Endowed Research Chairs
Dr. Jane Schulz
Alberta Women’s Health Foundation Chair in Women’s Health Research
The University of Alberta Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Jane Schulz as Chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the Alberta Women’s Health Foundation Chair in Women’s Health Research for a five-year term, commencing September 1, 2021. The chair is supported through a generous gift from the Alberta Women's Health Foundation through the Women and Children’s Health Research Institute.
Dr. Schulz is a professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and has served as the interim chair since July 2019.
During her time as interim chair, she supported a successful residency accreditation, navigated the department through changes and challenges related to COVID-19, and created a bridge strategic plan for women’s health.
Dr. Schulz graduated with honours in research from the U of A’s Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry in 1992. She completed her obstetrics and gynecology residency at the U of A, after which she obtained a McLaughlin scholarship and completed a two-year urogynecology fellowship at the University of London, England, and the University of Toronto. In 1999, she accepted an academic position in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the U of A, and joined the urogynecology unit at the Royal Alexandra Hospital.
Dr. Schulz is part of a large multidisciplinary clinical academic practice at the Lois Hole Hospital for Women, in addition to being involved in ongoing teaching of medical students, residents, fellows, physicians in the community, and allied health professionals. She served as the academic and clinical division lead for urogynecology from 2009-2019. Other key roles have included coordination of the student internship program at the Royal Alexandra Hospital, running the department CaRMS process for almost a decade, serving as resident research director from 2001-2016 with initiation of the Clinical Investigator Program in the department, and as a member of the health research ethics board biomedical panel.
Dr. Schulz’s research focus is on clinical innovation, quality improvement and projects that have immediate clinical knowledge translation. She is a founding member of the Lois Hole Hospital Women’s Society and the Canadian Society for Pelvic Medicine. Dr. Schulz is an active member of the Women and Children’s Health Research Institute and a women's health research ambassador for the Alberta Women’s Health Foundation. In addition, she has served as the North American representative to the International Committee of the International Urogynecology Association (IUGA), and currently serves on the IUGA publications committee.
The Faculty thanks the search and selection committee who helped make this appointment possible.
Dr. Colleen Norris
Cavarzan Chair in Mature Women’s Health Research
Alberta Women's Health Foundation
Dr. Colleen Norris is shining a spotlight on mature women’s health research and examining the health of women in the context of a multitude of factors that influence health.
Dr. Norris, a registered nurse and professor in the Faculty of Nursing, is particularly interested in women’s health research that includes the context of her entire life cycle. She wants to start blending the life cycle of a woman — whether that is perimenopause, menopause or post-menopause — with all her other health concerns. For too long, researchers and clinicians have ignored that connection.
Currently, she is working on developing a sex and gender questionnaire that will be given to women coming to the Lois Hole Hospital for Women for any health concerns. The questionnaire, being developed with the help of a cohort of women in one of Dr. Norris’s research projects, asks about a range of sex and gender factors that could affect women’s health — everything from menstruation to pregnancy experiences, babies’ birth weight, child-rearing responsibilities, and stress levels at work and home.
In her role as the Cavarzan Chair in Mature Women’s Health Research, Dr. Norris works closely with Alberta Health Services, the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology and the Women & Children's Health Research Institute team at the Dale Sheard Centre for Solutions in Women’s Health to promote interdisciplinary and collaborative women’s health research; provide mentorship that promotes the development of junior faculty in women’s research; develops collaborations in mature women’s health research locally, nationally and internationally; and acts as an ambassador and champion to actively link research with practice for the benefit of women and the communities in which they live.
Dr. Cheng-Han Lee
Sawin-Baldwin Chair in Ovarian Cancer
Alberta Cancer Foundation
Alberta Women's Health Foundation
The Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Cheng-Han Lee as the Sawin-Baldwin Chair in Ovarian Cancer. The endowed chair is supported through a generous gift from the Alberta Cancer Foundation and the Alberta Women's Health Foundation.
Dr. Lee received his MD/PhD in 2004 from the University of British Columbia, where he also went on to complete his anatomic pathology residency training in 2009. An interest in cancer genetics then led him to pursue a cancer research fellowship focusing on ovarian and uterine cancer at Stanford University Medical Center.
Dr. Lee continued his study of cancer genetics and biology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, where he examined the genetic basis and biology of aggressive gynecologic cancer. His work on uterine cancer led to the recognition of a new cancer type that was subsequently adopted in the World Health Organization (WHO) classification system for tumours of the female reproductive system. The focus of his research over the past decade has been on the genetics and biology of aggressive gynecologic cancer.
Dr. Lee currently has more than 130 peer-reviewed publications and a number of book chapters, including the latest WHO classification of female genital tumours. He also served as the program medical director for the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at B.C. Cancer from 2017 to 2021.
Dr. Lee is expected to join the Faculty in June. In his role as the Sawin-Baldwin Chair in Ovarian Cancer, he will work with a multidisciplinary research team including scientists, surgeons, oncologists and pathologists across different centres in Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario, focusing on gynecologic cancers that are most aggressive and most in need of therapeutic advancement. He will also be on staff and act as a consultant pathologist with a diagnostic focus on gynecologic cancer at the Royal Alexandra Hospital. Dr. Lee will also be supported by the Women and Children's Health Research Institute and the Cancer Research Institute of Northern Alberta and will be a member of both institutes.
The Faculty thanks the selection committee for the time invested to make this appointment possible, and the Alberta Cancer Foundation and the Alberta Women’s Health Foundation for their generous support of ovarian cancer research at the U of A.