Alumni Weekend

Lili Liu

Lili Liu is a professor in the School of Public Health and Health Systems, and dean of the Faculty of Health at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Dr. Liu earned degrees in BSc (Occupational Therapy), MSc and PhD (Rehabilitation Science), at McGill University. She began her academic career at the University of Alberta where she also served as chair of the Department of Occupational Therapy prior to joining the University of Waterloo.

Liu advances health-care technology through her leadership roles in research, administration, service and mentoring undergraduate and graduate students, as well as post-doctoral fellows. She maintains an externally funded research program that examines acceptance and adoption of technologies by older adults, their care partners, health care professionals, and unlicensed care personnel.

Liu engages with community organizations, and policy and decision makers. Alzheimer Societies, search and rescue personnel, dementia advocacy and caregiver associations, nationally and internationally, are partners in her research program.

Liu is an AGE-WELL network investigator, and her current research program examines the applications of technologies and other innovations to mitigate risks of going missing among persons living with dementia. Her team focuses on approaches to inform and implement policies that create safe environments for older adults.
 

John Hirdes (BSc, MA, PhD '89)

Dr. Hirdes is a Professor in the School of Public Health and Health Systems, University of Waterloo. He is the Senior Canadian Fellow and a Board Member of interRAI, an international consortium of researchers from 35 countries. He chairs interRAI's Network for Mental Health and the interRAI Network of Canada. He also chairs the Committee on Student Mental Health (CoSMH) for the University of Waterloo. As well, Dr. Hirdes is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. 

Dr. Hirdes has 230+ publications in peer reviewed journals and academic book chapters. His primary areas of interest include assessment, mental health, aging, health care and service delivery, case mix systems, quality measurement, health information management, and quantitative research methods.

Dr. Hirdes led development of several interRAI instruments and related applications, which are used across Canada and internationally. Examples include interRAI’s Mental Health, Community Mental Health, Brief Mental Health Screener, Emergency Screener for Psychiatry, and Contact Assessment. He is also co-author of interRAI’s Home Care, Community Health Assessment, Palliative Care and Acute Care – Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment instruments. In addition, he is lead/senior author of numerous interRAI scales, algorithms, and decision-support tools (e.g., Home Care Quality Indicators, suicide risk appraisal). 

In 2012, Dr. Hirdes received the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal for his work on long term care through the Canadian Home Care Association and the Canadian Association on Gerontology. 

Marina Mourtzakis 

Dr. Marina Mourtzakis received her Bachelor of Sciences and Bachelor Kinesiology at McMaster University and then embarked on her doctoral studies in nutritional sciences, exercise physiology and muscle metabolism at the University of Guelph with Dr. Terry Graham. Her post-doctoral work examined nutrition and body composition modalities in advanced cancer at the Cross Cancer Institute in Edmonton, Alberta with Dr. Vickie Baracos. Merging these interests, her current program characterizes changes in body composition and metabolic implications in muscle wasting conditions including cancer, liver cirrhosis and critical illness. Her team also investigates the role of nutrition and exercise towards improving health and clinical outcomes in cancer and critically ill patients. More recently, Dr. Mourtzakis’ team has been evaluating clinically accessible approaches to using ultrasound for body composition assessment. Dr. Mourtzakis is currently an Associate Professor and the Scientific Director of the Centre for Community, Clinical and Applied Research Excellence in the Department of Kinesiology and Health Sciences at the University of Waterloo. 

Troy Glover (PhD '00)

Troy Glover is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies and Director of the Healthy Communities Research Network at the University of Waterloo. Professor Glover's research explores the process of transformative placemaking that shapes the public realm to facilitate social connectedness and improve the quality of community life.