TheRAPy

Jessica Spence

Scientist

Jessica Spence is a cardiac anesthesiologist and intensivist who completed a research fellowship at PHRI and a PhD in Clinical Epidemiology under the supervision of PJ Devereaux.

She is an Assistant Professor at McMaster University and the Principal Investigator of the B-Free Cluster Crossover Trial. Her research program focuses on the perioperative outcomes of cardiac surgery.

Deborah Siegal

Associate Senior Scientist

Deborah Siegal is an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine within the Division of Hematology at the University of Ottawa. Her primary research interests include improving patient outcomes after anticoagulant-related bleeding; management of anticoagulants in patients who have acute bleeding complications or require urgent surgery; understanding the factors that influence patient and physician decision-making after anticoagulant-related bleeding; and reducing red blood cell transfusion by minimizing iatrogenic blood loss for laboratory testing.

With expertise in the design and conduct of pragmatic cluster randomized trials, individual patient randomized trials, mixed-methods studies, observational studies and meta-analyses, Deborah Siegal has received peer-reviewed grant support as principal investigator from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the American Society of Hematology, CanVECTOR/Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, Ontario AFP Innovation Fund, and Hamilton Health Sciences Foundation. She has published 70 peer-reviewed articles including several in high-impact journals such as The New England Journal of Medicine, Circulation, Blood, and Journal of Thrombosis and Haemostasis.

Emily Di Sante

Research Project Manager II

With over 14 years experience in health research coordination, Emily is passionate about building exceptional teams that make a positive impact on global health. She has an Honours Bachelor’s of Arts degree (University of Guelph), Master’s of Political Science degree (McMaster University) and a certificate in Project Management (University of Toronto).

Her research interests include tobacco control, public and patient involvement, long-term care, evaluation and knowledge translation. At PHRI, she supports the perioperative and surgery studies, B-Free, FARGO, FAST, PREVENT and STRATUS.