New CCRA Advisory Board Chair and Elected Representative
Effective January 1, 2026, CCRA welcomes new CCRA Advisory Board chair, Dr. James (Jim) Woodgett. Jim is the President and Scientific Director of the Terry Fox Research Institute (TFRI), a Senior Scientist at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute at Sinai Health and Professor in the Department of Medical Biophysics at the University of Toronto. During his tenure as President and Scientific Director at TFRI, Jim has successfully secured additional Federal support for the Marathon of Hope Cancer Centres Network and has introduced new funding programs and partnerships for cancer research. He is committed to patient engagement and improving public discourse on the importance of well-conducted scientific research.
We also welcome our newly elected Advisory Board member, Marilee Nowgesic, CEO of the Canadian Indigenous Nurses Association who serves as the liaison to the Indigenous Cancer Research Network who joins renewed elected member, Dr. Stéphanie Michaud, President and CEO, BioCanRx.
Our thanks to outgoing chair, Dr. Dajan O’Donnell, for his exemplary leadership over the last two years and for his role as co-moderator of the 2025 Canadian Cancer Research Conference. Dajan will continue as a member of the Advisory Board. In addition, our appreciation to Dr. Paul O’Connell for his thoughtful engagement during two back-to-back terms as an elected representative.