New faces join Bloomberg Nursing research and teaching faculty

3 September 2015

With the start of the new academic year, Bloomberg Nursing is delighted to welcome several new faces to our faculty in both the teaching and the research streams.

In the research professoriate, we welcome four new faculty: Dr. Kristin Cleverley, Dr. Laurie Conway, Dr. Samantha Mayo and Dr. Lisa Cranley.

Dr. Kristin Cleverley joins us in the position of Assistant Professor and Chair in Mental Health Nursing Research with the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. Dr. Cleverley obtained her doctoral degree from McMaster University’s Department of Psychiatry and Offord Centre for Child Studies. She received a four-year CIHR/PHAC Clinician-Scientist Fellowship, during which she pursued research to understand the developmental trajectories of aggression in adolescence and outcomes in emerging adulthood. Most recently, Dr. Cleverley was the Director of Practice Research and Innovation at CAMH and has also served as Co-Director of the Ryerson-CAMH collaboration in Client-Centered Care. Dr. Cleverley’s research program will focus on youth with mental illness and the enablers and barriers they face as they transition into adulthood.

Dr. Laurie Conway comes to us from the Columbia University School of Nursing, where she earned her doctoral degree in nursing. Originally from Canada, Dr. Conway received her Bachelor’s degree from the University of Western Ontario before relocating to the United States and earning a Master of Science in Nursing (Clinical Research Management) from the University of Maryland Baltimore. Dr. Conway is an expert in infection control, and her research interests are focused on the prevention of healthcare associated infections in acute care settings. Her doctoral research examined the prevalence, predictors and costs of those infections.

Dr. Lisa Cranley earned her PhD in Nursing from the University of Toronto, and returned to us from the University of Alberta, where she had been an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Nursing following completion of postdoctoral studies there. Dr. Cranley has extensive clinical experience in the medical-surgical critical-care field. Her doctoral research, funded by CIHR, examined how critical care nurses make decisions in the face of uncertainty. Dr. Cranley’s broader research interests include knowledge translation, clinical decision making and uncertainty, facilitation, staff retention, and healthcare delivery.

Dr. Samantha Mayo also earned her PhD in nursing from the University of Toronto, under the supervision of Dr. Kelly Metcalfe. She joins us on November 1, 2015 after completing a post-doctoral fellowship in the Department of Medical Oncology and Hematology at the world-renowned Princess Margaret Cancer Centre. Dr. Mayo has an extensive background in clinical oncology and oncology research, and her research interests focus on neurocognitive functioning, personalized supportive care interventions, the effects of cancer treatment and haematological malignancies and stem cell transplant.

In the teaching stream, we were delighted to welcome Maki Iwase as Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream.

Maki Iwase is well known to us. She completed her PhD (2014) here at the faculty under the supervision of Dr. Sioban Nelson, on the social effects of gestational diabetes in high-risk ethnic groups. Dr. Iwase has been a valued lecturer in the undergraduate program since 2012. She has extensive clinical experience, particularly in diabetes and diabetes education, and she brings that knowledge and experience to all aspects of her teaching.

Our new faculty are highly accomplished nurse researchers and educators, and they are bound to make positive and valuable contributions to the Faculty of Nursing. We look forward to their participation in our community; please do make them feel welcome as we begin the 2015-2016 academic year.