About us
Our Team
Dr. Brian Rush, Ph.D.
Team co-lead
Dr. Brian Rush worked for over 40 years as a substance use health/mental health researcher and administrative lead with the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Ontario. Since formally retiring from his CAMH research and managerial position in 2013, he continues to be an active researcher and mentor through his ongoing appointment as Scientist Emeritus at CAMH; Senior Scientist at the Homewood Research Institute in Guelph Ontario; his appointment as Professor at the University of Toronto in both the Departments of Public Health Sciences and Psychiatry; and as Executive Lead for his private consulting firm, VIRGO Planning and Evaluation Consultants Inc.
Brian’s work spans population health, needs-based planning, and evaluation of mental health, substance use health and other health, social, educational, and community services, all of which play an important role in the broader, multi-sectoral system to improve the overall health and mental wellness of the population. He has conducted evaluations and major health system reviews across Canada and internationally, the majority including extensive stakeholder engagement, inclusive of people with lived and living experience. This work keeps Brian firmly grounded in the issues of the day and people’s lived and living experience with mental and substance use health challenges, including their experience accessing and navigating services and supports.
For more information, please contact Brian at: Brian.rush@camh.ca or Brush.virgo@gmail.com
Dr. Daniel Vigo, MD, Lic. Psych, DrPH
Team co-lead
Dr. Vigo is a psychiatrist, clinical psychologist, and public health specialist, originally from Argentina. He is currently an Assistant Professor at UBC, a Lecturer at Harvard Medical School, an Advisor to PAHO and WHO, as well as the Chair of the Services and Policy Workgroup of the WHO-World Mental Health Surveys Initiative. He is also the Regional Lead Psychiatrist for Assertive Community Treatment for the Province of BC and the incoming Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Mental Health Systems. He has worked in clinical, research, teaching, and leadership positions across both the public and private sector. In these roles, he has published peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and reports on public health, health systems, global mental health, psychiatric epidemiology, psychopharmacology, psychotherapy, and e-mental health. Dr. Vigo also leads several projects in BC and globally, including on E-Mental Health, prediction of risk of adverse mental health and substance use outcomes, and needs-based planning for mental and substance use disorder services.
More information can be found at Dr. Vigo’s Mental Health Systems and Services Laboratory or contact Daniel at: daniel.vigo@ubc.ca
Niloofar Shahmohammadi
Research Analyst
Niloofar holds a Master’s degree in International law with over 10 years of experience in quantitative research as well as policy analysis. She has strong statistical knowledge and proficiency with analytical software, including Microsoft Excel, SPSS, and NVivo. She has worked on a wide range of projects on mental health and substance use, including both clinical and system-level research and evaluation.
Niloofar has provided support to national and provincial mental health and substance use initiatives, including the development and pilot testing of Brian’s Needs-Based Planning model and coordination of tasks associated with the project’s National Advisory Committee. She has also conducted several scoping reviews of research on best practice for mental health and substance use services and coordinated related expert consultations, for example, on intensive case management models, community/mobile withdrawal management and supported housing. Also, under Brian’s direction Niloofar provided research support to a program of Health Canada-funded research on treatment system improvement in Ontario, lending considerable analytic support to two projects in particular, one developing a common measure of client satisfaction for mental health and substance use services and the other developing a common protocol to support costing of these services.
Calista Leung
Research Analyst
Calista is an aspiring clinical psychologist who graduated from the University of British Columbia in 2020. She has held many research positions in UBC’s Departments of Psychology and Psychiatry, and has continued her research career as a research assistant and coordinator in Dr. Daniel Vigo’s Mental Health Systems & Services Laboratory. Her research interests lie at the intersection of clinical and social psychology, with a particular curiosity regarding facial emotion recognition as a potential diagnostic marker for mood disorders. Previously, she has spearheaded multiple studies on emotion recognition and depressive symptomatology. She is also passionate about creating, improving, and developing evidence-based digital mental health interventions to bolster support for sub-clinical and clinical populations, and hopes to improve mental health resource access to support for marginalized populations. As part of the Needs-Based Planning project, Calista coordinates logistics and research-oriented tasks between various health authorities and institutions, and she is excited to be a part of a team dedicated to improving access to services across Canada.