About

 

Our Why

DiPo was founded on the belief that participation is a human right, and that by centering the lived experiences of children, youth, and families, with a particular emphasis on those with disabilities and mental health challenges, we can build the evidence needed to make that right a reality.

Our Mission

Working in partnership with communities and people with lived experience, we co-create evidence through research to inform equitable public policy focused on removing barriers and promoting the inclusion of individuals with disabilities and mental health challenges.

Our Vision

We envision a world where systems and policies are shaped by the lived experiences of those they affect most. We see our research as the conduit that translates those experiences, particularly of young people with disabilities and mental health challenges who are too often excluded, into the policy changes needed for every young person to thrive and belong.

How We Work

We connect with a wide network of collaborators to put research into action. We focus on developing practical responses to real-life, community-identified challenges, using evidence-based knowledge to create social change. We consistently center lived experience in our research and study designs, work across jurisdictions and sectors, and bring an intersectional lens to everything we do. How we work is inseparable from our values:

Inclusivity

We are intentional about creating spaces that are brave, safe, and genuinely inclusive, ensuring that diverse identities, experience, and ways of knowing are celebrated and respected. We apply an intersectional lens across our research, our team, and our partnerships.

Engagement

We are committed to ethical and authentic engagement with the people and communities we work alongside. We show up meaningfully and prioritize building strong relationships. Co-creation is a core practice of our work, ensuring community perspectives shape every phase of our research.

Curiosity

We approach our work with inquisitiveness paired with rigor and academic honesty, reflecting a commitment to exploration and asking thoughtful questions. Our curiosity embraces innovative and diverse methods, reflecting the complexity of the challenges we tackle.

Respect

Respect to us means actively listening, being responsive and practical, and meeting people where they are. We honour the dignity, perspectives, and lived experiences of the people we work with and alongside.

Adaptive Growth

We embrace change as part of how we grow, ensuring our work remains relevant, rigorous, and rooted in the communities we work with. While we think and work with a long-term vision in mind, we are committed to remaining responsive to what we hear and learn.

 

Our team

 
 
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  • Dr. Jennifer Zwicker is an emerging leader in child disability policy who recently received the Cardwell Award for Top 40 under 40 in Canada. She brings a combination of interdisciplinary research and training, established national networks and collaborators and commitment to knowledge translation to ensure research findings reach community members and decision makers. As the Director of the Health Policy Program at the School of Public Policy and an assistant professor in the Faculty of Kinesiology at the University of Calgary, Dr. Zwicker has interdisciplinary expertise that cuts across neurobiology and child development, economic evaluation, health services research and policy to translate knowledge from “research to evidence-based disability policy”. She holds the Canada Research Chair (II) Disability Policy for Children and Youth and is an investigator of several research projects that aim to inform disability policy.

    Click Here To See Projects

 
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  • I am a Christiane Roth, Research Associate and PhD Candidate at the School of Public Policy and Faculty of Kinesiology. I have an MSc in Human Rights from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and am a certified Project Manager (PMP) and Prosci Change Manager. My PhD research focuses on access to services for children and youth with ADHD and autism, using administrative data and an international policy scan. I also work for the DiPo-associated Child Policy Lab, looking at child health and well-being measures in Alberta, Canada and OECD countries.

 

  • I am Angela Senevirathna, a Kinesiology PhD student with a focus on enriching the lives of children with neurodevelopmental disabilities and their families. In my research, I delve into the complexities of the continuum of care and eligibility for essential services and supports for youth transitioning to adulthood. I have a masters degree in Biomedical engineering from University of Calgary.

 

  • Hi! My name is Katherine and I’m a Postdoctoral Associate with the DiPo Research Program. I am a political scientist by training, specializing in comparative heath policy with a focus on mental health in Canada. I completed my PhD in Comparative Public Policy at McMaster University in the Department of Political Science, where my doctoral dissertation examined mental health policy reform in Ontario and British Columbia, focusing on the timing and scope of publicly funded psychotherapy programs, as well as the political and institutional drivers behind their adoption (or lack thereof). 

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    In my current postdoctoral work, I explore the issue of coordination and integration of children and youth mental healthcare services through Integrated Youth Services models in several Canadian provinces – Ontario, British Columbia, and Alberta – and in Australia.

    My overarching goal as an academic researcher is to generate rigorous, policy-relevant knowledge that improves the coordination and accessibility of mental health systems for children, youth, and their families, and that informs equitable health policy design and implementation.

    When I’m not working, you can usually find me checking out cafés and restaurants in the city.

    Find Katherine on LinkedIn.

 

  • My name is Meaghan and I am an occupational therapist and a Postdoctoral Fellow whose work spans children’s rehabilitation, disability policy, and equitable service systems. I have nine years of clinical experience in paediatric rehabilitation and am an Assistant Clinical Professor in the Occupational Therapy Program at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada.

    I am a Postdoctoral Fellow with DiPo and the School of Rehabilitation Science/CanChild at McMaster University. Under the supervision of Dr. Jennifer Zwicker and Dr. Michelle Phoenix, our research uses a community-engaged, co-design approach to advance eligibility criteria and service design practices within government disability programs and services, with the goal of better reflecting the lived functional needs of disabled children and their families.

    I completed my PhD in Rehabilitation Science at McMaster University in 2025, supervised by Dr. Michelle Phoenix. My doctoral research examined how organizational policies and service delivery models influence equitable access to and engagement in children’s rehabilitation services.

    Find Meaghan on LinkedIn, Research Gate, and Google Scholar.

 

  • I am Patricia Basualto, a Kinesiology PhD student with DiPo. My current research focuses on assessing the continuum of care and eligibility for services and supports for children with neurodevelopmental disabilities and their families. I bring experience in research projects related to early childcare interventions, mental health, and occupational health, with an emphasis on the experience of caregivers in different healthcare settings. I have a Master’s degree in Health Psychology and a Licentiate Degree and Professional Certificate in Physiotherapy.

 

  • I am a Kinesiology PhD student with the DiPo Research Team. Under the supervision of Dr. Jennifer Zwicker and in collaboration with Dr. Meaghan Reitzel, our research uses a community-engaged, co-design approach to advance eligibility criteria and service design practices within government disability programs and services, with the goal of better reflecting the lived functional needs of disabled children and their families.

    I have more than 15 years of experience working in policy, including in the private sector, public sector and as a civil servant with provincial government. I completed my Master of Science in Management from Toronto Metropolitan University in 2018 where my thesis focused on subjective quality control metrics for live-broadcast closed captioning. Since then, I have worked on a number of Accessibility Standards Canada funded projects, where my research focused on improving the accessibility of national and provincial parks, travel, and tourism. 

    In addition to my academic work, in 2025 I was elected to Rocky View County Council and am currently serving a 4-year term as Division 3 Councillor. I also sit on a number of community and professional Boards including, Family and Community Support Services Funding Board (FCSS), Spray Lake Sawmills Recreation Park Society Board and Board of Directors for the Association of College and University Policy Administrators.

 

  • My name is Brittany Finlay and I am the Research Manager of the DiPo Team. I am currently involved in several different projects that focus on improving delivery and design of disability services and supports in Canada, including management of the ADVANCE Network. My academic background includes a Bachelor of Science in Neuroscience from McGill University and a Master of Public Policy from the University of Calgary.

    Find Brittany on LinkedIn and ResearchGate

 
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  • I am Ash Seth and I am a Research Associate with DIPO research program. I am a part of several multi collaborative research projects that aim to enhance the mental health and service access needs of youth with neurodevelopmental disabilities and their families. I also have working experience in livelihood, youth and disability studies in Southeast Asia. I have a Master of Public Policy from the School of Public Policy (SPP) at the University of Calgary and Master in Business Management degrees from Northeastern University, USA.

 
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  • I am a DiPo Research Assistant. I bring research experience in child health, family newborn health and population and community health. My current research and interests are focused on caring for children and youth with complex care needs including rare diseases and neurodevelopmental disorders, care coordination, and family engagement in health care and research.

 
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  • I’m Ken Fyie, and I’m a research associate in the Social Policy and Health team at the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy. For the DiPo team, I’m working on quantitative issues, specifically using administrative datasets to see how governments are providing assistance, and where gaps in assistance exist, to those with neurodevelopmental disabilities. My previous work has looked at health-related questions, from small-scale variate analyses to system analyses of healthcare delivery. Making sense of data that otherwise would be siloed away is what I’m happiest to contribute to our team. I have Master’s Degrees in Economics and Public Health, and outside of work I enjoy music, sports and time exploring the outdoors.

 

  • My name is MacKenna, and I am a Research Associate with the Disability Policy team. My work focuses on disability policy through an intersectional lens, with particular attention to sex and gender. I am currently researching autism in relation to sex and gender, alongside broader issues of financial security, including income support and employment policy. As a neurodivergent researcher, I bring lived and living experience to my work, grounding my research in advocacy and community-informed perspectives. I hold a Master of Public Policy from the University of Calgary and am also engaged in Indigenous policy research and knowledge mobilization.

    To learn more about me, feel free to check out my LinkedIn.

 

  • Bishnu Bajgain is a Research Coordinator with one of the DiPO Research Programs, primarily working on implementing and evaluating patient-reported outcome measures (measurement-based care) in child and adolescent mental health. Along with his mixed methods research training, he brings research experiences in primary care and immigrant populations. His academic background includes an MSc in Health Services Research from the University of Calgary. He also holds an MSc in Healthcare Management from Pokhara University, Nepal. Prior to that, he was a faculty member of healthcare management at various universities in Nepal. Along with his academic career, Bishnu holds a wide range of healthcare experiences, working in various leadership positions in setting and managing corporate and community hospitals over 10 years, including the Grande International Hospital and the Medicare National Hospital & Research Centre, Nepal. Honoring his academic and leadership commitment to excellence, Bishnu has received Teaching Recognition as well as leadership Awards time and again.

    Bishnu’s research interests include health services research, with a focus on learning health systems, implementation, and family/patient-centered care.

 

Former Team Members

  • Stephanie Chipeur (Post-Doctoral Scholar)

  • Erin McCabe (Post-Doctoral Scholar)

  • Linda Nguyen (Post-Doctoral Scholar)

  • Sean Jia (Research Associate)