Spotlight on CoVaRR-Net trainees and highly qualified personnel (HQPs)
CoVaRR-Net brings together highly qualified personnel (HQP) and trainees from across the country and we’re proud to help form the next generation of researchers in Canada.
Our Pillars and Major Initiatives have nominated several outstanding candidates to be spotlighted on this website as recognition of their work. These are just a few of the tremendously talented people we have working on CoVaRR-Net projects (in alphabetical order). We’ll be adding to this list every quarter.
Jose Avila Cervantes
Pillar 5 – Viral Genomics & Sequencing
Research Associate, Advanced Genomic Technologies Laboratory, McGill Genome Centre
Tamara Chavez
Pillar 7, CoVaRR-Net’s Indigenous Engagement, Development, and Research (CIEDAR)
Project Manager, CoVaRR-Net
Nada Hegazy
Wastewater Surveillance Research Group (WWSRG)
Environmental engineering PhD candidate, MASc, EIT, University of Ottawa
Sally Lee
Pillar 5 – Viral Genomics & Sequencing
Research Assistant, Advanced Genomic Technologies Laboratory, McGill Genome Centre
Elisabeth Mercier
Wastewater Surveillance Research Group (WWSRG)
Environmental engineering PhD candidate, University of Ottawa
Sana Naderi
Pillar 6, Computational Analysis, Modelling and Evolutionary Outcomes (CAMEO)
Graduate student, Shapiro Lab, McGill Genome Center
Paul Stretenowich
Pillar 5 – Viral Genomics & Sequencing
Bioinformatics specialist, Canadian Center for Computational Genomics (C3G), McGill University
Julian Willett
Pillar 5 – Viral Genomics & Sequencing
Research Associate, McGill Genome Centre
Jose Avila Cervantes
Career aspiration:
Jose hopes to continue working with emerging viruses.
Why does Jose deserve a spotlight?
Jose works on multiple CoVaRR-Net-funded projects detecting SARS-CoV-2 and other respiratory viruses in wastewater, monitoring for outbreaks and new variants. Through the course of his work, Jose has developed and implemented pipelines for data analysis.
Tamara Chavez
Tamara Chavez, BA, MA, holds a bachelor’s in social work from the University of Victoria, and a master’s degree in human rights from the University of Vienna. She is CoVaRR-Net’s Indigenous Engagement, Development, and Research (CIEDAR) Pillar 7 project manager and works in a community-based/participatory research approach. Previously, Tamara worked as a project coordinator for the BC Centre of Disease Control Harm Reduction Services and as research consultant for Harm Reduction International. Her frontline and research work interests include topics such as harm reduction, overdose prevention, mental health and sexual health, alongside various groups, including people who experience homelessness and people who use drugs.
Career aspirations:
As a project manager in Indigenous research, Tamara hopes to make a meaningful impact on Indigenous communities by leading research projects that promote Indigenous knowledge and methodologies. She hopes to collaborate closely with Indigenous Peoples, fostering respectful research partnerships, and advocating for the inclusion of Indigenous knowledge in academic and policy discussions. Ultimately, her career aspiration would be to contribute to positive change and thrivance within Indigenous communities through Indigenous-led research initiatives.
Why does Tamara deserve a spotlight?
Tamara is a superb project manager and manages the CIEDAR portfolio of work with skill, organization, and consistent communication. As a result of Tamara’s management, team members understand their roles and the work they must accomplish in order for CIEDAR to continue to meet its study aims and goals.
Nada Hegazy
Nada Hegazy, BASc, MASc, is an environmental engineering PhD candidate and a 2023 Vanier Scholar under the supervision of Dr. Robert Delatolla at the University of Ottawa. She holds a BASc degree in chemical engineering (Co-op) and a MASc degree in environmental engineering, both earned at the University of Ottawa in 2020 and 2022, respectively. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Nada’s research has focused on improving the understanding of COVID-19 wastewater surveillance data and its role in enhancing public health monitoring. Her research on the dynamic relation between wastewater signal and clinical metrics was presented internationally, including with the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment in the Netherlands. Nada’s research achievements further led to her master’s thesis being nominated for a “Best Thesis” award by the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Engineering.
Career aspiration:
Nada aspires to build a career at the intersection of engineering, epidemiology, and data science, working towards innovative solutions that would address emerging health challenges at a community and global level.
Why does Nada deserve a spotlight?
As part of Dr. Robert Delatolla’s research group at the University of Ottawa, she leverages the unified wastewater surveillance dataset, a pivotal component of CoVaRR-Net’s WWSRG Major Initiative, to conduct a comprehensive and aggregated examination of wastewater surveillance data quality and its potential in strengthening public health monitoring in smaller communities.
Aliisa Heiskanen
Aliisa Heiskanen, BSc, graduated from the University of Ottawa in 2020 with a bachelor of science for which she majored in biomedical science and minored in psychology. She developed an interest for infectious disease epidemiology during the COVID-19 pandemic and is currently working towards her MSc in Epidemiology at the University of Ottawa. Her research focuses on the seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 and seasonal respiratory viruses.
Career Aspiration:
Aliisa hopes to continue working in the field of infectious diseases and assist with pandemic preparedness planning in a research or public health setting.
Why does Aliisa deserve a spotlight?
Since joining the CoVaRR-Net Biobank in September 2022, Aliisa has played critical roles in developing Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), coordinating the collection of samples and data with study coordinators and partners, and liaising with researchers to arrange shipment of requested samples and data from the Biobank inventory. Her attention to detail has been welcomed in mobilizing the new Biobank Inventory Management System (BIMS). She is also a vital partner within the Data Platform as it heads towards the launch of its dashboard-accessible Metabase platform that will revolutionize sample and data queries, access, and sharing among Canadian researchers. This work is foundational to CoVaRR-Net Biobank operations and its future in pandemic preparedness, particularly as the team continues to build the Canadian Biobank and Data Alliance initiative. Outside of work, Aliisa keeps her mind, body and spirit vitalized through a commitment to athletics: a former varsity basketball player and current triathlete. This fosters an ideal work ethic of perseverance, dependability, commitment and excellent – core elements of our amazing Biobank Team!
Sally Lee
Sally Lee, MSc, earned her master’s in pharmacology and therapeutics from McGill University while studying the corrective effects of folic acid supplementation on DNA methylation alterations associated with assisted reproductive technologies. She is currently a researcher at the McGill Genome Center performing COVID-19 high-throughput sequencing.
Career aspiration:
Sally hopes to participate in research that analyzes the effects of pharmaceuticals and supplementation and the associated genetic and epigenetic changes.
Why does Sally deserve a spotlight?
Sally is involved in processing samples from multiple SARS-CoV-2 viral genomics projects funded by CoVaRR-Net such as CUBE, viral evolution projects, and many more. She is also active in managing samples, operating state-of-the-art genomic instruments, and performing high-throughput sequencing.
Elisabeth Mercier
Elisabeth Mercier, BSc, BASc, is an environmental engineering PhD candidate under the supervision of Dr. Robert Delatolla at the University of Ottawa. She graduated from a dual degree program with a BSc in biochemistry and a BASc in chemical engineering. She was part of the team that first detected SARS-CoV-2 and subtyped influenza A in wastewater in Canada and has recently worked to expand wastewater surveillance to other pathogens such as RSV. Recently, Elisabeth was invited to present her work on flu and RSV in wastewaters to the eighth international EU Sewage Sentinel System for SARS-CoV-2 (EU4S) town hall and to the Ontario Ministry of Health Long-Term Care RSV Advisory Group.
Career aspiration:
Her career aspiration is to oversee a health tech company focused on bridging healthcare gaps in underserved communities.
Why does Elisabeth deserve a spotlight?
As part of Dr. Robert Delatolla’s research team at the University of Ottawa, Elisabeth spearheaded the development of protocols and managed the analysis of wastewater surveillance data from 10 locations in Ontario. This pioneering initiative marked the first public release of such data in Canada, serving as the foundational layer for the construction of the PHES-ODM.
Sana Naderi
Career Aspiration:
After finishing her PhD, Sana would like to continue working in genomic epidemiology and bioinformatics in industry.
Why does Sana deserve a spotlight?
Sana has been incredibly productive during her first year as a MSc student, contributing to a paper on the first wave of SARS-CoV-2 introduction events and transmission in Quebec, and also leading a paper on SARS-CoV-2 adaptation to different animal species, recently published in eLife. She has worked closely with members of Pillars 2 and 6 (CAMEO) on this work and is now undertaking an analysis of sequence data from wastewater. Her quantitative background has served her well in this work, and she is very quickly getting up to speed in infectious disease biology. She is a welcome presence in the lab and as part of the CoVaRR-Net team!
Paul Stretenowich
Paul Stretenowich is a bioinformatics specialist and has been a part of the TechDev team for the Canadian Center for Computational Genomics (C3G) since April 2019. He is involved in the development of GenPipes’s pipelines, bioinformatics analysis and GenPipes’s user support. Paul is also involved in maintaining, installing and updating software for the TechDev team in a shared stack: CVMFS. Prior to joining McGill, Paul worked as a bioinformatician at the University of Montreal. He earned his engineering qualifications in France.
Career aspiration:
Paul hopes to continue growing his skill set in pipeline development and software installation in order to lead large-scale projects, such as CoVSeQ, in the future.
Why does Paul deserve a spotlight?
Paul provides bioinformatics support for CoVaRR-Net Pillar 5, Viral Genomics and Sequencing. He is responsible for designing and supporting the SARS-CoV-2 whole genome sequencing analysis pipelines.
Julian Willett
Julian Willett, MD, PhD, is a bioinformatician with the McGill Genome Centre who has studied how we can use the genetic sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 in order to better understand how it causes disease.
Career aspiration:
Julian has an interest in conducting computational and functional genomics research as it relates to aerospace medicine and other topics that could be contributory.
Why does Julian deserve a spotlight?
Julian studied the evolution of SARS-CoV-2 in an animal host, finding that a host was sufficient to drive viral evolution.