Our Canadian Team
Dr. Roger Turnell, the director of our project, is a professor emeritus in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology, Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine in the University of Alberta's Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry. Roger played a key role in the initial fact-finding stages in 2012 and 2013, and taught sections in all of the subsequent SMTTP programming, including sessions on clinical techniques and micro-research in collaboration with Dr. Khalid Aziz.
Roger is a graduate of McGill and McMaster universities; his research interests include maternal-fetal medicine, clinical trials, labour management, medical education and critical incident stress.
Dr. Khalid Aziz was the associate director of the project, with a lead role in developing its referral component. A specialist in Newborn Medicine and Professor of Pediatrics at University of Alberta, he is a regular instructor in our Senior Midwife Tutor Training Program. A key part of his contribution on the referral side has been developing and teaching a Quality Improvement course to health professionals in Addis Ababa and in the North Shoa zone of Oromia region. The Quality Improvement effort does not end with the course. Under Khalid's leadership, with key support from local staff, followed up on their progress in what was designed to be a continuous process.
Dr. Maggie Quance is an associate professor and chair of the School of of Nursing and Midwifery at Mount Royal University; she holds Bachelors and Masters nursing degrees from the University of Manitoba and a PhD from the University of Calgary. Her area of clinical expertise is in family/newborn nursing with an emphasis on the perinatal experience.
In the spring of 2013, she was part of the advance team that travelled from Canada to learn more about local needs and conditions for Ethiopian midwifery; in May 2015 she travelled to Addis Ababa with MRU's Dr. Susan Jacoby to teach in the final weeks of the project's second annual SMTTP course.
Dr. Melaku Game is Assistant Clinical Professor of Hematology in the University of Alberta's Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry. An Ethiopian expatriate, he has been involved since the idea of the project first took hold. For many years he was president of the Canadian wing of the Ethiopian North American Health Providers Association, where he pursued projects in areas like HIV/AIDS medication, paramedic training, continuing medical education and experience sharing with the Ethiopian Regulatory Agency.
Melaku says the current government of Ethiopia is making great strides to expand and improve health care: "If they complain, it is that things aren't happening fast enough."
Dr. Patricia Pryma is an associate professor in the nursing department at MRU. She was thrilled to support Ethiopian midwives by teaching our SMTTP students skills for passing on their expertise to less experienced colleagues. She graduated from the University of
Saskatchewan in 1988 with a BSc in Nursing. She completed her Masters in educational administration and leadership in 1998 and attained her PhD in Nursing in 2013.
She has shared her knowledge of both nursing and education by engaging in curriculum development as well as classroom lecturing and clinical teaching. She is also an active member of the Nursing Network on Violence Against Women International.
Dr. Julie Booke is an associate professor in the Department of Physical Education and Recreation Studies, Faculty of Health and Community Studies at Mount Royal University. Her PhD studies focused on the impact of educational development on instructors' teaching assumptions, philosophy and practice.
Julie was excited to be involved in the Ethio-Canadian Maternal Child Health project which focused on developing and delivering effective teaching related curriculum to help improve the teaching skills of those involved.
Dr. Susan Jacoby is an Assistant Professor teaching in the Bachelor of Midwifery Program, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Faculty of Health and Community Studies at Mount Royal University. She has been a perinatal nurse for over 30 years and a midwife for over 20 years.
She was involved in our project for two years and traveled to Ethiopia twice to support Ethiopian midwives. Susan believes that all women and children are important and valuable and relishes any opportunity to help strengthen and support midwifery care in Ethiopia.
Margot Underwood is an Assistant Professor in the Bachelor of Nursing Program at Mount Royal University; she has been a nurse for over 40 years. In addition, she developed and taught in four community health nursing field schools in the Dominican Republic and taught in one field school in Zambia.
Being an educator and investing in health professional and student learning has always been the heart of Margot's practice. She went to Addis Ababa to share her expertise with our SMTTP students. She enthusiastically was engaged in the participatory, learner-centered strategies being used to engage and support Ethiopian midwife tutors in their vital work.
Meseret Desta worked for more than 10 years on Maternal, Neonatal, Child Health Care and HIV/AIDS prevention programs. In Ethiopia alone she has contributed to projects at a number of organizations, including the Maternal Child Health Integrated Program at Jhpiego, an affiliate of John Hopkins University.
With her Ethiopian background, she was a key support to our 2014 SMTTP course. In Edmonton she produces a biweekly MNCH newsletter. "I consider myself very privileged to be a part of this unique and special project, where, as a midwife, I use my skills and knowledge to support Ethiopian midwives in sharing information and research findings."
Heather McLellan is an Associate Professor teaching in the Advanced Studies in Critical Care - Emergency Nursing program at Mount Royal University. She has been a nurse for almost 35 years with the majority of her time spent in emergency and critical care helicopter transport in Saskatchewan, Alberta and Texas.
As former chair of the Midwifery program at MRU, Heather has supported the SMTTP program from the beginning, travelling to Ethiopia twice and planning return trips for the next cohort of students. She is excited by the opportunity to work with her Ethiopian and Canadian colleagues to improve maternal and perinatal outcomes through this educational initiative.
Deepa Upadhyaya is an assistant professor in the midwifery program at Mount Royal University, and a member of a low-volume midwifery practice at Birth Partnership in Calgary. She has practiced midwifery and nursing in many places around the world including the U.S., Ireland and Scotland. In 2003-2004 she volunteered in Afghanistan as a midwife with Médecins sans Frontières.
Dedicated to providing healthcare in low-resource countries, Deepa has been heavily involved in Mount Royal's leadership in monitoring, refining and teaching our SMTTP course in Ethiopia. She is very excited to be part of the project.
Ashton James, a graduate of the University of Alberta, joined the team in September 2016 as project assistant and has been serving as the project manager since September 2017. She has three years experience working in community engagement, fund development, coordination and social services in Edmonton with non-profit organizations including Ceiba Association, Elizabeth Fry Society of Edmonton and United Way of the Alberta Capital Region. She also has two years' experience supporting sustainable agriculture initiatives to support maternal and child nutrition in southwestern Uganda through partnerships with the Kigezi Heathcare Foundation and Go Organic Africa.
Teena Hughson, a graduate of the University of Alberta, joined the team in November 2017 as project assistant after taking time away from her professional pursuits to focus on her family. She has several years of experience working in the not-for-profit sector on providing social services, supports and referrals with the University of Alberta Campus Food Bank and Sturgeon Community Resource Program along with two years of experience working in community services for the Town of Redwater. She's also worked here on campus in student services and for Health Promotion and Worklife Services.
Thomas 'Tommy T' Gobena is a bassist and music producer living in Washington D.C. He is currently the UNICEF Ambassador to Ethiopia. He plays bass in the multicultural gypsy punk band Gogol Bordello.
Born and raised in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Thomas has lived in the US since 1987. Thomas was recruited to work with musicians and lyricists in Ethiopia to produce an educational song for the project. The song entitled, "If You Have Heart", shares the story of a grief stricken father who's lost his wife and newborn child to birth complications that could easily have been managed by a skilled birth attendant. The song is hoped to encourage more Ethiopian women to deliver in health facilities.
Dr. Michael Frishkopf is Professor of Music, Director of the Canadian Centre for Ethnomusicology and Adjunct Professor of Medicine at the University of Alberta. His research focuses on the music and sounds of West Africa and the Arab world, as well as global human development through musical participatory action research.
Michael has played an active role in the Project's association with Thomas Gobena, UNICEF Ambassador to Ethiopia. Thomas is producing an educational song in Ethiopia to encourage pregnant women to deliver in a health facility. Michael is the executive producer of this song.
David Evans served as our communications lead until his passing on January 18, 2018. He chronicle the project in various ways - including collaborating with former Project Manager Janet Summerhayes on this website. He also wrote news reports and produced the project's annual SMTTP graduation bulletin.
David was the Edmonton Journal's former opinion pages editor. After leaving the paper, he continued to write and consult on a freelance basis. He earned his a B.A. in history from the University of Toronto and Masters from the University of Sussex in the U.K. He said that, fortunately, for the project's students, his only role in teaching had been playing the role of a delivering mother in a Helping Babies Breathe course.