Dr. Hasanat Alamgir
Leader, Statistics and Evaluation

Dr. George Astrakianakis
Leader, Disease Prevention

Chris Back
Director, Provincial Health and Safety Standards

Tony Gilligan
Director, Technology Solutions

Leona Lowry
Director, Finance and Administration

Catherine Ogden
Director, Knowledge Solutions

Dr. Alamgir has an MBA from West Texas A&M University and completed his PhD in Healthcare and Epidemiology at the University of British Columbia. In addition to his role as Director of Statistics and Evaluation with OHSAH, he is also an adjunct professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University. Among his wide range of research interests are the costs of injury and illness, injury epidemiology, program and economic evaluation, and occupational health in developing countries.

Dr. Alamgir joined OHSAH in 2006 and leads OHSAH’s Statistics and Evaluation team. “It is very rewarding to conduct research that generates knowledge on interventions that work, and to share that knowledge to create awareness about healthcare worker health and safety,” says Dr. Alamgir. His team provides support across all the departments in the Agency for research design, survey development and validation, program and economic evaluations, and epidemiological analyses. Dr. Alamgir has completed several projects that have facilitated the use of data from the WHITE Database to study injury trends among healthcare workers.

Dr. Astrakianakis holds a PhD from the University of Washington in Occupational and Environmental Health and Engineering Degrees from the University of British Columbia (UBC) and Montréal’s Concordia University. In addition to his role as Director of Disease Prevention at OHSAH, Dr. Astrakianakis is also an Adjunct Professor in the School of Environmental Health at UBC.

Dr. Astrakianakis has been with OHSAH since 2005. "Providing support for health and hygiene to our stakeholders is immensely satisfying,” he explains. “Their job is to provide care in one of the most challenging environments I can imagine; the exposure hazards are varied and the work environment complex and ever changing. Being able to reduce the worry, eliminate a concern, or offer a safer alternative is my goal.”

In 2008, Dr. Astrakianakis was awarded a Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Career Investigator - Scholar Award in the area of Population Health for the development of an integrated risk assessment and risk management tool for healthcare in BC. His research interests are exposure assessment, occupational cancer, and occupational health and hygiene in the healthcare industry.

Chris Back is a Canadian Certified Professional Ergonomist with a Bachelors of Science in Kinesiology from Simon Fraser University; and is currently pursuing his MBA at Royal Roads University. Chris is the Director of Injury Prevention at OHSAH. He has been in a leadership position for the past four years and has been with OHSAH for almost six years, where he welcomes the opportunity to work on challenging projects that “have a positive impact on the health and safety of healthcare workers provincially, nationally, and potentially internationally.” Chris’s portfolio at OHSAH includes the design, implementation, and evaluation of various initiatives in Home and Community Care, Violence Prevention, and Ergonomics.

Also included in Chris’s portfolio is the Collaborative Occupational Safety and Health Assistance, Resources and Expertise (COSHARE) Program for smaller independent healthcare facilities throughout BC. “Affiliates have typically lacked dedicated OHS resources in their organizations,” Chris explains. “OHSAH is attempting to fill this gap by providing assistance, resources, and expertise to them on an as-needed basis, as well as looking at effective ways of directly building the internal OHS capacity of affiliate facilities.”

In his role as Director of Information Technology and Communications with OHSAH, Tony has responsibility for Information Technology, Communications, and Privacy. Tony joined OHSAH after moving from the United Kingdom where he was the Managing Director of a London-based management consulting firm. Tony works with all of the programs at OHSAH and its stakeholders, primarily focusing on surveillance system design and knowledge transfer.

Tony joined OHSAH a few years after the Agency was established, and has been an integral member of the team that developed the Workplace Health Indicator Tracking and Evaluation (WHITE) Database. “We have come a long way from the early days when identifying basic information, such as nature of injury and location, was time consuming and costly,” Tony explains. “It has been exciting and rewarding to see the WHITE Database being used by our stakeholders and within OHSAH programs for research and decision making.” He enjoys the diversity of his role, in particular working with OHSAH’s stakeholders to develop methods for better communication and systems to inform decision making.

Leona Lowry is a Chartered Accountant with a Bachelors of Arts Degree in Sociology from the University of Victoria. She has worked in senior financial management positions in the public sector for over 25 years, including Director of Finance with the Faculty of Medicine at UBC, Executive Director, Financial Services at the Open Learning Agency, and Systems and Operations Controller at the Greater Victoria Hospital Society (currently VIHA). Leona is responsible for the finance, human resources, and facilities management functions at OHSAH.

For more than 10 years, Catherine has been specializing in the management, design, development, and implementation of learning strategies and programs. Working in a variety of roles including project manager, training manager, curriculum designer, and content developer, Catherine has had the opportunity to collaborate with, and influence, a range of stakeholder groups to design, produce, and implement eLearning, classroom, and blended learning solutions in a variety of content areas. Catherine has also completed an MA in Adult Education from the University of British Columbia.

Catherine is committed to collaborating with OHSAH’s internal and external stakeholders to identify opportunities for OHSAH to promote and improve access to existing learning resources developed across the province and to develop new resources that reflect sectoral and target audience differences and have more flexible delivery options. She explains, “When we actively consult with and collaborate with our stakeholders to generate solutions that are timely and relevant, I believe we’re making a valuable contribution to OHSAH’s commitment to working with stakeholders to make healthcare workplaces healthier and safer.”