Our National Team

Dr. Ashok Malla is a Professor of Psychiatry at McGill University, with an adjunct appointment in Epidemiology and Biostatistics. He holds a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Early Psychosis and Early Intervention in Youth Mental Health and is a recipient of an honorary doctorate from l’Université de Montréal (2015). He has founded two leading Prevention and Early intervention Programs for Psychoses (PEPP) in Montréal and London, Ontario and, more recently the Canadian Consortium of Early Intervention Programs for Psychosis. He has led many clinical research projects investigating the neurobiological, psychosocial, and cross-cultural aspects of multidimensional outcomes in early phase of psychotic disorders and early intervention. His research work in early intervention in psychosis has been centred on the objective of improving outcome for young patients with psychosis. He has been leading two global mental health projects: understanding differences in outcome in first episode psychosis in India and Canada, and application of a low-cost lay health worker model of mental health service delivery in rural parts of conflict-ridden Kashmir, India.

Currently, Dr Malla leads a $25M, national research project on the transformation of youth mental health services (ACCESS Open Minds), under the Strategy for Patient Oriented Research (SPOR) of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), informed by his previous work in early psychosis. He has published more than 325 peer-reviewed articles, held numerous peer-reviewed research grants, supervised many graduate and post-doctoral students, residents and fellows, has been an advisor on program development and research in early intervention in psychotic disorders in several countries. He has worked tirelessly as an advocate for high quality care for the seriously mentally ill. He is also an editor of Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology.

In India’s searing southern summers, a little girl, tired by the morning’s play and sated by a sumptuous lunch, would eagerly await naptime. At naptime, her grandma would tell the most mesmeric tales, some made up, others inspired by epics. Their flawed heroes and noble villains were plagued and propelled by passions that they had to reach within themselves to resolve. Those stories piqued the girl’s interest in inner and collective struggles and strengths. That interest became a career in psychology.

That little girl, Srividya Iyer, is now ACCESS Open Minds’ Scientific-Clinical Director. She provides vision and direction to the network’s efforts to transform Canadian youth mental health care. Srividya oversees the work of various coordinators and research assistants. One of her responsibilities is to understand the needs and perspectives of our sites and our constituencies (young people, families, service providers, researchers, decision makers, etc.).

She supports sites in designing and providing care that meets set standards and values. Srividya also designed and leads the research/evaluation component that will examine whether and how ACCESS Open Minds creates positive change in youth mental health.

Although her current role is vastly more complex than her grandma’s tales, Srividya remains convinced that, as it was for their protagonists, the answers she and the team are seeking lie within people.

Jess handles the administrative and organizational aspects of the project, making sure that everything runs smoothly. Part of her job is to see to it that funds are spent wisely.

Before ACCESS Open Minds, Jess worked in management and health human resources with the Ontario government. She contributes expertise in administration and finance, as well as health care planning and leadership.

Her desire to contribute to the youth mental health care system is deeply personal. When Jess was a teenager, she lost her sister to suicide. Then countless friends. Seeing firsthand how the mental health care system can fail young people, she is excited to work on a project that aims to bring about change.

Fun fact: Jess owns a Tauntaun sleeping bag.

Kathleen Charlebois has a Ph.D in Sociology from the University of Montreal. Her work has centered on qualitative research. The various research projects in which she has been involved have covered an array of topics, including poverty, health and social policies, service integration, primary care, end-of-life experiences, palliative care, genomics, governance, as well as public participation. Her expertise in qualitative research includes an array of methods and approaches, including case study research, participatory research, and experience-based co-design. Her role in various projects has entailed the development of research protocols, conducting focus groups as well as semi-structured interviews with various actors (decision-makers, community organizations, scientists, clinicians as well as patients) as well as with analyzing data (discourse and thematic as well as narrative analysis). Kathleen joined ACCESS Open Minds as a Research Associate in October 2018.

Tanya has a hybrid research/knowledge mobilization role on the team. She makes sure that the research and resources produced during the project are accessible to all audiences and also works with the qualitative research team to gather, analyze and report on data.

Before ACCESS Open Minds, Tanya worked in both the research and community non-profit sectors and even did a brief stint in marketing. She comes from a community psychology background where she fell in love with community based participatory research because it challenged traditional research models.

Tanya’s desire to work on the ACCESS Open Minds project stems from her belief that youth should have a say in the services that they receive and the research that is produced about them. She was drawn to ACCESS Open Minds because of its innovative, culturally appropriate approach to youth mental healthcare services across Canada.

Tanya loves classic rock, cats and true crime documentaries.

Marianne Dufour began her career with the Ministry of Youth, Recreation and Cultural Resources in Fredericton, NB as administrative secretary for over a year. In returning to Québec, she served as Secretary for Accounts Receivable Management, Warehousing and Accounting for seventeen years for two international transport companies.

Committed and culturally active throughout her professional life, in addition to having extensive administrative experience in private networks, her career sparked her interest in working in the field of health. She has worked for the past ten years as Administrative Assistant for the two clinical divisions, StoP-Alzheimer and Neurosciences, at Douglas Hospital Research Centre. Marianne feels privileged to continue her career with the ACCESS Open Minds team.

Marianne attended Cégep in Health Sciences and graduated from Excelsior Business College with a professional degree in secretarial studies. She is a Commissioner of Oaths for the Judicial Districts of Québec, has a certificate in Business Etiquette and Protocols.  She is also very involved with the Douglas Hospital Foundation as a volunteer.

She is a mother of two young adults, has been a hockey manager, coach and soccer assistant, as well as a caregiver to her father in his end of life.

Marianne’s interest in working for ACCESS Open Minds is a reflection of her commitment to the health and well-being of others, as well as being able to contribute to the important mission of youth mental health in Canada. Marianne joins the team with a lot of passion, enthusiasm, expertise and her skills as administrative assistant, she manages daily logistical and administrative activities between the central office, sites and stakeholders, and the project’s host institute.

Geraldine has been a Research Assistant at ACCESS Open Minds  since March 2019. She is a Guadeloupian who has been living in Montreal for many years.  Her background is in communication and politics, social and cultural anthropology, and document management.

Before joining ACCESS Open Minds, she was a Research Assistant and Symptom Evaluator at a clinic that provides services to youth who experienced a first episode of psychosis. She has more than 4 years of experience in conducting interviews of youth with mental health difficulties and their family members.

Chloé helps the rest of the team will all things knowledge translation, whether it be writing and designing guides, keeping everyone up to date with newsletters and annual reports or spreading the word at events and conferences. When she’s not talking about ACCESS Open Minds to the rest of the world, she is helping the research teams with publications and dissemination.

The road to ACCESS Open Minds began with a love for biology at school (in Paris), followed by a Neuroscience undergrad (in London) and finally a Neuroscience Master’s (in Montreal). Still devoted to the Montreal lifestyle and having developed a keen interest in the relationship between research, practice and policy, the perfect next step was knowledge translation at ACCESS Open Minds.

Chloé has always been passionate about improving youth mental health and believes that all youth should be able to access youth-friendly, and high-quality mental health services at all time.

She loves a cappella singing, reading and food.

Kathleen is pursuing her doctoral studies under the supervision of Dr. Srividya Iyer, examining help-seeking experiences and pathways to mental health services for youth in Canada.

After obtaining her Master’s degree in Brain Sciences from the University of Glasgow, Kathleen worked as a research assistant at the Prevention and Early Intervention Program for Psychosis (PEPP), in Montreal.

Kathleen joined ACCESS Open Minds because she is hopeful it can make a difference for youth. While growing up in a small rural community, she too often witnessed just how inaccessible our mental health services can be.

Kathleen loves road trips, which are often extended by her tendency to confuse left and right when giving directions.

Valérie has worked and studied in the mental health field for 16 years in several provinces across Canada and most recently in the US. She completed her graduate studies at Memorial University in Newfoundland and her post doctoral work at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire.

After six years in the US she returned to Canada to join ACCESS Open Minds. Her research interests include mood disorders among youth, implementation science, and the potential of technology to augment access to mental health supports for people with serious mental illness. In her current role at ACCESS Open Minds, she leads the quantitative analyses. Her long-term goals are for her work to influence policy development for improving access to mental health services for marginalized populations and those living in rural and remote communities.

Her favourite season is winter, which makes Montréal a great place for her to be.

Margot acts as a liaison between the sites and ACCESS Open Minds’ central office. Her job is to help support sites in best meeting their youth’s mental health needs, in ways that are relevant to each individual community and to the project as a whole.

Before joining ACCESS Open Minds, Margot worked as a youth protection social worker and was trained in youth mental health settings. She was also part of several social science research teams.

Mental health is one Canada’s most prevalent—and most stigmatized—issues. Margot feels lucky to work with teams around Canada who are changing how youth mental health care is delivered, so that the next generation has easier access to better care.

Fun fact: a lifelong music aficionado, Margot plays the viola in an amateur community orchestra.

Stephanie manages the day-to-day administrative and logistical operations between the central office, sites and stakeholders, and the Douglas, ACCESS Open Minds’ host institute.

Stephanie is a lifetime learner with a formal education ranging from a liberal arts degree to management courses in health and social services. On top of having extensive coordination and administrative experience in the private and public health care sectors, she also worked for nearly a decade as a licensed massage therapist and is a certified yoga instructor.

Her interest in working for ACCESS Open Minds reflects a lifelong commitment to health and well-being. The mother of an energetic five-year-old boy, Stephanie intends to open a creative healing retreat centre someday in Quebec’s Outaouais region.

Ammar’s work at ACCESS OM focuses on data analysis for the Qualitative Photovoice project. He has longstanding experience with qualitative methods and is particularly interested in using innovative, visual methods for research.

Before joining the team, Ammar completed a degree in Geography at McGill University. Here, he was able to explore the complexities of everyday life in contemporary Global South cities. He is particularly motivated to investigate these questions through photography and film-making, along with traditional research methods.

During his undergrad, Ammar developed a passion for youth mental health and specifically how environmental and socio-cultural factors mitigate access to care.

In his spare time, Ammar enjoys cooking, language-learning, and cycling through the back-alleys of Montreal.

Cat helps the team implement knowledge translation strategies and develops materials accessible for different audiences. With a keen interest in both art and science, she is determined to make resources that are informative and engaging.

After completing her Master of Science in Behavioural Neuroscience (Memorial University), she realized her real passion revolved around making research accessible to the general public. This led her to pursue a graduate diploma in Science Communication (Laurentian University) where she was able to experiment with different mediums of communication from exhibit design to short films. Since then, she has held roles in different areas including science writing, science outreach, program evaluation and most recently, knowledge translation.

Cat is also passionate about improving youth mental health and is particularly drawn by ACCESS Open Mind’s engaging approach to improving the access and quality of youth mental health services in Canada. She feels incredibly lucky to be working in a role where she is able to bring her two passions together.

She also enjoys art-making, singing, cycling (or any other outdoor activity), and cuddling cats.

Marilena Liguori has a multidisciplinary academic background in the social sciences and extensive experience in qualitative research. She has worked on research projects carried out in diverse settings and on a wide range of topics, including the experiences of immigrants and refugees, diversity and inclusion in organizations, urban issues, the coping strategies of caregivers and patients with chronic illnesses, as well as health services and information for culturally and linguistically diverse patients. She has developed expertise in the coordination and realization of projects bringing together various researchers and partners. Her role in these projects has included developing research proposals and grant applications, writing literature reviews, conducting semi-structured interviews and focus groups, data analysis, as well as dissemination of research findings

Alyssa Frampton is based remotely in K’Jipuktuk, (Halifax). She has been part of the ACCESS Open Minds Network since its inauguration – starting as a youth council member, and now working with the central office team. Along with being a member of the ACCESS OM Network, Alyssa has worked at the intersections of community engagement, health and policy for the past 7 years in various roles, most recently as an associate with Wisdom2Action. Alyssa has led and advised many initiatives focused on youth and community based mental health, health rights, and advocacy. Alyssa holds a political science degree from Saint Mary’s University and has completed additional online courses in global adolescent health, youth mental health, harm reduction, and children’s rights. Outside of work, Alyssa is a lover of bad reality tv and swimming as much as possible.

Yvonne leads the Family Council at ACCESS Open Minds in a way that showcases the council as examples of who they are: people who show up, commit to being seen, to self-care, to growth and development. She fosters collaborative approaches that recognizes and allows each member of the council to bring their experience and passion to the forefront of their projects. As a former peer support worker at the Douglas University Health Institute, Yvonne values families and collaboration and is committed to the transformation of youth mental health services across Canada. In her spare time, she loves the arts and connecting with nature. She draws on her professional experience to explore and inform the use of bio-materials in order to elicit emotional responses from participants. Her work focuses on how to make the “unseen”, “seen”.