Short Biography

Noushin Nabavi earned her B.Sc. at the University of Toronto in Cell and Molecular Biology in 2005 with a co-op and cum laude distinction. In her first co-op term at Sanofi Pasteur, she worked on developing HIV vaccine titration assays and in the second term she worked at Pharma Medica on data quality and assurance for clinical trials. Subsequently, she received her PhD in Cell and Systems Biology at the University of Toronto in 2012.

In her thesis, Dr. Nabavi developed an account of the cellular and molecular mechanisms involved in pre-osteoblastic stem cell differentiation to bone. Her work explained why bone loss occurs in microgravity environments, and developed a model that can shed light on astronauts losing bone during space travel or explain bone loss in disuse osteoarthritic patients.

Following graduation, she received a Siebel Stem Cell Fellowship from the University of California, Berkeley and worked on deciphering the molecular mechanisms of aging using animal and cellular models of disease. As a transitioned visiting scientist at the University of California, San Francisco, she developed in vitro assays for drug metabolism with a leading scholar in the field of cellular and molecular pharmacology.

Dr. Nabavi then led a transcriptomics, proteomics, and genomics project at the BC Cancer Research Centre on the rare mesothelioma cancer. For this, she assembled an international consortium of experts in the field, wrote successful grant applications, published in peer-reviewed journals, and presented her work in local, national and international conferences.

Dr. Nabavi later joined the civil service as a data science and science policy fellow and later an economist. She uses health data to support evidence-based decision making and is interested in developing reproducible and applicable algorithms and metrices to solve challenging and complex problems. As an Iranian-Canadian, she is also interested in democracy in Iran and has expressed her concerns in multiple platforms about discriminations and restrictions of human rights especially women in Iran. In her free time, she enjoys traveling, hiking, dancing, writing, paining, and photography.