Brittany Dennis, MBBS, PhD, University of British Columbia, Canada
Dr. Brittany Dennis (MBBS, PhD) is a clinician scientist with training in general internal medicine and an area of focused competency in addiction medicine. She currently holds academic appointments as a full-time Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Social Medicine at the University of British Columbia, and as clinician scientist at the British Columbia Center on Substance Use (BCCSU), with protected time from her role as an attending physician in Providence Health Care’s (PHC) Division of Addiction.
Prior to her undergraduate medical training at the University of London (MBBS), Dr. Dennis completed a PhD in health research methodology at McMaster University. To establish capacity in large-data base analytics she received post-doctoral training at Stanford University, the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES), and through the National Institute on Drug Abuse Research in Addiction Medicine Scholars Program. Dr. Dennis has been important contributor to over 100 peer reviewed publications, with work featured in high-impact journals including the New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association, and Annals of Internal Medicine. As one of Canada’s first addiction focused research methodologists, her work has advanced the prioritization of patient important outcomes and directly informed methods to improve evidence synthesis, enhance measurement selection, increase generalizability, and promote guideline development for studies evaluating therapies for patients with addiction.
Jenna van Draanen, MPH, PhD, University of Washington, United States
Dr. Jenna van Draanen is an assistant professor at the University of Washington (UW), holding joint appointments in the Departments of Child, Family, and Population Health Nursing and Health Systems and Population Health. As an interdisciplinary scholar, she engages in community-based research in close partnership with people who use drugs and local public health agencies. Alongside her community and public health practice partners, she utilizes community-engaged methods to study the relationship between socioeconomic factors and substance use disorders, as well as substance use systems of care.
Omeid Heidari, MPH, PhD, ANP-C, University of Washington, United States
Dr. Omeid Heidari is a clinician scientist at the University of Washington. He completed his postdoctoral training in the Drug Dependence Epidemiology T32 at the Bloomberg School of Public Health and is currently an Assistant Professor. His research focuses broadly on improving healthcare engagement for people who use drugs through community health, primary care, and policy interventions. He currently practices as a nurse practitioner in low-barrier primary care settings, with a focus on opioid use disorder treatment, harm reduction services, and HIV prevention and treatment.
