Professional Activities

Evaluation & Improvement Committees

  • 2021-2022: Advisor at Canadian Association of Postdoctoral Scholars (CAPS)
  • 2021: Participating Member at International Consortium of Research Staff Associations (ICORSAs)
  • 2020-2021: Expert assessment of applications submitted to Health Canada for funding on scientific methodology and merit
  • 2020-2021: Experimentation Works advisor at Treasury baord of Canada (EW2) initiative
  • 2020: Vice Chair of Survey and Data at Canadian Association of Postdoctoral Scholars (CAPS), developing analytics, methodologies, and partnerships
  • 2020: Fellowship adjudication committee at Mitacs Inc., evaluating Canadian Science Policy Fellowship applications
  • 2019-2020: Program committee member at Canadian Science Policy Centre (CSPC), helping with conference program development
  • 2019: Vice Chair of Career Development at Canadian Association of Postdoctoral Scholars (CAPS), developing career development strategies for Canadian postdocs, and organization of annual general meeting at Dalhousie University (Halifax, NS in November 2019)
  • 2019: Participant and session facilitator at Chief Information Officer’s BC Connect conference, Victoria, BC
  • 2019: Facilitator at Policy Community of Practice, Making it Real; putting policy into practice conference held at Marriott Hotel Inner Harbour, Victoria, BC
  • 2018-2019: Evaluation and Survey committee member at Canadian Science Policy Centre (CSPC), analyzing and reporting conference survey data
  • 2018-2020: Data and privacy analyst at Institute of Public Administration, New Professionals (IPAC-NP), Victoria, BC
  • 2018-2019: Hackseq hackathon organizing committee and team lead, managing social media posts and leading teams; University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC
  • 2018: UBC Career panel participation; exploring role of postdocs in academia and industry, Vancouver, BC

Science Outreach & Mentorship

  • 2021-2022: Visiting Research Associate/Scientist at Vancouver Prostate Centre
  • 2020: Lead data scientist for Covid-19 hackathon at Devpost, Build for covid, and Biohackathon
  • 2015-2020: Canada Learning Code, Vancouver/Victoria, BC
  • 2018: Victoria Health Hackathon mentor, Victoria, BC
  • 2016: 3-Minute Thesis presentation, UBC, Vancouver, BC
  • 2014: Phillip and Sala Burton Academic High School Science Mentor, San Francisco, CA
  • 2013-2014: City College of San Francisco’s Biotechnology Program Curriculum Development, San Francisco, CA
  • 2013-2014: Cybelle Biosciences co-founder & consultant, San Francisco, CA
  • 2013: Onestart America Lean Launchpad competitor, San Francisco, CA
  • 2012: UCSF Mission Bay consulting club participant, San Francisco, CA
  • 2007: Graduate Student Association Co-President at the University of Toronto (GSAS), Toronto, ON
  • 2006-2011: Let’s Talk Science (LTS) volunteer member, Toronto, ON
  • 2006-2009: Landmark Education coach & mentor, Toronto, ON
  • 2003-2005: Co-founder of The Debating Club at University of Toronto Scarborough, Toronto, ON
  • 2001-2005: Created friendships and taught leadership development to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities at BestBuddies, Toronto, ON

Teaching & learning development

  • 2021: Workshop on reproducible workflows in the public service, (EW2) Government of Canada Initiative
  • 2020: Workshop on experimentation in the public service, (EW2) Government of Canada Initiative
  • 2020: Workshop on performing and reporting a systematic literature search, (EW2) Government of Canada Initiative
  • 2019: Administrative data linkage to evaluate programs and policies, Royal Jubilee Hospital, Victoria, BC
  • 2018: Science Judge, Biomedical Engineering Entrepreneurship & Partnership day, University of Victoria
  • 2018: Centre for Integrated Teaching and Learning: Teaching as Research, Evidence-based teaching in STEM education, and Implicit Bias in STEM education modules
  • 2015-2018: Science Judge, Science Fair, University of British Columbia
  • 2017-2019: Community Volunteer at Canada Learning Code and Ladies Learning Code
  • 2014: Science Mentor for four students at Burton High school for preparing a poster on Arthritis for Fairposium project in San Francisco
  • 2014: Science outreach facilitator for ten-day Bay Area Science Festival San Francisco
  • 2014: Technical and scientific content writer/editor for Science Exchange San Francisco
  • 2014: Curriculum development and hands-on laboratory teaching in City College of San Francisco’s Biotechnology Program, UCSF/USF Partnership for Teaching
  • 2013-2015: Contributing writer and editor at Post Doctoral Journal; Postdocjournal.com
  • 2009-2010: Science Fair judge for posters presented by high school students, University of Toronto
  • 2008-2011: Co-supervised co-op students and undergraduate students on assisting with bone differen- tiation research project
  • 2008-2011: Co-President and assistant secretary of Graduate Students’ Association at Scarborough
    organizing meetings, facilitate and initiate holding of workshops and symposia on campus
  • 2007-2011: An honorary volunteer member of Let’s Talk Science Partnership Program
  • 2002-2004: Community outreach for Best Buddies Canada Organization

Invited Conference Presentations

1: Long-Term Impacts of the Enhanced Recovery Collaborative on Colorectal Surgical Site Infections (BC Quality Forum, February 2021)
2: Variation in Rates of Dispensing of Opioids After Surgery: Opportunities for Therapeutics Stewardship (BC Quality Forum, February 2021)
3: Rapid Evaluation of Clinical Interventions: Lessons Learned and Thoughts for the Future (BC Ministry of Health, Knowledge Exchange, Online, November 15, 2020)
4: Adapting to a New Normal: The Effect of Covid-19 on the Next Generation of Scientists (Canadian Science Policy Conference, Virtual, November 16-20, 2020)
5: Pandemics and postdocs: COVID survey findings (Postdoc Appreciation Week, Virtual, September 17, 2020)
6: CAPS survey findings related to COVID-19 (National meeting on postdoc affairs organized by the University of Western Ontario, Virtual, July 31, 2020)
7: Reproducible analytic workflows in the public service (Data and Analytics Conference, Vancouver, BC, February 15, 2020)
8: Health systems administrative data integration to support data-driven decision making (Ministry of Health’s Knowledge Exchange Talk Series, Government of BC, Victoria, BC, January 22, 2020)
9: Using administrative data to evaluate programs and services (Public Service Agency, Victoria, BC, January 21, 2020)
10: Delivering bundles of care through deciphering government programs and services (Academic Health Science Network, Victoria, BC, January 20, 2020)
11: Open source data and data science to enable integrated data projects (Island Health, Victoria, BC, September 2019)
12: Implementing reproducible analytic workflows in the public service (University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, August 2019)
13: From messy to tidy: reproducible analytic workflows for data analysis (BCDev Exchange, Victoria, BC, May 2019)
14: Healing old wounds, Institute of Public Administration of Canada, Policy Pitch (Victoria Event Centre, Victoria, BC, October 2018)
15: Expression and regulation of chondroitin sulfate in prostate cancer (American Association of Cancer Research, Chicago, IL, July 2018)
16: BAP1 creates a potential therapeutic vulnerability in malignant peritoneal mesothelioma. Malignant Mesotheliomas poster presentation at International Mesothelioma Interest Group (Ottawa, ON, May 2018)
17: Comprehensive molecular characterization of peritoneal mesothelioma, Vancouver Prostate Centre Friday Seminar (Vancouver, BC, February 2017)
18: Cytochrome P450 degradation in hepatocytes and implications in drug metabolism, UCSF Postdoctoral Symposium, Gladstone, UCSF Mission Bay (San Francisco, CA, June 2014)
19: SIRT2’s role in stem cell biology, Berkeley Stem Cell Center Retreat, Fred Farr Forum (Asilomar, CA, April 2012 and 2013)
20: Rab-3 mediated collagen trafficking in differentiating osteoblasts, 16th Canadian Connective Tissue Conference (CCTC) (Toronto, ON, June 3-5, 2010)
21: Delineating collagen trafficking pathway in differentiating osteoblasts, 15th Canadian Connective Tissue Conference (CCTC) (Calgary, July 17-18, 2009)
22: Cytoskeleton and adhesion alteration in osteoblasts in microgravity environment, 14th Canadian Connective Tissue Conference (CCTC) (Montreal, QC, June 5-7, 2008)
23: Osteoblast differentiation in microgravity environments, 14th Canadian Connective Tissue Conference (CCTC) (Halifax, NS, June 5-7, 2007)
24: Lysosome dispersion in osteoblasts accommodates enhanced collagen production during differentiation, 13th Canadian Connective Tissue Conference (CCTC) (Toronto, ON, May 24-26, 2006)

Invited Conference Posters

1: Alleviative Effects Of Meta-therapy Consciousness Field On Triticumaestivum.l Under Salinity Stress [in lieu of S. Torabi & MA. Taheri] (The Science of Consciousness Conference, Lowes Ventana Canyon Resort, Tucson, AZ, April 13-18, 2020 - went virtual for COVID)
2: Evaluation of Depression, Anxiety, Stress and Headache Indices in Migraine Patients During Conventional Therapies Under Influence of Consciousness Fields [in lieu of S. Behbudi & MA. Taheri] (The Science of Consciousness Conference, Lowes Ventana Canyon Resort, Tucson, AZ, April 13-18, 2020 - went virtual for COVID)
3: BAP1 creates a potential therapeutic vulnerability in malignant peritoneal mesothelioma. 12th Lorne D. Sullivan Lectureship and Research Day (Vancouver General Hospital, Vancouver, BC, June 2018)
4: Expression and regulation of chondroitin sulfate in prostate cancer (Vancouver General Hospital, BC, 2018)
5: Oncofetal glycosaminoglycan signature provides therapeutic potential for malignant mesothelioma, poster presentation at Cell Death, Cell Stress and Metabolism Conference: From Basic Mechanisms to Novel Treatment - Options conference (Vancouver General Hospital, Vancouver, BC, June 2017)
6: Comprehensive multi-omics characterization of the rare malignant peritoneal mesothelioma, 11th Lorne D. Sullivan Lectureship and Research Day (Vancouver General Hospital, Vancouver, BC, June 2017)
7: An oncofetal glycosaminoglycan modification provides therapeutic access to mesothelioma, poster presentation at Cell Death, Cell Stress and Metabolism Conference: From Basic Mechanisms to Novel Treatment Options conference (Cancun, Mexico, March 2017)
8: Characterization of Intertumor Heterogeneity of Malignant Mesotheliomas poster presentation at International Mesothelioma Interest Group (Birmingham, UK, May 2016)
9: Molecular landscape of pleural mesothelioma poster presentation at 10th Lorne D. Sullivan Lectureship and Research Day (Vancouver General Hospital, Vancouver, BC, June 2015-2016)
10: Cytochrome P450 degradation in hepatocytes, UCSF Postdoctoral Symposium, UCSF Mission Bay, poster presentation (San Francisco, CA, June 2013)
11: Rab mediated collagen trafficking in differentiating osteoblasts, 50th American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) conference (Philadelphia, PA, December 11-15, 2010)
12: Rab-1 mediated collagen trafficking in differentiating osteoblasts, 49th American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) conference (San Diego, December 5-11, 2009)
13: In vitro Osteoclast Differentiation in Arthritis (IODA) project: Osteoclastogenesis as a marker of presence and activity of disease in Arthritis, Canadian 2009 Annual Scientific Conference (Vancouver, BC, November 19-21, 2009)
14: Mechanism of collagen trafficking in bone cells, 48th Annual meeting of the Canadian Society of Zoologists (CSZ) (Toronto, ON, May 12-16, 2009)
15: Cytoskeleton and adhesion alteration in osteoblasts in microgravity environment, 30th international conference of ASBMR (Montreal, QC, September 12, 16, 2008)
16: Compromised Adhesion of Osteoblasts in Microgravity Environment, 37th Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) conference (Montreal, QC, July 13-20, 2008)
17: Cytoskeleton and adhesion alteration in osteoblasts in microgravity environment, the 30th ASBMR Annual Meeting (Montreal, QC, September 12-16, 2008)
18: Modulation of the osteoblasts cytoskeleton in microgravity environment, the 47th American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) conference (Washington D.C., December 1-5, 2007)
19: Lysosome secretion by bone cells under normal and pathological conditions including rheumatoid and osteoarthritis. Poster presentation at the Canadian Arthritis Network (CAN) Annual Scientific Conference (Halifax, NS, October 11-13, 2007)
20: Cellular trafficking of lysosomes in osteoblasts, 46th American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) conference (San Francisco, CA, December 9-13, 2006)

Community-level Volunteering

  • 2018-2023: Fringe Theatre Festival, Victoria, BC
  • 2018-2023: Victoria Jazz Festival, Victoria, BC
  • 2022: Harbour Blues ‘n’ Roots, Victoria, BC
  • 2018: Vancouver Opera Festival volunteer, Vancouver, BC
  • 2015-2018: Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF), Vancouver, BC
  • 2015-2018: International Performing arts Festival (Push), Vancouver, BC
  • 2015-2018: Vancouver Jazz Festival, Vancouver, BC
  • 2015-2018: Fringe Theatre Festival, Vancouver, BC
  • 2016-2017: Vancouver Writer’s Festival, Vancouver, BC
  • 2015-2019: Caravan World Rhythms, Vancouver/Victoria, BC
  • 2008: Tirgan Festival, Publishing Committee, Toronto, ON