Dr. Natalie Dayan is a physician at the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC), where she leads the Obstetric Medicine program. She is also a mid-career scientist at the Research Institute of MUHC (RI-MUHC) specializing in maternal health specifically and women’s health more broadly. Her work is supported by the Fonds de Recherche du Québec – Santé

Dr. Dayan brings extensive experience from her roles as former Early Career Professor in Women’s Heart and Brain Health (Quebec), principal investigator of the multi-centre behavioural Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) “she MATTERS,” and lead author of the pregnancy section of the Canadian Cardiovascular Society Lipid Guidelines, among other national funded projects in women’s health. She is also actively involved in key networks, including CAMCCO, IMPACT, and the Post-Pregnancy Clinical Network, giving her unique insight into addressing gaps in knowledge and care for pregnant and lactating individuals.

Dr. Devereaux is a cardiologist, perioperative care physician, and clinical epidemiologist. He serves as the Director of the Division of Perioperative Care at McMaster University and is a Senior Scientist as well as the Scientific Leader of the Anesthesiology, Perioperative Medicine, and Surgical Research Group at the Population Health Research Institute (PHRI). He is also the Nominated Principal Applicant of the Accelerating Clinical Trials (ACT) Consortium, the Pan-Canadian Clinical Trials Consortium funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). In addition, he holds a Tier 1 Canadian Research Chair in Perioperative Medicine.

A full Professor at McMaster University, Dr. Devereaux is also President of the Society of Perioperative Research and Care. He has published over 480 peer-reviewed papers and more than 93 book chapters, editorials, and commentaries, including 17 in the New England Journal of Medicine, 13 in The Lancet, and 11 in JAMA. He holds an h-index of 127 and has delivered over 1,100 lectures and research presentations across 41 countries. His research program centers on major vascular complications during and after surgery, and he has led numerous large international randomized trials and prospective cohort studies focused on major perioperative vascular complications.

Dr. Anick Bérard has cross-training in epidemiology, pharmacoepidemiology, and genetics from McGill University, Harvard Medical School, and Stanford University. She is a full professor of perinatal epidemiology at the University of Montreal’s Faculty of Pharmacy and CHU Ste-Justine in Montreal, and an adjunct professor at the Faculty of Medicine of Université Claude Bernard in Lyon, France.

She holds a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Medications and Pregnancy, as well as the Louis-Boivin Research Chair on Medications, Pregnancy, and Lactation at the University of Montreal. Dr. Bérard also serves as Director of the Research Unit on Medications and Pregnancy at CHU Ste-Justine and Director of the FRQS Réseau Québécois de recherche sur les médicaments. She is a Fellow of both the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences and the International Society of Pharmacoepidemiology, and a voting member of the Birth Defects Research Society.

Dr. Bérard is the principal investigator of several major research projects, including:

• The pan-Canadian CONCEPTION Study on COVID-19 and pregnancy (etudeCONCEPTIONstudy.ca)
• The Quebec Pregnancy-Child Cohort
• The Canadian Mother-Child Active Surveillance Initiative (CAMCCO) focused on research, training, and knowledge dissemination
• The American PREGNANT Cohort (AM-PREGNANT)
• The IN-uTERO Study, which uses causal and machine learning models to identify women at risk of having children with congenital malformations (a FRQS/Health Data Hub initiative in partnership with Université de Montréal and Université Paul Sabatier Toulouse 3)

She has published over 500 scientific papers, abstracts, and patents, and has secured over $37 million in research funding from CIHR, CFI, and FRQS as principal investigator. Her outstanding contributions have been recognized with the Most Distinguished Scientist Award from the International Teratology Society for her work on antidepressants, maternal depression, and pregnancy, as well as a Research Career Award from the Association of Faculties of Pharmacy of Canada.

Dr. Bérard also serves on the Scientific and Ethics Committee of the Cohorte Marianne in France, a national study investigating epigenetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors contributing to neurodevelopmental disorders in children from in utero to six years of age.