e-Campus - Work Wellness Institute

Dr. William S. Shaw, Ph.D., is Associate Professor and Chief, Division of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Department of Medicine, University of Connecticut School of Medicine in Farmington, Connecticut, USA. He also has adjunct scientist appointments at the Institute for Work & Health in Toronto, Ontario and the Research Institute for Enhancing Prevention of Injury and Disability at Work at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Dr. Shaw has more than 20 years of research experience in the field of occupational health and safety. His training background is in engineering and clinical psychology, and his primary research focus has been workplace disability and return-to-work, especially with respect to psychosocial and organizational factors affecting outcomes for workers with acute musculoskeletal injuries or chronic health conditions. His research has contributed to current knowledge of effective employer policies, supervisor training, job modification, disability management, psychosocial screening, and return-to-work coordination. Current research projects aim to improve the organizational response of employers to the opioid crisis in heavy physical occupations, to develop patient screening protocols for pain management, and to develop early intervention strategies that can be implemented at the system level. He currently serves as Associate Director of the Center for Promotion of Health in the New England Workplace (CPH-NEW), one of six NIOSH-funded Centers for Excellence in the US. He has more than 125 published scientific journal articles in the fields of occupational medicine, pain, health psychology, and occupational rehabilitation, and he served as a Senior Associate Editor for the Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation for more than ten years. He is involved in collaborative research projects in the USA, Australia, Canada, Sweden, and The Netherlands.

Dr. Vicki Kristman is an Associate Professor in the Department of Health Sciences at Lakehead University and the Inaugural Director for a new Research Institute at Lakehead University: EPID@Work – Enhancing the Prevention of Injury and Disability@Work. She also holds appointments in the Northern Ontario School of Medicine, and the Institute for Work & Health in Toronto. Dr. Kristman is currently the Lakehead University Delegate for CIHR and sits on the University Delegates Executive Committee. She holds a doctoral degree in epidemiology from the University of Toronto and completed the CIHR Work Disability Prevention strategic training program as a postdoctoral fellow at the University Health Network in Toronto. In 2014, Dr. Kristman was awarded a prestigious CIHR New Investigator Award for her program of research on "Preventing Work Disability through Accommodation". She is currently leading projects to test the effectiveness of a supervisor training program to prevent prolonged work disability; to identify factors associated with Indigenous work, health and safety, and to determine factors associated with supervisors' support for providing work accommodations for workers with mental health disorders.

Dr. Gross is Director of the Rehabilitation Research Centre (RRC) and a Senior Associate Editor with the Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation. Dr. Gross studies the prevention of disability in people with physical and mental health disorders. This includes investigating the effectiveness of clinical and public health interventions, the validity of clinical decision support and other assessment tools, as well as factors associated with disability. He has given numerous national and international presentations and published over 100 peer-reviewed articles.