Accreditation Council
Carolyn Ells, Chair
RRT, BA, MA, PhD
Dr. Carolyn Ells is an Associate Professor (retired), Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, McGill University and Associate Researcher at the Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research. Carolyn is a philosopher with a specialization in bioethics. Carolyn’s service on university and hospital research ethics boards (REBs) fostered her interest in research ethics policy and review processes.
Carolyn has an extensive understanding of research methodologies and challenges, normative texts and their application to ethical research, resolution of challenging research ethics situations, and the realities faced by academic researchers, REBs and their institutions. Carolyn published work on these themes in the British Medical Journal, the Canadian Journal of Sociology, the Journal of Medical Ethics, the International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics, the Qualitative Report, and various other journals.
Carolyn’s professional service includes co-developing a six-module, online research ethics tutorial targeting REB members and support staff within the Quebec health and social services network; membership on the Panel on Research Ethics (PRE), including six years as Chair; PRE advisory committees on Population and Pubic Health Research, Material Incidental Findings (Chair), Cell Lines, and Course on Research Ethics (CORE) Renewal; Canadian Council on Animal Care (CCAC) Standards Committee; CCAC Ethics Principles Subcommittee; HRSO Technical Committee for CAN/HRSO-200.01–2021 “Ethical Review and Oversight of Human Research”; and a contributor to HRSO Technical Committee for CAN/HRSO-300.01-2022 “Conduct of Human Research”.
Louise Brisbois
BA (Hons)
Louise has an interest in bioethics and has over 20 years of experience on Research Ethics Boards, including the Hospital for Sick Children, Veritas IRB Inc., and the CIHR Research Integrity Council.
Louise has an Honours Bachelor of Arts and Science degree, with a business minor. For 10 years, Louise worked in the Canadian pharmaceutical and health care consumer packaged goods industry in management and marketing.
Michal Helbin
MScPharm
Michal Helbin holds a Master’s Degree in Pharmacy from the Medical University (Poland) and has more than 30 years of pharmaceutical industry experience.
Michal has held numerous positions in government and private companies. Michal worked as an Inspector for the Ministry of Health (Poland), and corporations such as Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., (clinical operations, Central and Eastern Europe; Global Quality Manager, Central and Eastern Europe, Russia and Turkey), and ApoPharma Inc. a division of Apotex Inc. (implementation of quality systems, internal and external audits, government inspections). Michal is currently the VP Quality Assurance, Compliance, and IT at NoNO Inc.
Michal’s primary interest is research ethics (clinical research), the wellbeing of research participants, and data integrity.
Rosario Isasi
JD, MPH
Professor Rosario Isasi is a Research Assistant Professor at the Dr. John T. Macdonald Foundation Department of Human Genetics at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. She holds multiple appointments, including at the Institute for Bioethics and Health Policy, within which she serves as Director of their Genetics, Ethics, and Policy Program, as well as the John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics and the Interdisciplinary Stem Cell Institute.
Rosario’s research is devoted to identifying and analyzing the social, ethical and policy dimensions of novel and disruptive genetic technologies. She has built an international reputation as a scholar with particular expertise in the area of international comparative law and ethics regarding genomics and regenerative medicine.
Rosario holds many leadership roles in major international initiatives. She was recently named the President’s International Fellow of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). Rosario is Co-Investigator and Ethics/Regulatory/Communications lead for the SouthEast Enrollment Center (SEEC) a consortium member of the NIH’s All of Us Research Program. In addition, she serves as the Ethics/Policy Advisor of the European Commission’s European Human Pluripotent Stem Cell Registry (hPSCREG), is a member of the Ethics Advisory Board of the Vanderbilt-Miami-Meharry Center of Excellence in Precision Medicine and Population Health and the American Society for Human Genetics (ASHG) Task Force on Gene Editing. Finally, Rosario is a member of the Ethics & Policy Committee of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) and is the Chair of the International Stem Cell Forum (ISCF) Ethics Working Party, a consortium of funding agencies for regenerative medicine.
Jacquelyn Legere
RN, BN, CIPP/C
Jacquelyn’s venture into the research world began with clinical trials in 1995 as a clinical trials nurse and evolved into a position in Research Ethics from 2003 to 2013. Jacquelyn was Chair of the Research Ethics Board for the former Atlantic Health Sciences Corporation from 2004-2008. In 2008, New Brunswick’s eight regional health authorities were amalgamated and in 2009, a regional Research Ethics Board for HHN was established.
Jacquelyn played an integral role in the planning and implementation of HHN’s regional REB which was recognized as a leading practice in 2010. She chaired the REB until 2011 and served as its administrator until 2013. Jacquelyn was an elected member of the Board of Director’s for the Canadian Association of Research Ethics Boards from 2008-2013 holding a VP position from 2011-2013.
Jacquelyn is a Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP/C) and a facilitator for HHN’s leadership development program. Jacquelyn received her diploma in nursing in 1988 from the Saint John School of Nursing and her Bachelor of Nursing degree from the University of New Brunswick in 2011.
Kim McDonald-Taylor
BSc, MSc
Kim has volunteered with the Clinical Research Association of Canada (CRAC) for the past 18 years. In her various roles, including President, Kim has provided leadership as CRAC went online, helped develop a certification program (CRPC), and continues to recommend quality speakers for the membership on topics of importance in Canadian clinical research. Kim is on the Board of Directors of Brain Injury Canada where she volunteers as secretary.
Kim was named Volunteer of the Year in 2016 from Brain Injury Canada, and in 2018, was awarded the Canada Talks Pharma Excellence in Clinical Research Award.
Kim earned her MSc in toxicology from the Ontario Veterinary College at the University of Guelph. She has presented and co-chaired sessions at DIA, DIA Canada, ACRP and other meetings over the past 15 years.
Pertice Moffitt
BScN, MN, PhD
Dr. Pertice Moffitt is Manager/Instructor, Health Research Programs at Aurora Research Institute. She has over thirty years of practice, administration, education and research in the Northwest Territories. Pertice completed her PhD at the University of Calgary.
Pertice holds an Honorary Professor designation at the University of the Arctic in Tromso, Norway where she is an invited lecturer and researcher. Pertice studied in Potchefstroom, South Africa where she completed an International Internship for Health Science Researchers.
For the past fifteen years, Pertice’s research focus has been on Indigenous and Women’s Health and Rural and Remote Nursing. She has generated knowledge in breastfeeding, quality of life of older adults, intimate partner violence and the nature of rural and remote nursing in Canada.
Pertice is currently a Principal Investigator in the SPOR Evidence Alliance, a CIHR project, and contributes to the Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability. For her research contributions in the NWT, Premier McLeod bestowed her with the prestigious “Wise Woman” award.
Marie-Laurence Tremblay
BSc, PhD
Dr. Marie-Laurence Tremblay has been the Research Ethics Manager at Nova Scotia (NS) Health, a provincial healthcare system, since 2020. In her role, Marie-Laurence oversees the operational efficiency and quality of four REB review processes. Grounded in action-oriented team outcomes, Marie-Laurence has provided considerable leadership to several new initiatives aiming to modernize and streamline clinical research, which started with launching electronic informed consent for clinical research within the first four months of her tenure. Since then, Marie-Laurence has utilized the REB review operations as the central connectivity node within a network of institutional regulatory, privacy, contractual, and ethical review/approval pathways for clinical research.
Marie-Laurence has also been instrumental in managing a team of international consultants, local researchers and administrators to realize the first implementation and enablement of a decentralized clinical trial protocol at NS Health. Trained in policy development and implementation, Marie-Laurence has been leading a team to develop a new accredited Human Research Protection Program and is also leading the integration of a new centralized institutional biobank through policy/process.
Marie-Laurence graduated with her PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Dalhousie University in 2015. She then pursued a four-year Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Biomedical Translational Imaging Center in Halifax, studying novel non-invasive imaging detection methods for immune cells in gynecological cancer animal models in partnerships with Cubresa Inc. and IMV Inc, a local pharmaceutical company. She was involved in multiple grant review committees and authored 13 peer-reviewed scientific publications. Marie-Laurence sits on the Human Research Standards Organization Technical Committee and the Atlantic Clinical Trial Network REB working group.
Sheri Webb
BSc, RAQC
For the last 17 years, Sheri has been working in various roles in clinical research specializing in quality assurance, compliance and regulatory affairs. Sheri’s experience spans both the private and public sectors, having held positions at contract research organizations, academic research hospitals and assisting with the qualification of Research Ethics Boards through Clinical Trials Ontario and Toronto Academic Health Science Network.
Sheri is currently the Manager of Research Safety, Ethics, Training & Compliance at the Health Sciences North Research Institute. In this position, Sheri assisted with the development of the ICES North satellite site in Sudbury, Ontario.