About the Authors

Melanie Barwick, MA, PhD, CPsych, is a Senior Scientist in the Child Evaluative Sciences Program of the Research Institute at the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids). She is affiliated with the SickKids’ Learning Institute where she conducts professional development in knowledge translation and implementation, and with the SickKids Centre for Global Child Health. At the University of Toronto, she is Full Professor in the Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, and in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health. She is a Director on the governing board of Children’s Mental Health Ontario. She is an Associate Editor for the journal, Evidence & Policy, and on the Editorial Board of Implementation Research and Practice. She consults to government and service providers in the child and youth mental health, health, and education sectors. Her research aims to improve the implementation of evidence into practice and to broaden the reach of evidence more generally to support decision making, policy, knowledge and awareness. She has extensive practical field experience in implementation, as lead technical assistance supporting outcome measurement to Ontario child and youth mental health provider organizations (2000-2015). She developed and provides tools, resources and professional development in knowledge translation internationally (www.melaniebarwick.com).

Raluca Dubrowski, MA, PhD, is a Grants Officer at Ontario Tech University. Her expertise is in knowledge translation and implementation science. Prior to her current role, Raluca was a consultant for Child Development Institute, where she led the evaluation of the national expansion of SNAP (an evidence-based program for children with behavioral problems), and a Research Associate at SickKids. At SickKids, she conducted research on the implementation of evidence-based programs in various sectors, including mental health, health, public health, and education. The goal of these projects was to improve mental health, health, and educational outcomes by optimizing the quality and fidelity of implementation and examining the contextual factors that influence implementation outcomes. In addition, Raluca has worked on several global health projects examining the implementation of exclusive breastfeeding in Ethiopia and Mali as well as the implementation of typhoid control interventions in nine countries in Africa, Asia, and South America. The focus of this work was to examine the implementation context and its impact on outcomes.

Kadia Petricca, MSc, PhD, is a Research Associate at The Hospital for Sick Children, Policy and Economics Research in Childhood Cancer (PERCC) Unit, where she is engaged in health systems and policy research focused on pediatric cancer drug access in Eastern Africa. She has more than 15 years’ experience working on a variety of global health system and public health issues; largely focused in Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Canada. Her interests and expertise focus on projects related to community-based programming, health services utilization, implementation research, and KT. Prior to her current role, she worked as a Research Associate for Johns Hopkins Public Health, collaborating with counterparts from the Tanzanian Ministry of Health and Social Welfare on the implementation of a national Community Health Worker policy. She holds a PhD in health services and policy research from the Institute of Health Planning, Management, and Evaluation at the University of Toronto, and an MSc in Developing Countries from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Established in 1946, with headquarters in Washington, D.C., the American Institutes for Research® (AIR®) is a nonpartisan, not-for-profit organization that conducts behavioral and social science research and delivers technical assistance, both domestically and internationally, in the areas of education, health, and the workforce. For more information, visit www.air.org.