SPPH welcomes new Program Directors and Division Head and Centre Director

The School of Population and Public Health is welcoming new Program Directors and Division Head and Centre Director this July.

As we welcome our new leadership, we would also like to extend our sincere gratitude and appreciation to Dr. Paul Kershaw (MPH Program Director), Dr. Jason Sutherland (MHSc Program Director), and Dr. David Silver (Director of Centre for Applied Ethics) who are finishing their terms at the end of June. We are deeply grateful for their dedicated contributions in advancing our programs and strengthening our academic community.

New Program Directors

Mike Marin, Program Director, Master of Public Health (MPH)

Professor Mike Marin is an Associate Professor of Teaching. He has been teaching the foundational principles of statistics and probability at UBC since 2005. During his career he has won many awards for excellence in teaching. His programming and statistics tutorials, available to the public on YouTube, have been warmly received by students, boasting over 155K subscribers and 18M views.

Boris Sobolev, Program Director, Master of Health Science (MHSc)

Professor Boris Sobolev is a Senior Scientist and Leader of Health Services and Outcomes Research Program at the Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Evaluation. Prof. Sobolev held the Canada Research Chair in Statistics and Modeling of the Health Care System from 2003-2013.

His research examines how people get access to health care, what treatments they receive, and what happens to patients as a result of this care.

New Division Head

Jason Sutherland, Division Head, Health Services and Policy

Dr. Jason M. Sutherland is a Professor in the Centre for Health Services and Policy Research (CHSPR) in the School of Population and Public Health; the Program Head, Health Services and Outcomes, in the Centre for Health Evaluation & Outcome Sciences; and has been Canada’s Harkness Fellow in Clinical Practice and Health Policy.

Dr. Sutherland’s research spans two complementary themes: health system funding policy and patients’ outcomes from surgery. Dr. Sutherland has been active in advising provincial and federal governments on healthcare funding policy.

New Centre Director

Susan Cox, Interim Director, W. Maurice Young Centre for Applied Ethics

Dr. Susan Cox is Professor and Chair of Biomedical Ethics in the Centre for Applied Ethics within the School of Population and Public Health (SPPH) at the University of British Columbia. She has a long career in qualitative health research which is highly interdisciplinary and reflects a broad scope of topics relevant to Biomedical Ethics. She has been a leader in applying ethics to diseases such as Alzheimer’s and has used a variety of approaches in her research to include individuals with varying abilities to communicate. Further, Dr. Cox has been part of an innovative international group looking at the intersection of arts, health and ethics.