Lab Alumni

Clinical Research Analyst (2022-2023)
Alison Stere is a qualitative researcher in the Department of Supportive Care at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre. Following the completion of her Honours Bachelor of Arts degree in bioethics, history, and classics at the University of Toronto, she enrolled in an Master of Arts program at the University of Leeds specializing in Biomedical and Healthcare Ethics. During her studies, she completed an internship at the Ethics Quality Improvement Lab at William Osler Health System under the supervision of Dr Paula Chidwick, Dr Jill Oliver, and Dr Angel Petropanagos. As an intern, she assisted on the development and analysis of a WHO-sponsored survey of healthcare professionals and the ethical issues they encountered working in long-term care during the COVID-19 pandemic. Her ethics research interests focus on MAiD, moral issues surrounding psychiatric disorders, and allocation strategies of scarce medical resources. In addition to her ethics work at the JustCan Ethics Lab, Alison also contributes to multiple mixed methods clinical research projects focusing on MAiD and caregiver bereavement with Dr Rinat Nissim and Dr Sarah Hales at the Department of Supportive Care at PMH.

Graduate Research Assistant (2022-2023)
Lauren Honan (she/her) is a graduate student enrolled in the Master of Health Sciences in Bioethics program at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. She is interested in research involving women’s health, reproductive health, and health equity conducted with an intersectional lens. Lauren previously earned her Honours Bachelor of Health Sciences from Western University, where she enjoyed teaching swimming lessons to children with disabilities through SWAM London. Her practicum placement at Women’s College Hospital with Dr. Ruby Shanker has allowed Lauren to initiate learning opportunities that bridge ethical theories with practical applications relevant to clinical, organizational, and research ethics. Lauren is currently working on a capstone project under the supervision of Dr. Jennifer Bell, Director of Just Can Ethics Lab, that seeks to explore the ethics of implementing human papillomavirus (HPV) testing by self-sampling as an alternative to Pap smears in cervical cancer screening.

Graduate Research Assistant (2021-2023)
Marina Salis is a teaching assistant in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Toronto and a graduate student in the Master of Health Sciences in Bioethics program at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health in collaboration with the Joint Centre for Bioethics at the University of Toronto. She received her Honours Bachelor of Arts in Bioethics (Maj), Philosophy (Maj), and Equity Studies (Min) in June 2020. During her undergraduate studies, Marina completed a three-year internship under the supervision of Dr. Paula Chidwick, Dr. Jilll Oliver, and Dr. Angel Petropanagos at the Ethics Quality Improvement Lab within the Clinical and Corporate Ethics Department at William Osler Health System and is currently the President of the University of Toronto Bioethics Society. She has a special interest in intersections of ethics, policy, and neurodegenerative disease with a focused interest on elderly populations, long-term care, and quality improvement research and methodologies.

Undergraduate Summer Student (2023)
Vivian Deng is an upcoming fourth year undergraduate student enrolled in the Department of Philosophy with a specialization in Bioethics at the University of Toronto. While she is still developing her research interests, her current interests include MAiD, the ethical implications of the pharmaceutical industry, as well as the ethical issues surrounding the use of experimental therapies. Recently, she has also developed an interest towards ethics and genetics, particularly towards the usage of genetic technologies such as CRISPR and polygenic scores.
Vivian is currently working on a project under the supervision of Dr. Jennifer Bell, with the goal of developing a research program that focuses on the professionalization of practicing health care ethicists.

Graduate Research Assistant (2020-2022)
Caroline Variath is a PhD candidate in nursing with a collaborative specialization in bioethics at the University of Toronto. She has worked clinically in acute and critical care settings for over 15 years. The end-of-life care challenges she encountered in her practice, especially while caring for those with a loss of decision-making capacity, made her passionate about improving end-of-life care. Her PhD thesis focuses on experiences with the loss of capacity to consent and access to medical assistance in dying in Canada. She aims to normalize the concept of death and dying. Her work focuses on improving end-of-life care planning and the experience of patients, their family members and healthcare providers with death.

Postdoctoral Research Fellow (2016-2019)
Jonathan Avery is a qualitative health researcher with a background in psychology (BA Honours, York University, 2005) and communication (MA, University of Ottawa, 2009). Jonathan found his way to the field of rehabilitation serendipitously by working in cancer survivorship care for a number of years. He then gained the opportunity to pursue his doctorate in the field at the University of Ottawa. Jonathan has always been fascinated with health, illness and disability.
As a non-clinician, his multi-disciplinary background brings a unique perspective to the field by utilizing his knowledge of psychology and communication to advance our knowledge in rehabilitation. He is currently a post-doctoral research fellow in the School of Nursing (University of British Columbia) and continues to contribute in the Department of Supportive Care at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre (Toronto, Canada).

Research Assistant (2018-2019)
Khotira Baryolay is a graduate of Biomedical Science (BSc Honours, York University, 2016) and Clinical Research (Oxford College, 2017). Khotira’s passion for clinical research stated when she first joined Princess Margaret Cancer Centre as Research volunteer at Department of Supportive Care (Research Division). This opportunity allowed her to gain and develop the fundamental knowledge and skills in assisting with both quantitative and qualitative research as well as statistical methods.

Research Volunteer (2024-2025)
Danylo is a graduate of the Harvard Medical School Master of Bioethics (MBE) program. His capstone thesis explored questions of autonomy for patients with mental health issues and the role of narrative medicine in patient-centered mental health care.
Within bioethics, his research interests include autonomy and decision-making, mental health ethics, and issues of equity and access .
At the JustCan Ethics lab, he supports projects relating to CAR T-cell therapy and bioethics in cancer research.

Past graduate students

Research volunteers

Laura Dragoi