The Steering Committee
The network's organizational structure is intended to balance the requirements of achieving wide representation in decision-making, broadening the participation of individuals and organizations in Stop TB Canada activities, and providing effective leadership and coordination.
How the steering committee was formed:
August 2020: To guide the strategic development and implementation of the Stop TB Canada network, a call for expressions of interest to join a steering committee was launched
We were delighted to have received such high levels of interest in supporting the building of a community committed to ending TB in Canada and abroad.
January 2022: We welcomed the second cohort of the steering committee, comprising 16 members, including researchers, practitioners, advocates, and a TB survivor.
January 2022: We held our first steering committee meeting of the year, where we welcomed new members and announced two co-chairs: Tina Campbell, TB Advisor for Northern Inter-Tribal Health Authority, and Dr. Elizabeth Rea, Associate Medical Officer (TB Program) at Toronto Public Health.
January 2024: Petra Heitkamp took on the co-chair role alongside Tina Campbell.
January 2026: Co-chairs will be announced shortly!
We are grateful to have such a competent, dedicated and powerful group of individuals to guide and advise Stop TB Canada’s operations!
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Adam R Houston (JD MA LLM PhD) works on global health policy, with a particular focus on access to medicines and infectious disease. By day, he is Medical Policy & Advocacy Officer for Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières Canada. He holds adjunct appointments at the University of Ottawa (Faculty of Law -Common Law) & Royal Roads University (School of Humanitarian Studies). Follow Adam @HealthLawAdamH
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As an infectious disease epidemiologist with a special interest in tuberculosis (TB) and a focus on health economics, Dr Zwerling’s main areas of expertise and interest involves cost-effectiveness analyses to guide thoughtful implementation of new tools and treatment regimens for TB both globally and at home in Canada. She received her PhD in Epidemiology from McGill University, and subsequently specialized in health economic evaluation during a postdoctoral fellowship at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Prior to joining the University of Ottawa, Dr. Zwerling worked with the KNCV Tuberculosis Foundation in The Hague to provide technical support to national TB programs through the USAID funded Challenge TB program.
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Courtney is interested in TB elimination, and using TB surveillance data to inform public health interventions against transmission and TB reactivation.
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Abdul is a recent MPH graduate and a Research Assistant with the Tuberculosis Program Evaluation and Research Unit in Alberta. He is interested in TB among immigrants in Canada and evaluated the effectiveness of a new national program for Enhanced Latent Tuberculosis (LTBI) screening and prevention for migrants in Alberta.
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Elizabeth has worked as the Associate Medical Officer of Health with the Tuberculosis Program at Toronto Public Health since 2005. She is one of the authors of the 2022 Canadian TB Standards and has been involved in TB policy issues in Canada for many years. She was chair of Stop TB Canada from 2015-22, and co-chair from 2022-24
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Crystal Fevreau is a sales executive with over a decade of experience in the construction industry, where she built her career on strategic communication, relationship development, and leading complex projects with clarity and resilience. Her life changed when she survived a severe case of tuberculosis that required four months of strict isolation at West Park Healthcare Centre. This experience reshaped her professional purpose and ignited her commitment to TB awareness, patient-centered care, and health-equity advocacy. Crystal now contributes her lived expertise as a TB survivor and patient-partner within McGill University’s tuberculosis research groups, ensuring that survivor voices meaningfully shape research priorities and public-health approaches. She brings a balanced perspective that bridges industry leadership, community engagement, and real-world patient experience. Driven, collaborative, and deeply invested in ending TB in Canada, Crystal is committed to contributing her voice, insight, and leadership to the Stop TB Canada network.
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Desneige is a public health specialist. Her career has spanned the design, launch, and pilot of 14 health-equity projects across Canada and Internationally. She now supports Health in Emergencies for the Canadian Red Cross as a Program Manager for Mobile Public Health Teams responding to the Tuberculosis Outbreak in Nunavut, Canada.
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ElHadji is a Medical Doctor and Global health Practioner with over 15 years of experience in Public health. Elhadji is a Senior Health Advisor at Plan International Canada supporting HIV, TB, and Malaria projects as well as cross-cutting Health Systems Strengthening implemented in Senegal, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, and Niger.
Elhadji holds a master’s degrees in Global Health and Public Health from Bordeaux School of Public Health in France and University of Montreal.
Elhadji has held in Senegal many leadership positions, from a District-level Head Medical Officer to a Chief of Party TB and Malaria Global Fund project where he collaborated with MoH & partners, communities, and many other stakeholders across the country. Through working with diverse populations across the borders, he has also acquired an understanding of the many different socio-cultural influences impacting the control of HIV, TB, and Malaria.
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Dr. Mehta has over 30 years of Public Health experience, more than half of which were with the WHO. He has worked in several countries and regions of the world. He initially served in the Indian Defense Services and then joined the MOH, Sultanate of Oman in various capacities for 10 years at central level. He then joined the World Health Organization and worked in Somalia from 1998 – 2002, where he was responsible for supporting the control of TB and all other communicable diseases in a complex emergency situation. He moved from Somalia to Indonesia in 2002 in the capacity of Country Advisor Tuberculosis for seven years. Dr Mehta then moved to Sri Lanka in 2009 as the WHO country Representative until October 2014. He has authored and co-authored several scientific publications in peer reviewed journals. He is an Adjunct Professor and Fellow at institutions in Canada, as well as a Senior Mentor on several mentoring platforms. Follow Dr. Mehta @FirdosiMehta
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Dr Jody Boffa is a TB epidemiologist with over 20 years of experience in epidemiologic, ethnographic, and community-based tuberculosis research in Canada and Southern Africa. She is a Scientist with the TB Think Tank at The Aurum Institute (South Africa), where she leads TB research projects and works at the interface of research, policy, and implementation, in close collaboration with the national TB programme and partners. She holds a PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Calgary and completed a post-doctoral fellowship with the Pai TB Research Group at McGill University. Dr Boffa has also served as a lecturer and graduate supervisor with the Universities of Stellenbosch and KwaZulu-Natal, contributing to capacity strengthening and mentorship in TB research and public health. Her work focuses on person-centred and rights-based TB care, community engagement, quality of care assessment, TB diagnostics, and translating evidence into policy, advocacy, and public-facing action to end TB in Canada and globally.
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Krish is a Master of Public Health (MPH) student at the University of Alberta working with the Tuberculosis Program Evaluation and Research Unit. His academic background is in epidemiology and applied biostatistics, with a focus on population health and evidence-informed public health practice.
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Lena became involved in Stop TB Canada while completing her PhD in Epidemiology at the McGill International TB Centre (Montreal, Canada), where her thesis focused on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on tuberculosis. She is now a Postdoctoral Fellow at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (London, UK), where her postdoctoral work will focus on tuberculosis in incarcerated populations. Follow Lena @LenaFaust1
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Luz is a Peruvian medical doctor and a master's candidate at McGill University. She has contributed to multiple clinical trials focused on TB diagnostics in Peru. In addition, she worked as Clinical Trials Manager for the TB Program at FIND, a WHO Collaborating Center, where she led the coordination of the FEND Consortium, an NIH-funded project evaluating early TB diagnosis in Peru and Vietnam, as well as the Bioneer clinical trial with Kharkiv University. His goal is to generate evidence-based policies to improve access to universal health care that affect health outcomes for people affected by TB.
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Madlen Nash’s work in TB over the past decade has spanned academic, government and non-profit sectors. Most recently, she worked as Assistant Director of Policy & Engagement for SMART4TB at Johns Hopkins University ensuring the project’s research agenda and approaches are informed by affected community members and that new evidence will be rapidly translated into meaningful policy changes. She has worked for the Canadian government, the McGill International TB Centre, and co-founded SeeChange, a non-profit that supports communities to lead responses to their own health crises. Madlen holds an MSc in Epidemiology from McGill University.
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Mahli Brindamour is a general pediatrician with an interest in global health, refugee health and infectious diseases. She has been working as a tuberculosis consultant within Saskatchewan's Tuberculosis Prevention and Control since 2021. In 2017, she co-founded the REACH Clinic, Saskatoon's only multi-disciplinary clinic dedicated to refugees. She does outreach general pediatric clinics for the Northern communities of Black Lake, Fond du Lac and Stony Rapids, and covers inpatient pediatrics at the Jim Pattison Children's Hospital in Saskatoon. She previously worked on Partners in Health Lesotho's MDR-TB program.
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Dr. Mark Palayew is a respirologist at the Jewish General Hospital, serving the most ethnically diverse population in Montreal. He co directs the TB clinic at the hospital with 40-50 new active cases annually. He liases with public health for active cases for declaration, contact tracing and verifying compliance with therapy. The clinic sees people with abnormal X-rays referred by immigration physicians as well as people evaluated for pre biological or health care pre employment. In the past, he has worked in Inuit and Cree communities in Northern Quebec. In 2000-2001, he spent one year in The Gambia working in TB clinics and with the Government. He spent time with a joint Canada-Ecuador program to evaluate Ecuador’s TB control program, and on a national TB advisory committee, before it was dissolved . In the last 5-7 years of his career, he is interested in doing all possible with the goal of eliminating TB
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Monica Shandal was working in Malawi as an impact evaluation practitioner when she fell sick - she lost her voice and became extremely lethargic. Given that it was 2020, and there was a lot going on in the world with COVID-19 border closures and being alone in a new country, she assumed it was due to stress and carried on with her life. The following year, after returning to Canada and feeling much better, she needed to complete a TB skin test as a routine procedure for a PhD program she had been admitted into. She was later asked to do an x-ray, followed by many other tests including blood tests and bronchoscopies. In July 2021, Monica was diagnosed with subclinical pulmonary TB. Even in a country with ample resources, like Canada, she found that there are many barriers to care. She feels fortunate that she had access to a TB clinic. Her biggest challenge was finding communities in Canada that understood her journey. She has since joined the TBPeople Canada group and hopes to use her experience as a survivor and an advocate for good and to help with awareness and access to care for TB.
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Dr. Mayema Anatole Mayema is a public health physician with nearly 20 years of experience in TB, HIV, and health-system strengthening across sub-Saharan Africa. He previously served as Deputy National TB & Leprosy Program Manager and TB/HIV Technical Lead in Lesotho, and has provided technical assistance to national programs in DR Congo, Uganda, Botswana, Ethiopia, and Seychelles as a WHO and USAID/GH-TAMS consultant. His expertise spans TB/HIV integration, DR-TB management, ACSM strategies, program evaluation, and policy development. Now based in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, Dr. Mayema is transitioning to the MSc Community Health program at Memorial University and leading two community-focused public-health pilots on preventive health navigation and community-pharmacy data for surveillance. He is bilingual in English and French and passionate about equity-driven TB care, global partnerships, and community engagement. He brings technical expertise, humility, and a strong commitment to ending TB.
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Nancy is post-doctoral TB research fellow with a strong interests in qualitative methods, patient education, health equity, and implementation science. Nancy completed her PhD from the Universtiy of Calgary in 2022 and has experience working as a TB nurse (15 years), a clinical trials project manager (7 years) and a knowledge translation project manager (1 year). Nancy is based in Canada and currently working under the supervision of Dr. Dick Menzies and Dr. Amrita Daftary. She is working on collaborative, international projects with the McGill International TB Research Centre, the Dadaleh School of Global Health, the Tuberculosis Trials Consortium, and the Desmond Tutu Health Foundation. She initiated and is facilitating the SSHIFTB Social Science TB Journal Club.
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Olivia Oxlade trained as an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (MSc in Control of Infectious Disease) and McGill University (PhD in Epidemiology). After completing her PhD, Dr. Oxlade conducted research and worked at the RI-MUHC on projects related to tuberculosis, social determinants of health, health system strengthening and decision analysis. From 2015 to 2020 she served as Managing Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for TB Research and from 2020 to 2024 worked as Associate Scientific Director (Management) for the Government of Canada’s Covid-19 Immunity Task Force, based at McGill University’s School of Population and Global Health (SPGH). She then held a position with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), as Associate Director of the Institute of Infection and Immunity, before returning to the McGill TB Centre to take up the role of Associate Director.
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Petra Heitkamp is the Community Manager/Director of the TBPPM Learning Network, a dynamic online community that fosters South-to-South learning exchanges, shares knowledge, and promotes best practices in private provider engagement to End TB. Petra graduated from Maastricht University with a Masters of Public Health and has taught courses and moderated workshops around the world, published widely. She has worked in WHO (HQ, Regional and country offices), Stop TB Partnership and with stakeholders from global to local levels. Her interests are in applying effective collaborative approaches to strengthen health systems and empower communities to advance public health interventions, specifically in infectious diseases. Follow Petra @PetraHeitkamp
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Dr. Robyn Christine Waite is currently working as an independent consultant and focusing her efforts on applying community building, project management, research, and advocacy skills to the fight to end TB. Most recently she worked with TB Alliance as their Access Advocacy Lead coordinating and building the Fast Track the Cure initiative. In 2023, she was also the Policy and Advocacy Lead for the #2023TBHLM Affected Communities and Civil Society Coordination Hub, where she worked to equip, mobilize, coordinate, and connect the TB community to engage meaningfully throughout the 2023 UN High Level Meeting on TB process. Before setting out on her own, Robyn worked with Results Canada, where she started as a TB Campaigns Officer and grew into the role of Director of Policy and Advocacy. During her tenure, she played a leading role in building and coordinating a high-impact coalition of 14 Canadian based CSOs engaged in advocacy in support of the Global Fund's 7th Replenishment. She has also demonstrated initiative and commitment to the cause and community through successful efforts to reinvigorate the Stop TB Canada network, as well as support with driving the progress of a global initiative to capture the experience of the pandemic amongst key TB stakeholder groups. Dr. Waite holds a PhD in Development Studies from SOAS, University of London; a MSc in Global Health from McMaster University, a Graduate Diploma from the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health; and a BSc in Health Promotion from Dalhousie University.
Follow Dr. Waite @WaiteRobyn
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Patrick is a medical doctor and public health professional with over 17 years of experience in tuberculosis (TB) clinical management, clinical research, policy development, and program implementation. His work has focused on improving TB prevention, care, and treatment outcomes in resource-limited and cross-cultural settings. His professional experience includes the clinical management of TB patients and extensive involvement in clinical research, most notably as part of the Phase 3 randomized, open-label, non-inferiority end TB clinical trial. He has also served in strategic advisory roles, providing technical support to the Ministry of Health in Lesotho on TB policy and program implementation. Through his work with organizations such as Partners In Health Lesotho, Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (EGPAF) Lesotho and Baylor Children Foundation Lesotho, he has contributed to the design, implementation, and evaluation of TB program. His expertise includes stakeholder coordination, health systems strengthening and translating research evidence into policy and practice.
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Dr. Suvesh is a medical doctor with specialization in public health. He has more than 8 years’ experience working in the field of Tuberculosis and HIV in Nepal. He has worked with National TB program of Nepal as Senior Technical Advisor for Global Fund grant from Save the Children. He provided technical support to National and provincial TB program to develop strategies and guidelines, improve TB diagnosis and treatment, strengthen DR TB program, Childhood TB, PPM and TB HIV collaboration and conduct various national level surveys. Prior to joining Save the Children Dr. Suvesh was involved in HIV prevention program implemented by FHI 360, which was funded by USAID. Dr. Suvesh holds Master’s Degree in Public Health from Mahidol University, Thailand and Medical Degree (MBBS) degree from Sichuan University, China. He is currently an PhD student at University of Ottawa.
Follow Dr. Suvesh @ShresthSuvesh
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Tina, a Cree woman from Treaty 5 Territory, began her career in TB in 2010 as a nursing student during a summer placement at a TB clinic, where she quickly learned about the significant impact of TB. Tina has also been personally affected by a diagnosis of TB following an occupational health screen. Tina has worked as TB Nurse, focusing on case management, contact tracing, and surveillance as well as an educator delivering orientation and education to other health professionals and communities. Since September 2019, Tina has served as a TB Advisor at the Northern Inter-Tribal Health Authority (NITHA), continuing her impactful work in TB care and advocacy as well as coordinating a TB nursing team to respond to outbreaks and ensure communities receive timely and quality TB services.
Follow Tina @NITHATB306
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Yassen Tcholakov works as a public health doctor in Nunavik and has an appointment as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Global and Public Health at McGill University. He has served on the Steering Committee of StopTB Canada since 2024 and is a member of the WHO Civil Society Task Force on Tuberculosis.
Yassen has been involved in global health advocacy for more than a decade and has represented numerous health professional organisations in front of the United Nations. Yassen is passionate about health equity and this has driven his career choices and volunteer engagements.
Follow him @yassentch.bsky.social
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Trevor Stratton, a citizen of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation, is a prominent figure in the fight against HIV and AIDS, particularly within Indigenous communities. Diagnosed with HIV in 1990, Stratton has been a resilient advocate and leader in this field. He has been involved with the Canadian Aboriginal AIDS Network, now known as CAAN Communities, Alliances & Networks for over 20 years. Trevor is now the Indigenous Leadership Policy Manager at CAAN. His work has extended to various roles including serving as the Board President of 2-Spirited People of the 1st Nations, and Board director and National Advocate for the Canadian Foundation for AIDS Research (CANFAR). He has also been a professional consultant since 2005 and has maintained active involvement in the Two-Spirit and HIV/AIDS community.
Stratton's work has included coordinating the International Indigenous Working Group on HIV and AIDS (IIWGHA) for 11 years and participating in global research projects addressing sexual and reproductive health and rights for Indigenous women and girls. His efforts have contributed significantly to community mobilization and the broader understanding of HIV and AIDS in Indigenous communities. Trevor Stratton's story is one of turning a personal challenge into a lifelong mission to support others and advocate for change in public health and awareness regarding HIV and AIDS. His journey and contributions illustrate the importance of community support, resilience, and advocacy in addressing public health issues.
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Yuliya Chorna is a PhD candidate in social anthropology, Department of Anthropology, York University and a graduate student scholar at the Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research. Her doctoral research focuses on policymaking and resource allocation in the global Tuberculosis (TB) response. She earned an MSW from Syracuse University, specializing in community organization, policy planning, and administration, and completed an advanced certificate program in conflict resolution at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. Yuliya has extensive work experience in the field of global health, including senior leadership positions for not-for-profit NGOs in the fields of TB and HIV/AIDS working in Ukraine and across Eastern Europe and Central Asia. She also has an experience in serving on regional and global task forces and committees, including for WHO Civil Society Taskforce on TB. In 2024, she took a position of a Co-Chair of the TB Europe Coalition’s Board.
Contact us.
Want to work together or have ideas for what more we can do to support the TB community in Canada? Reach out to us at
hello@stoptbcanada.com