Shayna Sparling
The Engage Team has some exciting staffing updates:
The team has hired a new National Team Manager and Post-Doctoral Fellow. This individual will be responsible for coordinating national Engage activities, including inter-site collaborations and management, data analysis and publications, and knowledge translation efforts.
Entering the role is Shayna Sparling. Shayna has a PhD in Applied Social Psychology, with a speciality in Health Psychology. Her research has primarily focused on sexual decision-making and sexual negotiation – in particular, her work has explored how condom negotiation occurs among new couples and how sexual arousal impacts decision-making, risk-taking, and judgement. She previously held a postdoctoral position with Robin Milhausen at the University of Guelph where she was cross-appointed to the Ontario HIV Treatment Network (OHTN) in Toronto. Her work with the OHTN has primarily focused on effective HIV risk communication and how health literacy impacts sexual health issues. Her most recent work has begun exploring how gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men negotiate condom use and non-use with their sexual partners, as well as how this process is impacted by power differentials.
Julia Vernon, the current Manager of the HIV Prevention Lab at Ryerson University, will be leaving at the end of July to pursue graduate studies in clinical psychology at Simon Fraser University. Over the past 5 years, Julia has been a huge asset to the HIV Prevention Lab and the Engage study. We will miss her dearly, but we are excited to see her embark on this next chapter in her life. Thank you for everything, Julia! We wish you all the best!
Samer Lazkani is the incoming Manager of the HIV Prevention Lab at Ryerson University. Samer has served as a volunteer with the HIV Prevention Lab since 2017 and has also volunteered with the Toronto Distress Centre and YMCA. Samer has a background in psychology and an interest in LGBTQ health. We welcome Samer to the team and look forward to working with him. Samer begins on July 3, 2018.
In May 2018 Irvine Sandsta (RN, MPH) became the full-time nurse for the Vancouver site. We are excited for this development as it will contribute to more consistency and accuracy in our data collection.
Engage Montreal is happy to welcome Émilie Nassif to the research nurse team, and would like to wish Marc-André Primeau the best of luck in his new position at the Montreal SIDEP clinic. Two medical students have also joined the team, Julian Hughes and Simonne Harvey-Lavoie. Each are assisting with cycle 2 visits at the study site over the summer, as well as taking the lead on analyses of the Engage-Montreal data. Finally, Engage Montreal is happy to bring on Herak Apelian as a full-time site coordinator, who will continue to take the lead on coordinating cycle 2 study visits as well as advancing various analysis projects of the Engage-Montreal data.
Gbolahan Olarewaju
June 28th, 2018