Scientific Program

Dr. Alika Lafontaine is an award-winning physician, social innovator, and Maclean’s top Health Care Innovator for 2023. From 2022-2023, Dr. Lafontaine served as the first Indigenous doctor and youngest physician to lead the Canadian Medical Association in its 156-year history. While President, the Federal government invested the largest amount into healthcare since 2004 and significant progress was made towards pan-Canadian licensure.

Over his three-years in the Presidency cycle, Dr. Lafontaine led the Indigenous apology process with two other board members, Dr. Paula Cashin and Dr. Santanna Hernandez. Rooted in an honest and detailed review of the CMA’s history and actions, the apology process brought together staff from across the organization to begin an internal process of reconciliation which culminated in a national apology presented on September 18th, 2024. The CMA is now moving in to the next steps of reconciliACTION, which Dr. Lafontaine will continue to support moving forward.

Dr. Gruspier is the only fulltime forensic anthropologist in Canada. She works for the Ontario Forensic Pathology Service. She is also an Associate professor of the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology at U of T and as such provides teaching and training to forensic pathology fellows, residents and visiting pathologists at the Provincial FP Unit in Toronto.

Her areas of expertise include; biological profiles for all unidentified individuals; scene attendance of found decomposed, skeletal and burned remains in order to ensure complete recovery; examination of remains to document ante-, peri-, and postmortem trauma with the forensic pathologist; as well as toolmark analysis of dismembered remains and both, scene recovery of commingled burned remains and multiple fatality investigations.

She also makes positive identifications of individuals by comparison of ante- and postmortem imaging and interprets positive identifications by DNA in her role as the DNA coordinator.

Christopher Milroy is a forensic pathologist in Ottawa and a Full Professor in the University of Ottawa. He qualified in medicine from the University of Liverpool and started training in pathology forty years ago. He trained in Forensic Pathology in Sheffield. He worked as a forensic pathologist in Sheffield for 18 years before moving to Ottawa in 2008. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists and the Royal College of Physicians of Canada

He has given evidence in hundreds of criminal trials and in inquests in multiple jurisdictions. He has published over 130 peer reviewed articles and chapters and is co-editor of forensic neuropathology with the late Helen Whitwell and with Daniel Du Plessis. He edits Academic Forensic Pathology. His research interests include the metabolic autopsy and the history of forensic medicine. With colleagues he has provided a forensic pathology service for Nunavut since 2010. He was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2023.

Dr. Chatterton is the Chief Toxicologist at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) in Edmonton, AB, Canada and an Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine & Pathology at the University of Alberta. Dr Chatterton earned his PhD from the University of Liverpool in the United Kingdom prior to taking up employment within the toxicology department of the Forensic Science Service (FSS) in 2001. Dr Chatterton is a board-certified forensic toxicologist (F-ABFT) and chartered chemist.

As a senior reporting officer and service delivery team leader, Dr Chatterton managed the National DUID and Road Traffic Alcohol units of the FSS before moving to Canada in 2011 to join the OCME as Deputy Chief Toxicologist; he was promoted to Chief Toxicologist in 2017.

Dr Chatterton is a member of numerous professional organisations including The Society of Forensic Toxicologists (SOFT), The International Association of Forensic Toxicologists (TIAFT), The Society of Hair Testing (SoHT), The American Academy of Forensic Sciences (AAFS) and The United Kingdom and Ireland Association of Forensic Toxicologists (UKIAFT).

As an active member of these organisations Dr Chatterton has chaired scientific workshops, presented numerous platform, poster and workshop presentations and completed a large number of abstract reviews. Dr Chatterton has published peer-reviewed papers and book chapters on forensic toxicology and drugs in hair analysis, and most recently, post mortem toxicology in Clarke’s Analysis of Drugs and Poisons.

Dr. Jacqueline Parai is a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. She is a full time forensic pathologist at the Eastern Ontario Regional Forensic Pathology Unit in Ottawa; previously having worked in Toronto for 8 years. She completed a Forensic Pathology Fellowship at the OCME for the State of Maryland and is board certified in Forensic Pathology by the American Board of Pathology. She has completed a Master’s of Science in Epidemiology at the University of Toronto. She is an examiner in Forensic Pathology and past Chair of the Specialty Committee in Forensic Pathology of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. She is secretary-treasurer of the CAFM and sits on the Board of Directors of the CAP-ACP.

She holds the appointment of Associate Professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Ottawa. She is involved in research looking at postmortem biochemistry and its use in Forensic Pathology.

Dr. Williams is a forensic pathologist and coroner with the Ontario Forensic Pathology Service. She is both Cree (Peguis First Nation) and Mohawk (Kahnawake). She is the Director of the Northeastern Regional Forensic Pathology Unit at Health Sciences North (HSN). She is appointed as the First Nations Liaison for the Ontario Forensic Pathology Service (OFPS).

She is the co-chair of the Indigenous Health Committee of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. Dr. Williams is an Assistant Professor at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM). She serves on the Senate at the NOSM, and has recently been appointed to the National Advisory Committee on Residential Schools, Missing Children and Unmarked Burials

Dr. Matt Bowes obtained his Bachelor of Science degree at the University of Toronto and is a graduate of the Queen’s University School of Medicine. After completing his anatomical pathology training at Dalhousie University, he traveled to Miami, Florida, where he was a forensic pathology fellow and associate medical examiner in the Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner Department. He then returned to Halifax, where he worked as a consultant forensic pathologist and medical examiner in the Nova Scotia Medical Examiner Service until 2006, when he was appointed Chief Medical Examiner. In addition to his regular duties, Dr. Bowes has given many lectures around the country on various topics in forensic pathology and is honoured to have served on the Forensic Pathology Specialty Committee and on the Forensic Pathology Board of Examiners of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada.

Matthew Orde is a consulting forensic and anatomical pathologist, who is currently contracted to provide autopsy services to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of Alberta. He is an Associate Professor at the University of Saskatchewan, Clinical Associate Professor at the University of Calgary, and former Medical Director of Autopsy Pathology at the Vancouver General Hospital (2013-2021). Matthew is a ‘Geordie’, originating from Newcastle upon Tyne in northern England, but attended medical school in Scotland, and underwent the majority of his pathology training in southern England. During his training he also spent a year as a Registrar in Forensic Medicine in South Africa, and prior to relocating to Canada in 2013, he worked as a forensic pathologist for 9 years in Sydney, Australia. Matthew also holds legal qualifications, culminating in call to the Bar of England & Wales, and previously held office as Her Majesty’s Deputy Coroner for the City of Brighton and Hove, England.undertaken by pathology trainees under his close supervision.

He has been accepted as an expert witness in forensic and autopsy pathology by the Supreme Court of British Columbia on numerous occasions, as well as by courts in Australia and the United Kingdom.

Matthew is a much sought-after and engaging speaker, and regularly presents to a variety of audiences, ranging from schoolchildren to senior criminal lawyers and members of the judiciary.

Michael S. Pollanen BSc PhD MD FRCPath DMJ (Path) FRCPC FFFLM (hon) Founder, Forensic Pathology is a Canadian forensic and anatomical pathologist with over 20 years of experience. He is the founding Chief Forensic Pathologist of the Ontario Forensic Pathology Service, and Professor and Vice-Chair (Global Health) of the Department of Laboratory Medicine & Pathobiology, University of Toronto. Dr Pollanen is the founding Program Director for the accredited residency program in forensic pathology (the first in Canada) and the Raymond Chang fellowship at the University of Toronto, in partnership with the Ontario Forensic Pathology Service. Dr. Pollanen led the reform of forensic pathology in Ontario after a public inquiry (Goudge Inquiry) by introducing professional oversight and systemic quality improvements for autopsies. He also contributed to quashing many wrongful convictions, mostly in alleged cases of fatal child abuse with flawed medical evidence. His main educational interest is forensic capacity development in resource-limited settings. He has worked for the United Nations, International Criminal Court, and the International Committee for the Red Cross. He has been involved in international work (casework and training missions, and external examiner duties) in: Algeria, Bermuda, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Central African Republic, Chile, East Timor, Egypt, Haiti, Hong Kong, Iraq, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Uganda, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Peru, and the West Bank. Dr. Pollanen was also instrumental in a collaboration with the Department of National Defense to conduct autopsies on Canadian soldiers killed in the international coalition war Afghanistan to help improve protective equipment for Canadian soldiers. His current main professional interest is the application of the autopsy to the investigation of torture, extrajudicial execution, and death in custody. He is also a Principal Investigator at the Tanz Centre in Neurodegenerative Disease where he studies a post-conflict African brain disease. He has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles. Dr Pollanen has trained or contributed to the training of over 50 residents/fellows in forensic pathology at the University of Toronto. He is a long term examiner for the specialist certification in anatomical pathology (now diagnostic and molecular pathology) for the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. He is a past president of the International Association of Forensic Sciences.

Dr. Jessica Kent is an emergency physician at St. Michael’s Hospital and an investigating coroner in the North Peel region. She is in the final year of her Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology fellowship at the University of Toronto and is a research fellow with the Toxicology Investigators Consortium where her research interests center around emerging substances of abuse and preventable drug death. She completed her FRCPC Emergency Medicine residency at the University of Toronto, MD at NOSM University, MClSc. in Pathology at Western and BSc. in Forensic Science at Laurentian University.

Thambirajah Balachandra is currently appointed as Associate Clinical Professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine & Pathology in the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry.

Katie David is an epidemiologist with the Public Health Agency of Canada and part of the Chief Coroners, Chief Medical Examiners, and Public Health Collaborative Secretariat. Katie supports the work of the substance-related toxicity subgroup to develop common approaches and discrete data elements for the investigation of substance-related toxicity deaths.

Regan Murray is a senior epidemiologist with the Public Health Agency of Canada and part of the Chief Coroner, Chief Medical Examiner and Public Health Collaborative Secretariat. Regan has previously work as a Public Health Officer -Epidemiologist placed at the Office of the Chief Corner for Ontario to support capacity for surveillance of drug toxicity deaths and enhance relationship building with public health and other partners.

Lindsay Ninivirta is a PGY5 and current Chief resident, in Diagnostic and Molecular Pathology at Western University, Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry. She works at London Health Sciences University Hospital, where she engages in numerous research endeavors with recent presentations at CAP-ACP in Halifax, and the European Congress of Pathology in Florence, Italy. Lindsay has previously won awards for research and teaching and completed her undergraduate medical degree at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine, Thunder Bay campus, and Bachelor of Science in Forensic Science from Trent University. Outside of medicine Lindsay has been an active member of Girl Guides of Canada, Guides du Canada, for over 20 years and is passionate about leadership, mentorship, and the outdoors.

Tanya Talaga is an award-winning Anishinaabe journalist and author. Through her bestselling books, acclaimed documentaries and podcasts, regular columns with the Globe and Mail, and powerful keynotes, Talaga aims to amplify Indigenous voices and stories across Canada and the world. She imparts audiences with in-depth knowledge on Indigenous culture and history, humanizing the legacy of residential schools and colonization while sharing her hope for a more inclusive and equitable future.

Talaga is of Indigenous and Polish descent. She is a member of Fort William First Nation and her mother was raised on the traditional territory of Robinson Superior Treaty area and in Treaty 9.

For more than 20 years, Talaga was a journalist at the Toronto Star. She is now a regular columnist at the Globe and Mail. In 2021, Talaga was part of the Globe team that won the Michener Award in public service journalism for reporting on the Catholic Church’s efforts to avoid responsibility regarding Indian Residential Schools, and the pursuit of an apology from Pope Francis. She has been part of teams that won two National Newspaper Awards for Project of the Year while at The Star.

Talaga is the author of two national bestsellers. Her first book, Seven Fallen Feathers, won the 2018 RBC Taylor Prize, the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing, and the First Nation Communities Read Award: Young Adult/Adult. Her second book, All Our Relations, was a finalist for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Nonfiction Prize and for the British Academy’s Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize for Global Cultural Understanding. Talaga will release her third book, The Knowing in August 2024.

In 2018, Talaga founded the production company, Makwa Creative Inc. She directed and executive produced Makwa’s first film, Mashkawi-Manidoo Bimaadiziwin Spirit to Soar. It received the “Audience Award” for best mid-length documentary at the Hot Docs International Documentary Film Festival. Talaga is also the executive producer of the podcast, Auntie Up!, made for Indigenous women by Indigenous women.

Talaga holds four honorary doctorates. She was the 2017/2018 Atkinson Fellow in Public Policy and, in 2018, was the first Anishinaabe woman to be the CBC Massey Lecturer.

Dr. Andrew Mazurek completed his medical education at University College Cork, Ireland and is currently a senior resident (PGY5) in Diagnostic and Molecular Pathology at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. His interests include forensic pathology and postmortem imaging. After residency, he will pursue fellowship training in forensic pathology at the Provincial Forensic Pathology Unit in Toronto beginning in 2025.