Each year, the Alumni Achievement Awards recognize past graduates of the Faculty of Medicine for their outstanding achievements in the field of medicine and their dedication to the community.
The Exceptional Leadership Award is presented to alumni who have demonstrated professional excellence, leadership and dedication to the community. The recipient is a true champion in the realm of medicine who demonstrates excellence as a community leader.
Lyne Pitre, MD
Dr. Lyne Pitre has shaped a remarkable career as a physician and educator, championing French in medicine. An active member of les Affaires Francophones and a physician at Hôpital Montfort, she has made significant contributions to the Ontario health system and was one of the first preceptors of the University of Ottawa’s Family Medicine residency program at Hôpital Montfort, the only Francophone program of its kind in Ontario. She served as the program director for 22 years. Under her leadership, many Francophone medical residents in Ontario have better access to training in their preferred language, which means that more patients can receive care in French.
Ali Azizi, PhD
Dr. Ali Azizi is an immunologist who specialize in the field of vaccinology, having obtained his PhD from the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at University of Ottawa in 2005. He has over 20 years of experience in large pharma, biotech, and academia and collaborated with several partners and international organizations on various vaccine trials performed in North America and overseas. For over 11 years, in his role at Sanofi Pasteur, he has led, managed, and contributed to several global vaccine projects from pre-clinical to end of phase III trial (e.g. COVID-19, HIV-1, HSV-II, MenB, Influenza, etc.). In August this year, he joined Health Canada, where he is now reviewing vaccine submissions and working closely with international organizations including the World Health Organization.
Each year, the Alumni Achievement Awards recognize past graduates of the Faculty of Medicine for their outstanding achievements in the field of medicine and their dedication to the community.
The Lifetime Achievement Award serves to honour alumni who have accomplished a lifetime of significant contributions and achievement in the advancement of health outcomes and patient care. This award is presented to an alumnus or alumna who is recognized as a leader in their respective field, has demonstrated professional excellence and dedication to their community.
Khosrow Adeli, PhD
Dr. Adeli is currently the Head of Clinical Biochemistry in the Department of Paediatric Laboratory Medicine; Senior Scientist in the Molecular Medicine Program of the Research Institute, at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada; and a Full Professor and Vice Chair of Quality in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology at the University of Toronto. He has been actively involved in both molecular and clinical laboratory research since 1988 and has published over 500 articles and abstracts to date.
Dr. Adeli is the principal investigator of the Canadian Laboratory Initiative on Paediatric Reference Interval Database (CALIPER) project aimed at the establishment of a laboratory reference interval database for biomarkers of paediatric disease. The CALIPER database is now used in hospitals across Canada and around the world to improve diagnosis and monitoring of children with medical concerns.
Noni MacDonald, MD
Dr. Noni MacDonald is a Professor of Paediatrics (Infectious Diseases) at Dalhousie University and the IWK Health Centre in Halifax, Canada. Her two current major areas of interest involve global health. The first is Vaccines including vaccine safety, hesitancy, demand, pain mitigation, education and policy especially through her work with the World Health Organization (WHO). She has been a member of SAGE (the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on immunization for WHO) since 2017. The second area of interest is MicroResearch (www.microresearch-international.ca), building capacity in community focused research in developing countries. She has published over 450 papers and has been long recognized in Canada and internationally, as an advocate for children and youth health and as a leader in paediatric infectious disease and global health. She is an elected Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences and of the Royal Society of Canada. She is an Officer of the Order of Canada and a recipient of the Order of Nova Scotia.
Each year, the Alumni Achievement Awards recognize past graduates of the Faculty of Medicine for their outstanding achievements in the field of medicine and their dedication to the community.
This Rising Star Achievement Award recognizes outstanding alumni who have demonstrated professional excellence and exceptional leadership while making significant contributions in the advancement of health outcomes and patient care. This award serves to honour young alumni with 10 to 20 years of professional experience in their respective field.
Jennifer A. Watt, MD
Dr. Watt is a geriatrician and clinician-scientist at St. Michael’s Hospital; and an assistant professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto. She has nine first author publications in high impact medical journals and has received a number of awards for her research including most recently the 2021 Outstanding Junior Research Manuscript Award from the American Geriatrics Society.
She uses knowledge synthesis methods and health administrative data to better understand the comparative efficacy and safety of pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic interventions in older adults, specifically, those with geriatric syndromes such as frailty, falls and cognitive impairment. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, she is also supporting evidence-informed and equitable access to virtual care for older adults.
Michael E. Fraser, PhD
Dr. Michael Fraser completed his Ph.D. degree in Dr. Benjamin Tsang’s laboratory (Cellular and Molecular Medicine, 2006), followed by post-doctoral training in radiation medicine, radiobiology, and prostate cancer genomics at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto.
He previously served as Scientific Director of the Canadian Prostate Cancer Genome Network (CPC-GENE) program, where he co-led seminal studies into the genomic, transcriptomic, and epigenomic landscapes of localized prostate cancer. He has authored 55 research papers in top tier international journals, and holds multiple patents related to biomarkers for improving treatment of localized prostate cancer.
In 2021, Dr. Fraser was appointed the inaugural Director, Implementation – Cancer at Movember Canada. In this role, he works with national and international partners to develop and implement research and clinical trials funding programs in prostate and testicular cancer.