Executive and Board of Directors

Dr. Wayne Inuglak Clark ᐅᐊᐃᓐ ᐃᓄᒡᓚᒃ ᑲᓛᒃ, originally from Churchill, Manitoba, is a registered Inuk under the Nunavut Agreement with ties to Tikiraqjuaq ᑎᑭᕋᕐᔪᐊᖅ (Whale Cove). He is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Psychiatry, University of Alberta, where he also directs the Wâpanachakos Indigenous Health Program in the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry. He is also a Visiting Assistant Professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Centre for Indigenous Health Research.

Dr. Clark’s research centers on Inuit health service utilization and Indigenous medical education, with a focus on Indigenous mental health, healing systems, and intergenerational trauma. He is a principal investigator for the Accelerating Clinical Trials Consortium, which aims to increase Indigenous participation in clinical trials in Canada. Dr. Clark served as Director of Indigenous Health Services for the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority and co-chairs the Indigenous Health Committee for the Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada. He is also a member of the International Union for Circumpolar Health and the International Arctic Science Committee’s Standing Committee on Indigenous Involvement.

Dr. Clark resides on Treaty No. 6 Territory in Edmonton, Alberta.

Dr. Ekua Agyemang is a Public Health and Preventive Medicine specialist physician. She works as the Deputy Chief Public Health Officer for the Government of Nunavut, Department of Health. In addition to her medical training and work in Ghana, she obtained her Master of Public Health (Global Health) and specialty training in Canada at the University of Alberta and a certificate in Population Health Management from John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

She teaches medical students and resident physicians at the University of Alberta Faculty of Medicine. Her professional focus is on Health Systems Leadership especially at the intersection of public health inequities in low resource areas including the Arctic and capacity building through community engagement. She is privileged to live and work in Iqaluit with her family.

Dr. Josée Lavoie was born and raised in northern Québec.

She completed her university education at McGill University and at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, where she studied health care system designed from an international perspective, with a close interest to the complexity of providing access to responsive care in rural, remote and northern environments.

Josée is currently engaged in a study in partnership with Inuit Elders and the Manitoba Inuit Association, looking at access to health services delivered in Manitoba. She is also an Arctic Fulbright Scholar, pursuing two comparative circumpolar health policy projects. She is Professor in the Dept of Community Health Sciences at the University of Manitoba, and Director of Ongomiizwin Research, which is part of the Indigenous Institute of Health and Healing.

Dr. Marti Ford is of mixed heritage with Inuit and settler roots. She is the past President and Board Chair of the Manitoba Inuit Association.

She is an educator and has been a teacher, principal, Director of Education, School Superintendent at Frontier School Division, and Dean of Indigenous Education at Red River College. Marti most recently worked for Frontier School Division recruiting teachers. Marti has worked locally throughout the province of Manitoba in First Nations and Métis communities. She has worked internationally in Botswana as a school principal, and with community-based projects with Mapuche in Chile, and Indigenous communities in Roraima and Macieo in Brazil. She received her Doctorate in Education in Teaching and Learning at the University of Minnesota, Duluth.

Marti volunteers with United Way’s Community Indigenous Relations Committee, The Royal Aviation Museum of Western Canada, and the Canadian Forces Liaison Committee.

Dr. Sophie Roher (she/her) is a CIHR SPOR-funded Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Toronto, and a Senior Research Advisor at the Institute for Circumpolar Health Research, a community-based research institute located in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada. In these roles, Sophie works with Indigenous Elders, governments, and community partners in Northern Canada on community-identified health research, training, and program development initiatives.

Sophie completed her MSc in Health Policy and Bioethics and her PhD in Social and Behavioural Health Research at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. Her research interests include cultural safety in health services, capacity building initiatives, collaborative research partnerships, food security, and the health impacts of climate change.

Dr. Leonor Ward is a research associate at the University of Ottawa and the University of Alberta. In these roles, she collaborates with northern Indigenous communities, their leaders and governments, as well as with clinicians and policymakers in the health systems of Labrador, Nunavut, and Yukon.

After working as an academic medicine administrator in a large academic hospital, Leonor lived in Labrador and worked for the Innu Nation. This experience profoundly impacted her and motivated her to pursue a PhD in Population Health at the University of Ottawa. As an interdisciplinary researcher, Leonor integrates Indigenous knowledge into her research, actively engaging with communities and enhancing their capacity for health research.

Leonor focuses on health systems in Canada’s North. Her current interests include integrating the identification of pathogens found in waste and environmental water into public health surveillance, along with Indigenous data governance and sovereignty.

Dr. Janet Jull is an Associate Professor at Carleton University. She is trained as an occupational therapist and has studied at Western University, Dalhousie University, and at the University of Ottawa. Janet’s research interests centre on the development and evaluation of shared decision-making tools and approaches to support person-centred care in health care systems. Janet’s areas of research focus extend to the design and conduct of research, and knowledge translation that include an approach to collaborative research called integrated knowledge translation.

Nathaniel Pollock (Settler, he/him) is an epidemiologist at the Public Health Agency of Canada. He completed a Masters of Social Work at Carleton University and a PhD in Community Health at Memorial University. He previously worked as a social worker in mental health, health care, child welfare, and post-secondary education. In past research roles, he worked collaboratively with Indigenous governments and health and social care agencies in Labrador and elsewhere in the Circumpolar North on research related to suicide prevention, mental health, and rural health services. From 2018 to 2024, Nathaniel was a board member of the International Union for Circumpolar Health.

Kimberly Fairman is an Inuk woman from the Kitikmeot region of Nunavut. She is currently the Executive Director at the Institute for Circumpolar Health Research in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories.

After a career in the federal public service, she completed a Masters Degree in Public Health. She works with researchers, Indigenous knowledge holders, clinicians and policymakers in health systems research that impacts on the northern patient experience. Kimberly plays an important role by weaving partnerships into the research fabric, engaging with communities and building northern capacity for health research.

With continuing support from Canadian funding agencies and university partners, Kimberly is showcasing the valuable contribution of northern communities, practitioners and Indigenous knowledge holders to the modern research agenda.