PREVENT

Sandra Ofori

Investigator

Sandra Ofori is an Investigator in the Perioperative and Surgery research group at PHRI, an Assistant Professor in McMaster University’s Department of Medicine (cardiology), and a general cardiologist in Hamilton Health Sciences and St Joseph’s hospital, Hamilton. Her research interests are in the areas of perioperative care and cardiovascular disease prevention.

Her current research program is focused on optimizing the health of patients undergoing surgery with a focus on perioperative smoking cessation and secondary prevention strategies. Ofori is actively involved in the conduct of large international perioperative clinical trials coordinated from PHRI and was the project officer of the Post Discharge after Surgery Virtual Care with Remote Automated Monitoring Technology (PVC-RAM) 1 and 3 trials and a Co-Investigator in the PVC-RAM-2 trial. She is leading the smoking cessation program in the perioperative care group and is the Co-PI of the PREVENT trial.

Ofori completed her residency training in Internal Medicine and Cardiology at the University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria. She holds a Master’s degree in Preventive Cardiology from the Imperial College, London UK, and completed a Perioperative Medicine fellowship and a PhD in Health Research Methodology (Clinical Epidemiology) from McMaster University both under the supervision of PHRI Senior Scientist PJ Devereaux. She was in the third cohort of the World Heart Federation Salim Yusuf Emerging Leaders Program that was focused on the reduction of the global burden of hypertension

Flavia Kessler Borges

Scientist

Flavia Kessler Borges is a Scientist at the Population Health Research Institute and an Internist and Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine and the Perioperative Care Division at McMaster University. She undertook her Masters in Health Sciences and her PhD in Cardiovascular Sciences in Brazil. She undertook a post doctorate and a clinical Perioperative Vascular fellowship under the direction of PHRI Senior Scientist PJ Devereaux at McMaster University. Her research is focused on perioperative cardiac biomarkers, and perioperative strategies to improve patient important outcomes in surgical patients, specially in hip fracture patients. She holds an Internal Career Research Award from Hamilton Health Sciences, a CIHR and NIH large grants as the Principal Investigators of the HIP ATTACK-2 trial.

Jessica Vincent

Program Director

Jessica Vincent has more than 15 years’ experience in coordinating and managing large, international clinical trials. As Associate Program Manager, she oversees interventional trials, registries, and observational research studies in the areas of perioperative medicine, cardiac surgery, and digital health.

She holds an Honours Bachelor of Science Degree from Queens University, and a Master of Clinical Epidemiology Degree from the University of Newcastle.

Emily Di Sante

Senior Research Coordinator

With over 14 years experience in health research coordination, Emily is passionate about building exceptional teams that make a positive impact on global health. She has an Honours Bachelor’s of Arts degree (University of Guelph), Master’s of Political Science degree (McMaster University) and a certificate in Project Management (University of Toronto).

Her research interests include tobacco control, public and patient involvement, long-term care, evaluation and knowledge translation. At PHRI, she supports the perioperative and surgery studies, B-Free, FARGO, FAST, PREVENT and STRATUS.