Team | INSIGHT Study

Principal investigator

Rulan S. Parekh, MD, MS, FRCPCVice-President, Academics, Staff Nephrologist and Clinician Scientist

Dr. Rulan S. Parekh

Dr. Rulan S. Parekh is the Vice-President of Academics and Staff Nephrologist at Women’s College Hospital as well as Staff Nephrologist at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) and Professor of Paediatrics and Medicine in the Department of Medicine, Paediatrics, Epidemiology and Health Policy and Management Evaluation at the University of Toronto.

Dr. Parekh is a clinician-scientist and an international leader in clinical epidemiology and translational research in kidney disease. Her work has revealed novel genetic risk factors leading to kidney disease and increased risk of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality for children and adults with kidney disease. At the University of Michigan, Dr. Parekh was uniquely trained in paediatrics and internal medicine with subspecialty training in both paediatric and adult nephrology and research training, completing her Master’s in Biostatistics and Study Design. She subsequently went on to postdoctoral training at Johns Hopkins University and joined the faculty in 2000. She successfully competed for an NIH Career Development Research Award and the American Society of Nephrology Carl W. Gottschalk Award for young investigators, establishing successful research programs in the genetics and cardiovascular complications of kidney disease.

Co-investigators

Damien Noone, MD Staff Physician

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Dr. Damien Noone

Dr. Damien Noone is a staff physician in the Division of Nephrology at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), Program Director for the SickKids Nephrology Training Program and Assistant Professor in the Department of Paediatrics at the University of Toronto. His research is clinical and translational in nature, focusing on the pathogenesis of complement-mediated glomerular disease, renal vasculitis and the role of vascular and endothelial cell dysfunction in renal diseases.

Chia Wei Teoh, MDStaff Physician

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Dr. Chia Wei Teoh

Dr. Chia Wei Teoh is a staff physician in the Division of Nephrology at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), Director for the SickKids Kidney (Renal) Transplant Program, Project Investigator in the SickKids Research Institute, and Assistant Professor in the Department of Paediatrics at the University of Toronto. Dr. Teoh’s clinical and research interests include all aspects of paediatric renal transplantation and complement-mediated disorders.

Christoph Licht, MDStaff Physician

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Dr. Christoph Licht

Dr. Christoph Licht is a dual-appointed staff physician in the Divisions of Nephrology at both The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) and Toronto General Hospital. He is a Senior Associate Scientist in the Cell Biology Program at the SickKids Research Institute, and Associate Professor in the Department of Paediatrics at the University of Toronto. Dr. Licht’s research focuses on complement-mediated renal diseases, combining clinical, translational, and basic science methods to elucidate the causes of, and potential treatments for these rare diseases.

Valerie Langlois, MDStaff Nephrologist

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Dr. Valerie Langlois

Dr. Valerie Langlois is an Associate Professor of Paediatrics at the University of Toronto. She received her medical degree from the University of Sherbrooke in 1994. She completed her paediatric residency and first year of paediatric nephrology training at the Montreal Children’s Hospital and completed her fellowship training at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) in Toronto. Following her fellowship, she worked at Loyola University Medical Center in Chicago. In July 2002, she came back to Toronto and joined the Division of Nephrology at SickKids. Dr. Langlois was the Clinical Director of Nephrology from 2010 to 2017. Her main interests are in general nephrology and paediatric renal transplantation.

Lisa Strug, PhDProfessor

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Dr. Lisa Strug

Dr. Lisa Strug is a Professor within the Department of Statistical Sciences, Computer Science and Dalla Lana School of Public Health, Division of Biostatistics at the University of Toronto.

She is also:

Director of the Data Sciences Institute (DSI) at the University of Toronto
Director of CANSSI Ontario, Faculty of Arts and Science, University of Toronto
Senior Scientist, Genetics and Genome Biology Program, SickKids Research Institute
Associate Director, The Centre for Applied Genomics, SickKids Research Institute

Dr. Strug’s research focuses on the development of novel statistical approaches to identify genetic contributors to human disease.

Seetha Radhakrishnan, MDStaff Physician

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Dr. Seetha Radhakrishnan

Dr. Seetha Radhakrishnan is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Paediatrics and practices Nephrology at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids). She completed her undergraduate medical degree and postgraduate paediatrics training at McGill University. She went on to complete her paediatric nephrology fellowship at SickKids and pursued a Master’s in Health Professions Teacher Education through the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Toronto. Dr. Radhakrishnan has been actively involved in both undergraduate and postgraduate education at Temerty Faculty of Medicine since 2013. She previously held the role of Director of Electives and Co-Director for the Transition to Residency course, MD program. Dr. Radhakrishnan has also held national roles including Chair of the AFMC Electives Network.

Research staff

Jovanka Vasilevska-Ristovska, MDClinical Research Project Manager

Tonny BanhClinical Research Project Coordinator

Nowrin Aman, MDClinical Research Project Coordinator

Mackenzie GarnerResearch Student

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Mackenzie Garner

Mackenzie Garner is currently studying biotechnology at Mohawk College. He joined The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) in 2022. His main areas of focus are clinical, laboratory and biobanking.

Alisha ParikhClinical Research Project Assistant

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Alisha Parikh

Alisha is a Research Assistant involved in the INSIGHT and PROTECT study. She is currently a MSc candidate at McMaster University for Global Health and completing a concurrent graduate degree with the UN on Water without Borders.

Veronique RowleyResearch Associate

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Veronique Rowley

Véronique Rowley is a Research Associate with Dr. Rulan Parekh’s team at Women’s College Hospital and SickKids. After an undergraduate degree in neuroscience, she completed a Master’s in Public Health, with a Specialization in Biostatistics, at Queen’s University.

Andrea VerdugoAdministrative Coordinator

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Andrea Verdugo

Andrea Verdugo began her career in research administration at SickKids in 2008 working alongside Dr. Rulan Parekh and her team. She is the frontline resource for the team to support and balance day-to-day administrative tasks. Andrea helps to support collaboration, which is vital not only with other colleagues but with working partners globally.

Graduate students

Ana Catalina Alvarez Elias, MDClinical Fellow and PhD Candidate

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Dr. Catalina Alvarez

Dr. Catalina Alvarez completed a paediatric nephrology fellowship at Hospital Infantil de Mexico, Federico Gómez while earning a Master’s degree in Medical Sciences from the National Autonomous University of Mexico. She completed a PhD in Medical Sciences at the same university. Dr. Alvarez received further training in paediatric transplantation at The Hospital for Sick Children’s (SickKids) Transplant & Regenerative Medicine Centre in Toronto and is currently a PhD student in Clinical Epidemiology at the University of Toronto Institute of Health Policy Management and Evaluation.

Cal Robinson, MDClinical Fellow and PhD Candidate

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Dr. Cal Robinson

Dr. Cal Robinson is currently a paediatric nephrology fellow at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) and an M.Sc. candidate in the University of Toronto Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation Clinical Epidemiology program. He did his medical training in the UK at St Andrews University and the University of Manchester before returning to McMaster University for his paediatric residency. At McMaster, he developed a passion for research using ICES provincial administrative healthcare data to study the outcomes of paediatric diseases (including acute kidney injury and Kawasaki disease). He is currently pursuing an M.Sc. focused on trial emulation using observational data and adaptive clinical trials with Bayesian statistical methods.