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Comprehensive Exam & Thesis Supervision
Comprehensive Exams
Students enroled in the PhD in HIS program are required to pass a comprehensive written and oral exam prior to beginning work on their dissertation. The purpose of comprehensive exams is to ensure that the student has the requisite knowledge foundation to proceed and be successful in the program.
Timing:
The comprehensive examination usually takes place during the fifth or sixth terms of registration (normally Winter or Summer of Year 2).
Examination Process:
The comprehensive exam in the HIS doctoral program consists of the preparation and development of written essay(s). The student may select, in consultation with their comprehensive exam committee, either of the following two options:
- a complete first draft of their research proposal (30-40 pages)
OR - i) a review of literature with relevance to the proposed dissertation topic (15-20 pages) and ii) a grant or scholarship application (15-20 pages)
The comprehensive exam consists of an assessment of the written paper(s) and an oral defence of the submitted work.
Grading:
Both the written and oral examinations are graded as Pass/Fail, according to the majority of examiners. The student must pass the written examination in order to proceed to the oral examination. The student must pass both components of the comprehensive exam in order to progress in the program.
Thesis Supervision
Important Note: PhD applications are encouraged to contact either the HIS Program Coordinator, or one of the faculty members listed below to discuss program fit, and ensure that their research interests can be appropriately supervised in the HIS PhD program. Any such discussion should be reported in the Statement of Research Interest submitted by the applicant with their Admission package.
| Name | Research Areas |
|---|---|
| Isola Ajiferuke | Organization of health information |
| Kelly Anderson | Public mental health, social determinants, health services research, health administrative data, systematic reviews and meta-analysis, mixed methods research |
| Laurel Austin | Risk and decision making, telemedicine, risk communication |
| Kristen Bishop | Disability, aging, Multiple Sclerosis, Constructivist Grounded Theory |
| Richard Booth | Telehealth, informatics |
| Jacquelyn Burkell | Consumer health, risk and decision-making |
| Anna Garnett | Digital health, health services, gerontology, caregivers |
| Mark Goldszmidt | Medical communication and teaching |
| Nicole Haggerty | Electronic health records, health information technologies, public health information |
| Jodi Hall | Trauma and resistance, critical appraisal, criminilization, reproductive justice, health equity |
| Stewart Harris | Diabetes and hypoglycemia research |
| Abbas Jessani | Global health, knowledge translation |
| Andrew Johnson | Patient values, caregiver stress, concussions, Parkinson's disease, research methods |
| Tarun Katapally | Citizen science, data science, digital health, digital epidemiology, global health, health systems research, human-computer interaction, human-centred artificial intelligence, precision medicine |
| Susan Knabe | Critical theory and cultural studies, sexuality, gender and popular culture, feminist theory, queer theory, representation, sexuality and citizenship, medicalization and the media, media and resistance |
| Anita Kothari | Knowledge translation, public and community health |
| Roula Kteily-Hawa | HIV prevention, resilience, mental health, stigma reduction, gender-based violence, health promotion |
| Daniel Lizotte | Media data, biostatistics |
| Joy MacDermid | Clinical measurement, evidence synthesis |
| Tara Mantler | Intimate partner violence, maternal/child health |
| Carrie Marshall | Mental health, social inclusion |
| Pamela McKenzie | Health information seeking |
| Elysee Nouvet | Global health, social determinants |
| Jessica Polzer | Gender, sexuality and women's studies |
| Anabel Quan-Haase | Social media and health, health information seeking, community, social network analysis |
| Joanna Redden | Datafication, politics, governance and social justice |
| Umair Rehman | Entertainment computing, human-centred computing |
| Debbie Rudman | Occupational science and aging |
| Kamran Sedig | Human-computer interaction |
| Jacob Shelley | Law and ethics, public health |
| Sharon Sliwinski | Visual culture, political theory |
| Luke Stark | Impacts of computing and artificial intelligence technologies |
| Nadine Wathen | Health information seeking, knowledge translation |
| Fiona Webster | Chronic health conditions, gender, ethnography |
| Lloy Wylie | Health systems research |
Ready to apply?
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Applications open on October 1. The deadline to apply for a September start is January 15.