The Canadian Primary Care Research Consortium (CPCRC) is pleased to present our inaugural Governance Board who will provide guiding strategy, stewardship and advocacy for the Consortium over the next three years.
Following our Call-Out for applicants sent to the community at large last November 2025, we were excited to receive twenty-one applications from said community and even beyond. A recruitment committee of five shortlisted ten candidates and interviewed them following a scoring rubric. They were looking for a variety of skills to ensure that the Board offers finance, governance, succession planning, research, scientific innovation, stakeholder engagement, patient partnership, and knowledge translation expertise.
We are confident this group of dynamic and dedicated professionals will directly impact our mission to advance innovation, translate evidence into practice, and improve patient outcomes for communities nationwide. Please join us in congratulating them as we embark on this new chapter together and continue to co-build in open partnership.
Onil Bhattacharyya – Chair
Onil is a practicing family physician, the Frigon-Blau Chair in Family Medicine Research and the Director of the Women’s College Hospital Institute for Health System Solutions and Virtual Care. He drives national networks, including the Canadian Primary Care Research Network for which he is co-Chair. He has a history of designing and evaluating new care models, working closely with policymakers and research partners. He is also an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto in both the Department of Family and Community Medicine and the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation.
David Barber
David joined the CPCRC Board to help complete the vision of a unified, high-impact primary care research ecosystem in Canada. A family physician and Assistant Professor at Queen’s University, he brings deep governance experience as Chair of the OMA’s Section on General and Family Practice and as a national leader within CPCSSN. David has led complex, multi-stakeholder boards through periods of strategic change, funding uncertainty, and system reform, with a strong focus on accountability, member value, and execution. He offers the CPCRC board practical governance leadership, systems thinking, and a steadfast commitment to strengthening primary care research to improve patient care across Canada.
Monica Bull
Monica is a registered social worker and dynamic senior leader in primary health care in Newfoundland and Labrador (NL). With over 30 years of experience across clinical practice and system-level policy development, she played a key role in shaping NL’s team-based Family Care Team model and, as Executive Director, one of NL’s first Family Practice Networks. Monica has contributed to municipal governance serving over the past five years as a councillor and deputy mayor. Monica brings a strategic and systems-focused lens, grounded in social work practice, to strengthening primary health care through collaborative, integrative and innovative approaches.
Stephanie Montesanti
Stephanie is a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Health System Integration and Professor in the University of Alberta’s School of Public Health. She is a leading scholar in health policy and systems, focusing on strengthening integrated primary health care and advancing equity-oriented health system transformation. As director of the Collaborative Applied Research for Equity in Health Policy and Systems (CARE) Lab, she leads interdisciplinary research with Indigenous partners, health system leaders, and governments to co-design and evaluate innovations that enhance access, cultural safety, and system performance across Canada. She also serves as Academic Lead for the Alberta SPOR Support Unit’s Learning Health System (LHS) Team.
Doris Nessim
Doris is a healthcare and pharmacy leader and pharmacy professional. She is dedicated to collaboratively advancing the CPCRC Board’s strategy among diverse stakeholders, building trusting relationships. Doris brings experience as a global standards supply chain executive, Director of Pharmacy at community teaching health systems, and digital health project management. Her recent work has focused on research on integrated care, and the caregiver’s perspective in palliative care, at McMaster University’s Department of Family Medicine. She holds certifications from Harvard Medical School, is a Certified Health Executive, Canadian College of Health Leaders, and Fellow of the Canadian Society of Healthcare Systems Pharmacy.
Jennifer Rayner
Jennifer is the Director of Research and Policy at the Alliance for Healthier Communities in Ontario. An applied health services researcher, her work focuses on team-based primary care, health equity, and learning health systems. She is a Research Professor at Western University’s Centre for Studies in Family Medicine, an Associate Professor at University of Toronto’s Department of Community and Family Medicine, and an ICES Scientist. Jennifer collaborates with researchers, evaluators, and policymakers to improve care for equity-deserving groups. Her experience spans leadership in research, policy, planning and quality improvement. She received her PhD and post-doctoral training in epidemiology and biostatistics.
Ghislaine Rouly
Ghislaine is the first person with lived experience named co-director of a Canada Research Chair. Born with two genetic orphan diseases, she survived three major cancers and months of palliative sedation. She has over a decade of participatory research design, practice, mentorship and leadership experience. She is an inaugural member of the Canadian Primary Care Research Network and Co-Chair of its Pan Canadian Patient Council. It was natural and logical to pursue CPCRC’s vision, to include patients at all levels of the Consortium. Her leadership, vision, accomplishments and international contributions are greatly valued, bringing a uniqueness to this Board of Directors.
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