Announcement – Associate Chair of Research, Department of Pediatrics

MODR is pleased to to announce the appointment of MODR Co-Director Katherine Morrison as the new Associate Chair of Research for the Department of Pediatrics. 

From Angelo Mikrogianakis (Chair, Department of Pediatrics)

The Department of Pediatrics at McMaster University, in the Faculty of Health Sciences is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Katherine Morrison as the new Associate Chair of Research. In this role, Dr. Morrison will also serve as a core member of the Department Executive Leadership team, alongside the Chair. Dr. Morrison will begin a graded transition into this role with official handover for the July 2020/2021 academic year.

Dr. Morrison joined the Department of Pediatrics as an Assistant Professor in 2005, and most recently achieved tenure to full Professor in 2018. Dr. Morrison is clinically trained in pediatric endocrinology, and is an accomplished clinician-investigator, research leader and educator within the Department of Pediatrics.

Supported by tri-council funding, Dr Morrison has successfully developed a clinical research program at McMaster, centred on cardiometabolic health and obesity in children and youth. This research is closely linked to her medical leadership role in the Growing Healthy Program and Pediatric Lipid clinics at McMaster Children’s Hospital and has grown to include national and international collaborations. At McMaster, together with Dr Gregory Steinberg, she founded the Metabolism And Childhood Obesity program (MAC Obesity), which transitioned into the Centre for Metabolism, Obesity and Diabetes Research (MODR) in 2018. She co-directs this Centre which is focussed on accelerating research gains by facilitating communication and collaboration of scientists working in the preclinical and clinical domains; offering a platform for ongoing collaboration across faculties and departments and resulting in high-impact publications and funding success.

As the pediatric lead for the Clinician Investigator Program (CIP), as well as a research supervisor and advisor for postgraduate trainees, building pediatric research across the Department has been a key focus for Dr. Morrison. Having supervised many undergraduate and graduate students throughout her career, Dr. Morrison has been an integral part of enabling research trainees to thrive at the interface of clinical and pre-clinical research.

Within her new role, Dr. Morrison is excited to work together with department faculty to clarify and implement our unified vision and to engage our stakeholders and community partners in enabling growth of the department’s research enterprise.

We wish to recognize and thank Dr. Anthony Chan for his years serving as the Associate Chair, Research over the past two terms. Dr. Chan’s focus on collaborations and grant funding opportunities have contributed to our overall department success in child health research. Please join us in welcoming Dr. Morrison to this new leadership role!