Celebrating Canadian women leading injury prevention

Pamela is the President & CEO at Parachute, and she has focused on turning research into action. Through her work to raise awareness and advocate for change, she has become a recognized expert in areas of injury prevention such as transportation safety, fall prevention, poison prevention, concussion and home safety for children. 

Sandra is the Manager of Child Safety Link, located at IWK Health in Halifax, NS. An expert in child injury prevention, she has led efforts to raise awareness and change policy on issues related to child passenger safety, home safety and playground safety.

Sally’s decades of work in child injury prevention began with positions at Health Canada and on spinal cord injury prevention after which she moved to an injury prevention consultant in 1999 and was a recognized leader in the field. She’s known for her ability to make connections across sectors, build strong relationships and facilitate action.  

Morag is the Chief Research and Network Officer at Safe Kids Worldwide and has worked in child injury prevention for over 35 years in Canada, Europe, and the U.S. Her work has focused on research, surveillance, program development and evaluation, and helping translate evidence into effective policies and practice. 

Deborah Friedman has served as Director of Trauma at the Montreal Children’s Hospital Trauma Centre, McGill University Health Centre, since 2000. In 2011, she was appointed Director of the hospital’s Canadian Hospitals Injury Reporting and Prevention Program (CHIRPP), a Public Health Agency of Canada initiative. She is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Pediatrics and Pediatric Surgery in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at McGill University, where she also served as Assistant Dean of Student Affairs from 2016 to 2023.  She developed the 1st Inter-professional Neurotrauma Program in Canada, and is a pioneer in the field of concussion. Through her academic and clinical teaching, research, knowledge translation, advocacy, and development of trauma systems of care is considered a leader in the fields of Pediatric and adolescent Trauma Care and Injury  Prevention. 

Alison is a Professor in the School of Kinesiology and Health Science and an Adjunct Senior Scientist at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences. A recognized international expert and leader as an epidemiologist and applied researcher, her research is related to keeping children active, healthy, and safe.

Noreen retired from the Saskatchewan Prevention Institute where she was the Executive Director after dedicating decades to children’s safety.  She was instrumental in the area of child passenger safety, part of developing a national training program, and in spearheading programs in areas such as bike helmets, home safety.

Kathy is the former Director of the Injury Prevention Centre at the University of Alberta in the School of Public Health. After experiencing a personal injury, she first became an advocate and then a well-recognized expert in injury prevention, leading injury prevention research, programming, and policy change in Alberta and across Canada. 

Mariana is a professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia and the Director of the Human Early Learning Partnership, as well as lead of the Outside Play Lab at BC Children’s Hospital. She found her niche in the issue of risky play, combining her child developmental psychology and injury prevention experience, and is a leader in Canada as well as internationally to balance the benefits of play with preventing serious injuries.

Shelina is the Director of the BC Injury Research & Prevention Unit and Clinical Professor in the Department of Pediatrics, UBC. Her focus spans from identifying and addressing critical gaps in injury prevention to traumatic brain injury and concussion. This expertise in concussion sparked the creation of the Concussion Awareness Training Tool (CATT) that has been expanded and adapted internationally.