadian cystic fibrosis (CF) clinics and CF community to support evidence based, quality, consistent CF care across Canada. She is the co-lead of the development of the national standards of care (Canadian CF consensus guidelines) and Canadian CF clinic staffing guidelines, and is the co-chair of Cystic Fibrosis Canada’s healthcare advisory council. Jana is also a member of the European Cystic Fibrosis Society’s virtual care guidelines committee. 

Jana holds a Masters Degree in Health Sciences and Bachelor Degree in Sciences (honors Human Kinetics) both from the University of Ottawa. She has worked in the hospital sector for over 20 years with expertise in implementation science, development and implementation of clinical guidelines, national standards and quality standards, systems evaluation, quality improvement, and patient engagement. 

Dr. Winnie Leung

Dr. Winnie Leung is an Associate Clinical Professor in the Division of Pulmonary Medicine at the University of Alberta. She obtained her medical degree at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. She completed her Internal Medicine and Respirology specialty training at the University of Alberta. She joined the Edmonton Adult Cystic Fibrosis (CF) clinic in 2009 and is the clinic’s medical director since 2014. She has collaborated with CF centers across Canada on research projects, and is involved as a local site investigator for CF clinical trials. Her clinical interests include Cystic Fibrosis, asthma, COPD and general respirology .

Dr. Dimas Mateos

Bio coming soon.

Dr. Nancy Prohonik

Bio coming soon.

Dr. Bradley Quon

Dr. Bradley Quon is an Adult Respirologist and Clinician-Scientist with a primary clinical and research interest in cystic fibrosis (CF). Dr. Quon received his BSc at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Microbiology and Immunology. He completed the combined MD/MBA program at McGill University. Subsequently, he completed residency training in Internal Medicine and fellowship training in Respirology at UBC. Following completion of clinical training, he undertook two years of formal clinical research training in cystic fibrosis at the University of Washington. He is currently Associate Professor of Medicine and Principal Investigator at the UBC Centre for Heart Lung Innovation. He is Medical and Research Director of the St. Paul’s Hospital Adult CF Clinic. In 2023, he completed a 5 year tenure as the inaugural Medical Lead of the Cystic Fibrosis Canada Accelerating Clinical Trials Network (CF CanACT). His primary area of research focuses on biomarkers and personalized medicine in CF. 

Ms. Melissa Richmond

Ms. Melissa Richmond is a physiotherapist from British Columbia. She is part of the BC Children’s team but worked for the last 2 years at Cystic Fibrosis Care BC (BC’s health improvement network for CF). She joined the CF team in 2009 first working for many years in the inpatient setting and then the outpatient CF clinic. She is a certified airway clearance instructor, having completed the course in Glasgow, as well as chair of the Canadian PT Advisory Group, a member of the health advisory and part of the Can Con team.

Dr. Anne Stephenson

Dr. Stephenson is an Associate Professor and Clinician Scientist at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She obtained her MD as well as a PhD in Clinical Epidemiology from the University of Toronto. She has been caring for adults living with CF at the Adult CF Clinic at St. Michael's Hospital since 2001 and has been the Medical Director of the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Registry since 2008. Her research involves population-based studies using national CF Registry data within Canada and internationally. Most recently, she has linked the CF Registry with health administrative databases to study health outcomes across the lifespan in people living with CF. 

Dr. Jennifer Taylor Causer

Bio coming soon.