SAMoSA Research Team
Dr. Mikiko Terashima
Dr. Terashima is the founder and lead researcher of PEACH. She is an Assistant Professor at the Dalhousie School of Planning, cross-appointed with the Department of Community Health and Epidemiology. Dr. Terashima’s research interests centre around methods of measuring various social and built environmental forces that create systematic inequalities in health and well-being among different groups of people across different places. One of her current areas of research involves investigations of spatial accessibility to services necessary for the population of maintain health and well-being such as food outlets and primary health services. Another area of interest for Dr. Terashima deals with a different kind of accessibility — built environment that enables or hinders the use of space by individuals with different types and levels of mobility (primarily individuals with different sensory impairments and older persons).
Dr. George Kephart
Dr. Kephart is a professor in the Department of Cummunity Health and Epidemiology at the Dalhousie University Faculty of Medicine. He is also the co-founder and former Director of the Population Health Research Unit (now Health Data Nova Scotia). His research interests include: health services, patient-oriented health research, chronic disease management and surveillance, health resource planning, and demography. You can read Dr. Kephart’s full academic biography at the Dalhousie Faculty of Medicine website.
Dr. Daniel Rainham
Dr. Rainham is the Director of the Environmental Science Program, with cross-appointments to Community Health and Epidemiology, Earth Sciences, Health and Human Performance, the School of Planning, and the School of Resource and Environmental Studies at Dalhousie University in Halifax, NS. He is also the Elizabeth May Chair in Sustainability and Environmental Health and a Senior Research Scholar at the Healthy Populations Institute. You can read Dr. Rainham’s full academic biography at the Environmental Science Program website.
Dr. Emily Marshall
Dr. Marshall is an Associate Professor and affiliate scientist at the Department of Family Medicine in the Dalhousie University Faculty of Medicine. Her research interests include community-based primary health care services, quality in care with a focus on population data and vulnerable populations, and equity in health care access. You can read Dr. Marshall’s full academic biography at the Department of Family Medicine website.
Dr. Sara Kirk
Dr. Kirk is a Professor of Health Promotion at the School of Health and Human Performance at Dalhousie University. She holds cross-appointments with the Community Health and Epidemiology and IWK Health Centre, is an adjust professor at Mounth Saint Vincent University in the Department of Applied Human Nutrition, and an honorary senior scientist with the Beatrice Hunter Cancer Research Institute. Her research interests include population helath intervention research, chronic disease prevention, obesity prevention, and healthy public policy. You can read Dr. Kirk’s full academic biography at the School of Health and Human Performance website.
Dr. Cathy Mah
Dr. Mah is Canada Research Chair in Promoting Healthy Populations and an Associate Professor for the Faculty of Health at Dalhousie University in Halifax, NS. Dr. Mah’s work integrates population health intervention research, policy science, and community action on environmental contexts for consumption. She continues to hold an appointment at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. Her current research focuses on strengthening data and policy options to negotiate dual aims in community nutrition and economic development. You can read Dr. Mah’s full academic biography on the School of Health Administration website.
Dr. Ren Thomas
Dr. Thomas is an Assistant Professor at Dalhousie University’s School of Planning in Halifax, NS. Her research interests include housing policy, transportation policy and planning, and immigration. You can read Dr. Thomas’s full academic biography on the School of Planning website.
Nathan Taylor
Nate is a PhD student in the Faculty of Health, a member of the Dalhousie Food Policy Lab and a Healthy Population Institute student scholar. His research interests include: food environments, observational measurement optimization and validation, nutritional epidemiology and social and public policy.
Kate Clark
Kate has been performing research with Dalhousie’s School of Planning since graduating with her Master of Planning in June 2018. She has been an active team member of the SAMoSA Study, performing community outreach during the release of the SAMoSA survey and conducting in-person surveys across HRM.