Recent Award Recipients

Award of Distinction

Margaret Martin - 2011

Margaret is a physiotherapist/physical therapist with extensive experience in exercise training and rehabilitation. Her career has spanned more than 25 years and included a broad range of experience from working in the hospital setting to private practice to education. Margaret has trained over 600 physiotherapists/physical therapists in North American in therapeutic exercise intervention for people with low bone density, osteopenia and osteoporosis. She developed health-related education programs for individuals and groups, most notably, MelioGuide.com, a website and training program dedicated to the prevention and management of osteoporosis through exercise. Margaret is the author of two books, Building Better Bones and Exercise for Better Bones.

Jennifer Agnew - 2010

Jennifer is an expert clinician and leader in the area of Cystic Fibrosis at a national and international level. She not only has extensive clinical knowledge, but also excels as and educator and researcher. Jennifer continues to go above and beyond the demands of her role in the Respiratory Medicine Clinic and is a co-principal investigator in a multi-centre Canadian physiotherapy research study. She has also published a Cochrane review and is writing a book chapter on Cystic Fibrosis.

Louise Haley - 2009

Lousie Haley is a research supervisor for graduating students at McMaster University and has a breadth of experience including Rheumatology, Orthopedics, Occupational Health and Safety and Ergonomics. Today, her primary focus is cancer rehabilitation and she has been successfully operating Haley Rehab, providing comprehensive physiotherapy to cancer patients since 2004.

Susan Barreca - 2008

Susan Barreca has practised physiotherapy in the area of neurological rehabilitation for over 20 years and is a half-time clinician in an in-patient stroke rehabilitation program and a half-time research clinician for specialized adult rehabilitation.Her research work has resulted in an impressive list of publications and invitations to present at important conferences in Canada and around the world.

Award for Research Advancing Quality Care (previously the Dianne Millette Fellowship Award)

Lisa Carlesso - 2011

Lisa’s work is centered on the safety of orthopaedic manual physiotherapy, with particular attention to the cervical spine. She conducted a group of studies addressing issues such as informed consent, standardization of the use of adverse event terminology and definitions, studying the patient perspective, and considering profession specific data on the occurrence of adverse events related to cervical manipulation. Her research has filled a gap that existed in this important area that has safety benefits for the public and the profession. Lisa is the principal investigator and her work has been published in peer review journals and the results presented at conferences in Canada and the US.

Stephanie Thibault-Gagnon - 2010

Stephanie’s primary research focus pertains to the field of pelvic floor physiotherapy, specifically genital pain disorders in women and the effectiveness of physiotherapy interventions in the treatment of these conditions. Now pursuing her MSc in Rehabilitative Science at the School of Rehabilitation Therapy at Queen’s University, Stephanie began her career as a clinician, treating pelvic and genital pain disorders as well as urinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse in women before moving into research at the Pelvic Floor Laboratory and the Sexual Health Research Laboratory, both at Queen’s University.

Nirtal Shah - 2009

Nirtal Shah has conducted research which has led to the development of techniques and tools for the betterment of his patients. Case reports have included a varsity basketball player with splenomegaly for who he designed a spleen guard; a technique to increase knee range of motion using a unique sustained method; and the importance of a thorough history and assessment while conducting a physiotherapy assessment and diagnosis with a patient suffering from a psychiatric disorder.

Danielle Levac - 2008

At the time of this award, physiotherapist Danielle Levac was a PhD student at McMaster University in the Rehabilitative Sciences program. Her research project explored the intra-individual variability in recovery patterns after pediatric Acquired Brian Injury (ABI). The purpose of the research was to identify the nature of the relationship between intra-individual variability in the course of recovery and functional outcomes at one year after injury.