Dr. Teresa M. Chan is the Founding Dean of the Toronto Metropolitan University School of Medicine as well as TMU’s Vice-President, Medical Affairs. In addition, Dr. Chan has been a practicing emergency physician since 2013 and currently serves within the William Osler Health System Emergency Department team as an emergency physician.

An internationally renowned educational leader and scientist, Dr. Chan has advanced the field of medical education by bringing in innovative new approaches. Notably in 2024, she was named one of the top 10 most influential Canadians in health care via the Maclean's Power List for Health Care. She has supervised, mentored, and spearheaded hundreds of educational development projects, most of which were disseminated as educational research and scholarship. She has also led more than 50 unique research teams while authoring over 230 peer-reviewed publications. Dr. Chan has held various leadership or committee roles within the Canadian Association for Medical Education, Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada, and Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada.

Dr. Chan received in-depth exposure to social justice and advocacy while completing her Bachelor of Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, and she has brought that lens to her roles as a physician and educator. Her clinical work focuses on helping patients navigate societal and systemic problems preventing them from being seen as a whole person and facilitating their access to care that maintains their dignity. Through her academic work in the classroom, in clinical spaces, and outside of formal learning environments, Dr. Chan inspires future physicians to advance social justice. Her teams have used the power of faculty development to support racialized faculty members and to help others develop the skills needed to serve diverse populations of students and patients.

Dr. Chan is also a leader in new methods for teaching and learning, including technology-enhanced learning and serious games. She has been an advocate, researcher, and contributor for the free open access medical education movement. She has led teams in academic blogging, podcasting, and video creation. She has empowered learners and teachers alike to harness these technologies for education purposes. She has also been a leader in the emerging field of game-based medical education and is one of the lead developers of the serious board game GridlockED.

Will Bynum, MD, PhD is an Associate Professor of Family Medicine at the Duke University School of Medicine and a Veteran of the United States Air Force. He received his M.D. at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine in 2010 and Ph.D. in Health Professions Education at Maastricht University in the Netherlands in 2023, where defended his thesis entitled “Out of the shadows: a qualitative exploration of shame in medical learners.” He is the co-creator of The Shame Space, a global consortium that advances open communication about the role of shame in healthcare, a co-producer on the award winning “Shame in Medicine” podcast series produced by The Nocturnists, and a co-founder of The Shame Lab, which catalyzes research and training to advance shame competence in healthcare and beyond. He is the author of over 30 peer-reviewed publications and has given over 150 workshops and presentations to top hospitals, conferences, and organizations such as Massachusetts General Hospital, Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania, and the American Hospital Association. He has received numerous awards for his research including Best Paper by the AAMC Research in Medical Education Committee in 2021 and Best Doctoral Report by the Association of Medical Educators of Europe in 2023. Most importantly, he is the proud father to two young boys, Mason and Brady, and husband to his wife Carson.

Thirusha is Canada Research Chair in Equity and Social Justice in Medical Education and Associate Professor at the Department for Innovation in Medical Education (DIME) at the University of Ottawa. She is an Honorary Senior Visiting Fellow for the Department of Public Health and Primary Care at the University of Cambridge and an Associate Professor in Psychiatry at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Thirusha is a clinical psychologist who trained in apartheid-era South Africa. Inspired to give voice and make space for women of colour in research and health she uses research poetry as a method for deep reflexivity in research. Her research references critical and theoretical perspectives on health and health professions education through decolonial and feminist theories. Her clinical work in South Africa focused on psychotherapy for severe mental disorders and the mental health of healthcare workers. Thirusha’s current research focus areas include Health Professions & Health Sciences Education and Global Health knowledge production in the contexts of mental health and infectious diseases. Her writing appears in Academic Medicine, The Lancet, The BMJ and Advances in Health Sciences Education.  She was the 2019 Karolinska Institutet Prize in Medical Education Fellow.

Yvonne Steinert, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist and Professor of Family Medicine and Health Sciences Education, is the Richard and Sylvia Cruess Chair in Medical Education and the former Director of the Institute of Health Sciences Education in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at McGill University. She is actively involved in undergraduate and postgraduate medical education, educational research, and the design and delivery of faculty development programs and activities. Her research interests focus on teaching and learning in the health professions, the impact of faculty development on the individual and the organization, professionalism and professional identity formation, and the interplay between culture and health professions education. She has written and presented extensively on topics related to faculty development and medical education and was named to the Order of Canada in recognition of her contributions to the advancement of pedagogical principles, faculty development, and new training approaches in Canadian medical education.