Sir Michael Marmot

Former Chair of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Commission on the Social Determinants of Health, he is Director of the International Institute for Society and Health, and Head of the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at University College, London. In 2000 he was knighted for services to epidemiology and understanding health inequalities.

The contributions of Sir Michael Marmot and Dr. Dan Offord are inextricably linked, both here in Canada and internationally. In the 1980s, Sir Michael’s work demonstrated the importance of social gradients in health. This inspired the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIfAR) to create a series of programs that have searched for early human developmental origins of the gradient. Dr. Offord, as key member of the Human Development Program in CIfAR, conceived of the Early Development Instrument (EDI) as a tool that could allow these processes to be readily understood in their broader social context, and one that could be used to advocate for changes in the allocation of resources to early childhood. The success of the EDI, in turn, became a key source of information for Sir Michael’s WHO Commission which has been extraordinarily influential around the world in putting the evidence about early child development and inequity at the centre of policy discussions. Sir Michael was able to clearly document, at the level of the population, how the social environment produces gradients in development in the early years, thus providing clues as to how those gradients might be eliminated, leading to ‘equity from the start’.

Petra Arck

Dr Arck obtained her medical training and her medical doctoral thesis at Tuebingen University in Germany. She completed a research training in immunology at McMaster University and University of Toronto before returning to Germany to finish her medical training in the Gynecology. She has become a faculty member of the Charité, University Medicine Berlin in 2006 and joined the Department of Medicine at McMaster University in 2008 as a Canada Research Chair in Neuroimmunology. Dr Arck has received a number of research awards acknowledging her interdisciplinary research focus. Her scientific interests address the effect of stress on the neuro-immunological hemostasis, especially in the context of reproduction.

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Michel Boivin

Michel Boivin is Canada Research Chair on Child Social Development, professor of psychology at the School of Psychology of Université Laval, and fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He leads a program of research on the biological, psychological and social components of early child development, using large-scale longitudinal studies, such as the Quebec Study of Newborn Twins (QSNT) and the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Child Development (QLSCD). He was a fellow (senior researcher) of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) from 2000 to 2005. He is director at Université Laval of the Research Unit on Children’s Psychosocial Maladjustment (GRIP), a multi-disciplinary interuniversity research centre aimed at understanding and preventing the development of adjustment problems in children. He also leads the Strategic Knowledge Cluster on Early Child Development (SRC-ECD), whose goal is to mobilize knowledge on this issue. The SRC-ECD supports the construction of the WEB-based Encyclopedia on Early Childhood Development, of which he is an editor.

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Sally Brinkman

Senior Research Fellow, Curtin University’s Centre for Developmental Health & Telethon’s Institute for Child Health Research.

Sally is a social epidemiologist with the majority of her research focusing on societies impact on child development. Sally spearheaded the use of the Early Development Instrument (EDI) in Australia being the first to pilot the instrument outside of Canada. Sally’s primary role is the Epidemiologist for the national implementation of the Australian EDI Program.

The EDI is now being piloted and adapted in various countries and much of Sally’s work is now consulting to the World Bank working with the EDI and various other child developmental instruments in developing countries.

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Jim Dunn

Dr. Jim Dunn holds a Chair in Applied Public Health from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Public Health Agency of Canada on ‘Interventions in Residential Neighbourhoods and Population Health’. He is an Associate Professor in the Department of Health, Aging and Society at McMaster University and a Scientist at the Centre for Research on Inner City Health (CRICH) at St. Michael's Hospital, Toronto. He is also Fellow of the Successful Societies program of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. He is the Deputy Editor of the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health  and is on the Editorial Advisory Board of Housing, Theory & Society and Health Reports. His research program focuses on questions regarding the social determinants of health and the influence of economic and social policies and programs on inequalities in health and child development, with a focus on urban housing and neighbourhoods.

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Marilyn J. Essex, Ph.D.

Dr. Marilyn Essex earned her M.S. and Ph.D. in Medical Sociology at the University of Maryland and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Mental Health Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in a joint program of the Departments of Sociology and Psychiatry. After serving on the faculty of the Department of Sociology at Lawrence University, she joined the University of Wisconsin's Department of Psychiatry in 1984 as a research scientist and subsequently joined the faculty in 2004. Throughout her career, the broad focus of Dr. Essex's work has been the processes linking life stress with health and functioning across the lifespan. Since its inception in 1989, she has been Co-Director of the Wisconsin Study of Families and Work, an ongoing longitudinal research program following a community sample originally recruited during the prenatal period for a study of maternity leave and health. As Principal Investigator, she has received numerous grants for interdisciplinary research to identify and examine the joint influences over time of social, psychological, and biological risk factors for the development of child and adolescent mental health problems (e.g., R01-MH044340, 1994-2003). This work was a major component of the NIMH-funded Wisconsin Center for Affective Science (P50-MH052354, 1993-2003; P50-MH069315, 2004-2008) and continues as a major component of that Center's successor, a Conte Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Brain, Behavior & Mental Health (P50-MH084051; begins 2008). From 1996 to 2004, Dr. Essex served as a Scientific Core Member of the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Psychopathology and Development. She also has consulted on a number of large-scale studies of child development; is a regular peer-reviewer of grant applications, including serving on an NIH study section; is a frequent reviewer for a number of scientific journals; and serves on the editorial board of Psychoneuroendocrinology.

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Sharon Goldfeld

Dr Sharon Goldfeld is a community paediatrician at the Royal Children’s Hospital’s Centre for Community Child Health, senior research fellow at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute and senior lecturer at the University of Melbourne. She is currently National Director of the Australian Early Development Index Program. Dr Goldfeld is also the Principal Medical Advisor in the Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development. She has a PhD in health services research and has been a recipient of the prestigious international Harkness Fellowship in Health Care Policy.  She is a member of several national and state committees that focus on children’s issues.

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Jim Grieve

Jim Grieve was appointed Assistant Deputy Minister of the Early Learning Division for the Ontario Ministry of Education in November of 2009 to lead the provincial implementation of full day learning for 4 and 5 year old children in all Ontario schools.

Jim recognizes this initiative as one of the most significant investments in the future of our children and the province. His is dedicated to significantly increase the percentage of children who have the developmental and literacy skills to be ready to move successfully into grade one.

Jim is a passionate advocate for early child development and has always been deeply involved in developing the strongest possible supports for children and their families. He is deeply honoured to have been given the opportunity to lead the implementation of full day learning for 4 and 5 year olds in Ontario.

Jim developed a strong advocacy for the early years through his direct work as one founding member of the Council for Early Child Development. Over the last 15 years, along with Dr. Fraser Mustard, Dr. Dan Offord, Dr. Magdelena Janus and countless talented leaders in the field of early child development, he has worked to develop strong multi-sectoral initiatives designed to help young children and families in Canada thrive. He contributed to the development of two highly recognized Success By 6 organizations in Ottawa and in the Region of Peel.

Following an exemplary career as a teacher, school administrator and superintendent in the North York Board, Jim served as Director of Education in Ottawa Carleton for four years and in October 2009 completed seven years as Director of Education in the Peel District School Board, Canada's second largest school board.

Jim holds a Masters Degree from OISE/University of Toronto along with undergraduate degrees from York University and Victoria College of the University of Toronto. Known as a highly visible and approachable leader, Jim will continue his long standing tradition of spending several days each month visiting Ontario's many diverse communities to view exemplary programs, engage Best Start, child care, municipal and education leaders in order to assess and improve the implementation process.

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Neal Halfon

Neal Halfon, MD, MPH is director of the UCLA Center for Healthier Children, Families and Communities.  He is also a professor of pediatrics in the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, health services in the UCLA School of Public Health, and policy studies in the UCLA School of Public Affairs. Dr. Halfon is the Principal Investigator for the Los Angeles and Ventura Study Center for the National Children’s Study.

Dr. Halfon’s research has spanned clinical, health services, epidemiologic and health policy domains. This includes studies focused on health and health care needs of children in foster care, trends in childhood chronic illness and disability; access to health insurance and care; quality of health care and developmental services; provisions of preventive services. Dr Halfon has also played a significant role in developing new conceptual frameworks for the study of health and health care, including the Life Course Health Development (LCHD) model. A major focus of Dr. Halfon’s recent policy work has been on national health care reform.

Dr. Halfon received his MD at the University of California, Davis and MPH at University of California, Berkeley. He completed his pediatric residency at UC San Diego and UC San Francisco. Dr. Halfon was a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at both UC San Francisco and Stanford.

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Clyde Hertzman

Dr. Hertzman is Director of the Human Early Learning Partnership (HELP), College for Interdisciplinary Studies at UBC; Tier I Canada Research Chair in Population Health and Human Development; and Professor in the School of Population and Public Health at UBC. Nationally, he is a Fellow of the Experience-based Brain and Biological Development Program and the Successful Societies Program of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research.  He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.  Since 2008, he has been President of the Canadian Council on Early Child Development. He holds an honorary appointment at the Institute for Child Health, University College, London.

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Magdalena Janus

Magdalena holds an MSc in biology from Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland, and a PhD in behavioural sciences from Cambridge University. She is currently an Associate Professor at the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neuroscience at McMaster University where she holds the Ontario Chair in Early Child Development. Since joining the Offord Centre for Child Studies at McMaster University in 1997, Magdalena, together with the late Dr. Dan Offord, developed the Early Development Instrument (EDI), a measure of children's readiness to learn at school entry. This initiative has generated interest at national and international levels, from academic and social policy perspectives. Magdalena and her team have now supported the implementation of the EDI for over 500,000 children in Canada, and its adaptation in a number of international sites. She regularly serves as a consultant with various national and international organisations, including the World Bank and UNICEF, on the measurement and indicators of early child development.

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Paul Kershaw

Dr. Paul Kershaw is a farmer morning and night, and an academic by day. He is one of Canada’s leading thinkers about family policy, and he has received two national prizes from the Canadian Political Science Association for his work in this area.  Kershaw’s research shows that family policy is important for social justice, gender equality, citizenship, population health and economic growth. With this expertise, Kershaw is leading the evaluation of expenditures required for family policy innovation in British Columbia and the rest of country, along with a detailed estimate of the short- and long-term benefits of the proposed investments.  At the University of British Columbia, he is the Human Early Learning Partnership (HELP) Scholar in Social Care, Citizenship and the Determinants of Health where he serves as the Director of the Social Care and Social Citizenship Research Network.  Dr. Kershaw lives in Katzie Territory at Homecoming Farm, Pitt Meadows, BC.

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Joan Lombardi

Joan Lombardi, Ph.D. is the Deputy Assistant Secretary and Inter-Departmental Liaison for Early Childhood Development, Administration for Children and Families in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In this role she provides overall policy coordination for the Head Start and Early Head Start Program and the Child Care and Development Fund, as well as serving as the liaison with the U.S. Department of Education and other federal agencies.

Dr. Lombardi has spent almost four decades dedicated to the needs of young children and their families. She has served as an advisor to a number of foundations, national and international organizations, helping to create innovative policies to improve the conditions for children and families. She served as the founding chair of the Birth to Five Policy, a group of national organizations dedicated to shifting the odds for at risk children ages 0-5. Joan served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy and External Affairs in the Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services during the Clinton Administration and as the first Director of the Child Care Bureau.

She is the author of numerous publications including : Time to Care: Redesigning Child Care to Promote Education, Support Families and Build Communities (Temple University Press, 2003) and co-editor of A Beacon of Hope: The Promise of Early Head Start for America’s Youngest Children (Zero To Three Press, 2004). In 2004, Joan launched the Global Leaders for Young Children program in partnership with The World Forum Foundation which has provided leadership support to early education leaders around the world.

Helia Molina Milman

Medical Doctor (1973) University of Chile. Pediatrician , Master in Public Health (1990) Universidad de Chile.
Certificated in Health Services Planning (1992) Universidad de Chile.(PIAS); Project Evaluation at the Western Michigan University, USA 1997; Epidemiology for health managers at  Johns Hopkins University USA 2003
Author of many scientific publications and books at the national and international level, most of them in the Child health and development field.

As chief of Division and the “Chile Grows with You” Program , the main role was to develop(design, implement and evaluate) publics policies in he fields of: life styles, safe food , health of the workers, nutrition ; social participation, pharmacy , physical and psychosocial environment among others.

These policies are focus on intersectoral approach with a strong component of social and community participation.

Many partnership have been developed : with Social Organizations, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Agriculture, Sports, Ministry of Planning, Private sector , Mayors, Politicians and others to make possible publics policies and to ensure sustainability and resources mobilization

One of the main problems to be addressed in the last years is Inequity and “Chile Grows with You” is the most important national policy to reduce the gap from the beginning.

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Fraser Mustard

J. Fraser Mustard has had a diverse career in the health sciences, medical research, research in the natural and social sciences, and the private sector. After earning his MD from the University of Toronto, and Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge, Dr. Mustard joined the medical faculty at the University of Toronto. In 1966 he moved to McMaster University to help establish the new school of Medicine and Health Sciences. In 1972 he became the Vice President, Health Sciences [Medicine and Nursing]. During his tenure at the University of Toronto and McMaster, he developed a major research career in platelets, thrombosis and cardiovascular disease. He was recognized for his research by a Gairdner Foundation prize in 1966 and the Killam Prize for medical research. In 1982, he took on the task of creating and establishing a unique Canadian institution, The Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. Dr. Mustard has been a champion in Canada of interdisciplinary research including the socioeconomic determinants of human development and health. He co-chaired a report for the Government of Ontario on early child development with specific community recommendations (The Early Years Study). In 2004 he founded The Council for Early Child Development. Dr. Mustard and his colleagues are emphasizing to all sectors of society the crucial nature of early human development in producing healthy, competent and quality populations. Dr. Mustard is involved with governments in Canada and Australia, Latin America, the World Bank, and the Aga Khan University in Pakistan in emphasizing the enormous importance to society of early human development. Dr. Mustard is a Companion of the Order of Canada.

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Sven Silburn

Sven Silburn heads Developmental Health and Education Research at the Menzies School of Health Research in Darwin. He is a member of the partnership group responsible for the Australian Early Development Index (AEDI). Prior to taking up his current position in Darwin in 2009, he was co-Director of the Centre for Developmental Health at the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research in Perth. He has played a leading role in a number of Australian epidemiological surveys including the Western Australian Child Health Survey, the WA Aboriginal Child Health Survey, the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) and the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children (LSIC). His current research is focused on developing evidence-based practice in Indigenous child health, education and family services in the Northern Territory.

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Peter Szatmari

Dr. Peter Szatmari has been working in the field of autism and pervasive developmental disorders (PDD) for more than 20 years. He is a Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences at MacMaster University and the Director at the Offord Centre for Child Studies in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

Dr. Szatmari was instrumental in developing the Pervasive Developmental Disorder Team at Chedoke Child and Family Centre, a regional diagnostic and treatment program for children with this diagnosis. He is a founding member of the Canadian Autism Intervention Research Network (CAIRN).

He is currently leading an international collaboration investigating the genetics of autism, as well as a long-term study of autistic pre-schoolers that will try to identify factors that contribute to positive outcomes for these children. He consults regularly to government agencies in Canada, the U.S. and internationally on research and on treatment services for children with autism spectrum disorders.

Alfredo Tinajero

Alfredo Tinajero is an early child development research specialist for Latin America at the Founders’ Network and works in association with Fraser Mustard. He also works as a research associate in the Hincks-Dellcrest Centre in Toronto. During his professional career, he has worked as a consultant for UNICEF, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Bookings Institution and different NGO’s in the evaluation and design of several ECD programs. During his professional career, he has coordinated different research initiatives and published several books.

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