Postdoctoral Fellows

Dr. alexandra kent

Supervisors: Dr. Sana Shahram / Dr. Christopher Horsethief | Equity Science Lab

Email: alexandra.kent@ubc.ca

Dr. Kent is a Banting and Michael Smith Health Research Postdoctoral Fellow. Her training background is in public health research, and she completed her PhD in Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University. She is deeply engaged in a range of local, regional, provincial, and national research studies that combine implementation science with Indigenous knowledges and ways of knowing to study interventions that advance equity-oriented health systems transformation. Her program of research is grounded in community-driven partnerships with Indigenous Nations, health authorities, and policymakers. Through integrated knowledge translation and implementation science, these partnerships are bridging the gap between calls to action, evidence informed best practices, and real-world application. A primary focus of Dr. Kent’s postdoctoral fellowship is leading implementation science within the xaȼqanaǂ ʔitkiniǂ Many Ways of Working on the Same Thing research study. xaȼqanaǂ ʔitkiniǂ is a partnership with the Ktunaxa Nation Council and Interior Health, where partners are co-learning and co-creating systems-level interventions with the aim of re-orienting local and regional health systems to learn from Ktunaxa approaches to supporting community wellbeing.

Dr. Jelena Komanchuk

Supervisors: Dr. Elizabeth Keys / Dr. Delphine Collin-Vézina (McGill University) |  SLeep solUtions to proMote Better Early childhood Relationships (SLUMBER) Lab | https://blogs.ubc.ca/slumber/

Email: jelena.komanchuk@ubc.ca

Jelena completed her PhD in Nursing at the University of Calgary in 2023. Her doctoral research focused on leveraging digital interventions to support parent-child interactions and children’s development for families who are underserved with in-person services. Jelena entered graduate school after observing health and developmental inequities experienced by children in foster care as a pediatric Registered Nurse. She is grateful for the support received from UBCO’s Postdoctoral Fellowship award to lead mixed methods research aimed at understanding the sleep health of families with young children in foster and kinship care in Canada. Jelena’s research is centered in community engagement and integrated knowledge translation, and her postdoctoral research is guided by the knowledge and perspectives of a Syilx elder, foster caregivers, and 8 foster and kinship organizations across British Columbia. She is also leading research to develop 10 top research priorities to promote sleep health equity in Canada.