Careers panel: Practice in Health Sciences

Victoria Babysheva, MHE, PhD Student

Victoria is a first-year PhD student at the School of Public Health Sciences. Her research is focused on exploring and evaluating strategies to address the shortage of healthcare professionals and improve their retention in critical care. In 2019, Victoria graduated from the Master of Health Evaluation program at the University of Waterloo. She has a background in medicine and is an internationally trained physician. Prior to completing the MHE program, she worked as a Diagnostic Medical Sonographer at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto.

Currently, Victoria works as an Evaluation Specialist at Critical Care Service Ontario, a provincial agency working with Ontario Health and the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care to advance care in intensive care units across Ontario. She will be speaking about her experiences navigating the healthcare landscape, working with multidisciplinary teams, and designing, conducting, and analyzing a wide range of evaluations of complex social and health interventions.

Karolina Kaminska, MSc, PhD Candidate

Karolina is a PhD candidate in Public Health Sciences, Health Evaluation at the University of Waterloo. She obtained her Bachelor of Health Sciences and MSc in Health Systems at the University of Ottawa, and worked at several national and international non-profit and governmental organizations, including the World Health Organization, Canadian Foundation for Healthcare Improvement, the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction, and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

Karolina specializes in qualitative and quantitative research, analysis, and evaluation design, approaches, and methods. Her current doctoral research focuses on improving identification of youth with mental health and substance use issues by leveraging system- level evaluation, analysis, and machine learning.

Maddy McBay, BSc Health Studies

Maddy McBay is a Product Manager for health care technology company coeus.health where she fearlessly leads product vision, strategy and execution for the product suite. Here, Maddy has played an integral role in building out a world class patient engagement solution using artificial intelligence and large language models (LLMs) to provide perfected, reliable, multilingual patient communication. 

During her time in the Health Studies program (Health Informatics option) at University of Waterloo, Maddy co-founded TAMVOES, a digital healthcare platform acclaimed as a top tech startup, earning her a well-deserved Co-op Student of the Year award for the Faculty of Health in 2021. Madison drove the company's mission and vision of empowering individuals to make more informed decisions about their care, while providing a platform to access their personal health information. Maddy has proven her commitment to innovation and her passion for driving improvements in patient experience, access and outcomes. She is excited to share more about her journey into health technology and provide insight into the opportunities that are available for other graduates in this sector.

Melissa Potwarka, MSc, PhD Candidate

Since 2009, Melissa has worked in health promotion, community development, and program evaluation in public health, post-secondary education, and most recently as a consultant with Collective Results. During her time in public health, Melissa managed several interdisciplinary public health teams addressing reproductive health, early childhood development, and healthy communities and public health policy. Melissa has led cross-sectoral leaders in systems planning for child and youth mental health in several communities across Ontario.

As of March 2024, Melissa will be rejoining Campus Wellness at University of Waterloo, as Associate Director, Health Promotion. Melissa is passionate about working with students and facilitating collaborative, multi-sectoral action to address health inequities and social determinants of health. Melissa holds a Master of Science in Health Studies and Gerontology and is a PhD Candidate in the School of Public Health Science at the University of Waterloo. Melissa’s research will contribute to our theoretical understanding of a whole-systems approach to wellbeing in higher education.

Angela M. Sinilaité, MPH, DrPH Candidate

Angela Sinilaité is a Senior Scientific Project Coordinator with the National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) Secretariat at the Public Health Agency of Canada. As a technical advisor with a professional background in infectious disease epidemiology, Angela is responsible for strategic planning and coordination of a range of technical and scientific activities to compile and analyze evidence for the development of national immunization guidance.

She completed the Master of Public Health (MPH) program at the University of Waterloo and has an Honours Bachelor of Science (HBSc) degree from the University of Toronto, with specialization in Health & Disease, Immunology, and Psychology. While supporting the work of NACI, Angela is concurrently completing the Doctor of Public Health (DrPH) in Leadership degree at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) School of Public Health. 

The systems thinking and adaptive leadership skills/competencies that Angela has acquired through the UIC DrPH program’s innovative approach to doctoral-level practice leadership development, multidisciplinary academic training, and research experience have been instrumental for her work as a public health leader within the Canadian federal government. Angela continues to teach graduate students and regularly provides leadership coaching and mentorship as a preceptor for MPH practicum placements.