Sara Allin is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, University of Toronto. Sara’s research and teaching span comparative health systems and policies, health system performance and health equity. Prior to joining the NAO, Sara was a Senior Researcher with the Canadian Institute for Health Information. As Director (formerly the Director of Operations), Sara works closely with the executive team to strengthen national and international partnerships, and she provides leadership and strategic direction for the research staff in Canada on research and member-directed projects and rapid reviews.

The founding director of the NAO, Gregory P. Marchildon is Professor and Ontario Research Chair in Health Policy and System Design at the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, University of Toronto. A scholar-practitioner, Marchildon has extensive experience in establishing and working in national and international research and policy networks. A member of the editorial board of the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, Marchildon is also the Canadian representative on the Health Systems and Policy Monitor network. As the founding director of the NAO, Marchildon is mobilizing the key people and infrastructure to launch and manage the NAO.

Thomas Rice is Professor of the Department of Health Policy and Management at UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. His areas of interest include health insurance, competition and regulation; physicians’ economic behavior; and Medicare. He was lead author of a book about the U.S. health care system, for the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies. Dr. Rice was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences in 2006. He was chair of the AcademyHealth Board of Directors in 2005-6, and previously he had been awarded its Article of the Year Award and its Young Investigator Award.

Dr. Miguel Angel González-Block is Associate Researcher at the Faculty of Health Sciences, Anahuac University. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine of Mexico and of the National Researchers System, Level III. He serves as editor emeritus for BiomedCentral’s Health Research Policy and Systems and was the founding Director of the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research at the World Health Organization. Dr. González-Block has extensive experience in policy analysis and systems research at the National Institute of Public Health of Mexico, the Mexican Health Foundation, the Inter-American Development Bank and the World Health Organization. He has collaborated in international health systems analysis in diverse teams, among which the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research at WHO, and the Tropical Disease Research and Training Program at WHO.

Amélie Quesnel-Vallée holds the Canada Research Chair on Policies and Health Inequalities. She is an Associate Professor at McGill University, where she is jointly appointed across the Faculties of Arts and Medicine, respectively in the Departments of Sociology and of Epidemiology. She is Director of the McGill Observatory on Health and Social Services Reforms (MOHSSR). She is also the founding Director of the International Research Infrastructure on Social inequalities in health (IRIS) and a founding member of the Centre on Population Dynamics at McGill. Her research examines the contribution of social policies to social inequalities in health over the life course. Her research has received numerous awards, including the Population Association of America Dorothy Thomas award and the 2005 American Sociological Association Dissertation Award.

Monika Roerig has been working with the NAO as Research Coordinator since 2019. She holds a Masters of Arts degree in Community Psychology, and has contributed to many research projects and evaluations for a wide variety of stakeholders.