Dr. Yousif Mohamed Al-Serkal – Director General of the Emirates Health Services, “comprised of five sectors and including 130 institutions”; it handles all health services in the northern Emirates, ranging from preventative medicine centers, to primary health care clinics, to hospitals, and other subspecialty centers, and serves more than 70,000 patients / month in the Accident and Emergency Unit, more than 7500 patient/month as inpatients and more than 80,000 patient/month as outpatients served by almost 10,000 employees. His current responsibilities include running the entity, as well as handling the daily COVID-19 related activities; He has a long history of serving in the healthcare sector from a Gastroenterologist in Al Qassimi & Al Kuwait Hospitals, Head of Gastroenterology Department and Specialist, Deputy of Hospital Director, Hospital Director, Hospital Director, Advisor to the Minister, Assistant Undersecretary in the Ministry of Health and Prevention to Director General in the Emirates Health Services.

Dr. Yousif is an ambitious professional. He completed his studies in Medicine at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland where he was awarded LRCP & SI, MB, B.ch, and B.A.O. (NUI). He pursued his post graduate studies in the Field of Medicine and Gastroenterology from University of Toronto and Queen Mary’s School of Medicine & Dentistry, UK.

On the local level, Dr. Serkal is a graduate of the Prime Minister Office Leadership Program for Executive Leaders. It was assigned to him to represent the Ministry of Health and Prevention in the national innovation committee that was established by the Prime Minister Office. And then he led the innovation committee in the Ministry.

Over the years, Dr. Serkal has served in many associations. He was the President of the Emirates Medical Association (EMA), the Vice President of the Emirates Gastroenterology Society. Currently he is a board member at the Emirates gastroenterology society (EGS), and a member of the Irish Medical Council.

Dr. Serkal Represented the Emirates Health Services & the Ministry of Health and Prevention in many International/ National meetings and was part of many committees and taskforces related to policies and strategies. He actively participates in International Healthcare Conferences.

Nour Kechacha is the President of the Canada-UAE Business Council (CUBC), an initiative spearheaded by the federal governments of Canada and the United Arab Emirates to advance bilateral trade relations and foster investments between the two countries.

A Canadian based in Abu Dhabi, Nour most recently served as an Advisor to two Canadian Ministers of Foreign Affairs and served for three years as a senior aide in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Office. In these roles, and among other important projects, she oversaw during the pandemic Canada’s largest peacetime repatriation effort and managed strategic partnerships with a wide range of stakeholders in the private, public, and not-for-profit sectors around critical government initiatives.

Nour’s previous experiences include positions at the House of Commons of Canada and at the National Council on Canada-Arab Relations, where she led the activities of the organization dedicated to promoting cooperation between Canada and the Arab World.

Prof. Amjad Qandil received his BSc Degree in Pharmacy from Jordan University of Science and Technology (JUST), Jordan and his PhD in Medicinal Chemistry and Drug Design form Purdue University, USA. Before joining the Commission, Prof. Qandil was an Associate Professor of Medicinal and Organic Chemistry in the Faculty of Pharmacy at Jordan University of Science and Technology, and a Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the College of Pharmacy at King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences (KSAU-HS), Riyadh, KSA. He has published work in several areas including Medicinal Chemistry, Drug Design, Pharmaceutical Sciences and Pharmaceutical Education. During the past 14 years he chaired the Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy was the Assistant Dean of Pharmacy (JUST) and the founding chair of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences (KSAU-HS). Additionally, Prof. Qandil chaired the Quality Unit and the Curriculum, Student Assessment and Accreditation Committees in both Colleges and also served as an Accreditation Academic Advisor to the Vice President, Development and Quality Management at King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences, Riyadh, KSA.

Dr. Yousef Aljawarneh holds a PhD degree in nursing sciences from the University of Texas at Houston (UTHealth) and a Master and Bachelor Degree from Jordan University of Science and Technology. Dr. Yousef has been working in academic education since 2009 where he taught undergraduate nursing students and mentored Master and PhD students in several academic institutions in the UAE and the USA. Dr. Yousef is a licensed Registered Nurse and worked in different clinical nursing care fields for 8 years including medical-surgical, critical care and burn units. He also worked as a clinical research associate for 2 years in King Faisal Specialty Hospital and Research Center in Riyadh, KSA. Dr. Yousef strongly believes in the integrative nursing care and teaching model toward an integrative nursing care and holistic practice.

As an academic nursing Faculty, he worked for 5 years with Fatima College for Health Sciences in UAE and for 2 years with the University of Texas at Houston. He joined the Higher Colleges of Technology in 2018 as a teaching Faculty and assigned as a program chair for nursing in 2019. He is also the Program Team Leader (PTL) for the nursing program at Ras-Al-Khaimah Women’s Campus and the acting chair of the midwifery program. In addition to his full duties as a teaching Faculty and the program chair for nursing, he is serving as a member in several education, research, and industrial committees including, the chair of the nursing Program Academic Committee, member in the Health Sciences Faculty Academic Committee, member in the Campus Council Committee, member in the UAE National Committee for Nursing and Midwifery Affairs, member in the UAE National Taskforce for Research, Evidence-based Practice for Nursing and Midwifery, member in the Nursing Education Reform Committee, member in the University of Sharjah Advisory Board, member in the Fatima College of Health Sciences Industrial Advisory Committee, member in the Gulf Medical University Advisory Board and a member in the Sigma Theta Tau International (Zeta Pi Chapter). He is the institutional representative in Nursing Now Challenge for Nightingale Challenge, Coventry University.

Dr. Yousef’s research and scholarly activity focuses on several areas within nursing and healthcare practice. In particular, his research is situated into four subcategories: 1) biochemical and biobehaviotal markers for diabetes treatment, prognosis, and quality of care, 2) psychometric and biometric measurement theory and analysis, 3) effectiveness of the competency-based education in upskilling undergraduate nursing and other health-sciences students, 4) cognitive fatigue and emotional intelligence. Currently, the cornerstone of his research program is devoted to higher education in nursing and the effectiveness of the competency-based nursing education on improving students learning, skills, and readiness for field employment. Dr. Yousef has multiple Scopus Index publications. Dr. Yousef has supervised and supervising several research projects studying novel topics in nursing and healthcare fields in addition to several independent research studies with local and international researchers. Dr. Yousef received several research grants in the past three years. A SEED grant from the Higher Colleges of Technology studying the associations between simulation-based nursing education, cognitive load, emotional intelligence, and self-efficacy among nursing students at Higher Colleges of Technology. A recent external grant from The World Health Organization for a national study entitled ““The Associations between Risk Perception, Cognitive Fatigue, Stigma and Quality of Life with Long-term Implementation of Social Measures during COVID-19 Pandemic in the UAE”.  And a co-author in a two-year Interdisciplinary Research Grant (IRG) from the Higher Colleges of Technology to study “The Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Work Readiness among College Graduate Students. He is also an editorial member in the American Journal of Nursing Sciences, and a reviewer for the International Journal of Mental Health Nursing, the Diabetes Research and Metabolism, and JAMA Pediatrics.

Dr. Yousef served as the chair of the International Conference on Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Health Sciences under ASET 2020. Also, we worked as the chair of the organizing committee and the scientific committee in the International Conference on Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Health Sciences under ASET 2020. Dr. Yousef has presented in several conferences and workshops on nursing and healthcare services, as well as on competency-based education and assessment.

Dr. Cynthia Baker is the Executive Director of the Canadian Association of Schools of Nursing (CASN) and a Professor Emerita of Queen’s University in Canada.  She is the former Director of Queen’s University School of Nursing, and Associate Dean of the Health Science Faculty.  Prior to this, she was the Director of l’École de science infirmière de l’Université de Moncton.

CASN is the official national accrediting body of nursing education programs in Canada. Dr. Baker has had extensive experience with all components of accreditation and is an international accreditation consultant.

Her educational qualifications include a Bachelor degree from McGill University in Canada, an MPhil in anthropology from the University of London, England, a Master’s in Nursing degree from Dalhousie University in Canada, and a PhD from the University of Texas at Austin in the United States.

Don Flaming is the Senior Nursing Education Coordinator at the Canadian Association of Schools of Nursing (CASN). He is a registered nurse whose clinical experience is in organ transplantation and emergency room nursing. As a nurse educator, he was a faculty member and program coordinator in the nursing program at Medicine Hat College in Alberta, Canada. During that time, he coordinated several approval and accreditation submissions to the provincial regulatory body and to CASN. He has also managed an ethics program for a provincial government agency and worked at the College and Association of Registered Nurses of Alberta, the provincial regulatory college for nursing, as the Manager, Nursing Education Program Approval and the Senior Manager, Policy and Practice. He has a Master’s and PhD in Nursing and has numerous publications and presentations, both peer reviewed and invited. Before being employed by CASN, he sat on the CASN Accreditation Board and has also been a member of a provincial research ethics board.

Dianne Tapp is currently Professor and Associate Dean Graduate Studies in the Faculty of Nursing at the University of Alberta. She is also Professor Emerita at the University of Calgary, where served as Dean in the Faculty of Nursing from 2007 to 2018. In her current role, she provides administrative leadership for master’s and doctoral nursing programs at the University of Alberta, including course-based and thesis-based master’s programs, an advanced clinical (MN-nurse practitioner) program, and the doctoral program. During 2021-2022, she has also been leading development and implementation of major curriculum revisions for these graduate programs.

Passionate about leadership in nursing education, Dr. Tapp has consulted and presented on topics related to the nursing shortage, nursing workforce issues and trends in nursing education. She has contributed to several program reviews and executive leadership selection panels, and has served on numerous committees including the University of Calgary-Qatar Joint Oversight Board; Alberta Nursing Leaders Network; Alberta Nursing Education Administrators; CASN Board of Directors and CASN advisory committees. Tapp is the recipient of the 2012 Canadian Nurses Association Order of Merit for Nursing Administration and the 2015 Canadian Association of Schools of Nursing Administrative Excellence Award.

Dr. Stremler is a nurse scientist whose research is aimed at improving sleep and related health outcomes for families. Dr. Stremler uses wearable sleep technology to assess sleep and deliver interventions to improve sleep through eHealth and mobile health platforms.  Her research projects address sleep during pregnancy and postpartum, sleep for adolescents, and sleep for families with a child with chronic or life-threatening illness.

Dr. Stremler is Associate Professor and Acting Associate Dean, Academic, at the University of Toronto in the Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing and Adjunct Scientist at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids). Dr. Stremler’s past clinical care activities include staff nurse positions in various maternal and newborn care and sleep clinic settings. She has taught in the undergraduate and graduate programs and in clinical and classroom settings at the Faculty of Nursing.

Dr. Steenbeek is a Professor and the Associate Director for the Graduate Program at Dalhousie University School of Nursing. Dr. Steenbeek achieved her BScN from McMaster university (1995); her MScN at University of British Columbia (2000) and her PhD in epidemiology at UBC (2005). Dr. Steenbeek started her appointment at Dalhousie University in November 2005. Dr. Steenbeek is an epidemiologist who specializes in disease epidemiology in remote, arctic communities in Canada. Additionally, her research interests include: vaccine hesitancy, Indigenous health, mental health and resilience, community based research and public health messaging. She teaches in both the undergraduate and graduate nursing program and sits on several committees locally, provincially, and nationally.

Kathy Kennedy is the Associate Dean for Specialty Nursing at the British Columbia Institute of Technology. She has over 25 years experience in Nursing and academic healthcare leadership. Kathy is responsible for the educational and operational leadership of eleven specialty nursing programs. She is experienced in leading transformational change by engaging diverse stakeholders to achieve common goals. She is passionate about the advancement of education through simulation and virtual simulation technologies and leads this work at her academic institute in order to create a more realistic and engaging environment for learners. Her work in this area has created opportunities for government funding and contributed towards the 2018 Sim Innovator Award.

Nancy Carter is an Associate Professor and Assistant Dean of the Graduate Nursing Programs at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. Her clinical experience includes pediatrics and women’s health. She supervises students at the Masters and PhD level and teaches leadership and research methods courses.

Dr. Carter’s current work at McMaster involves an evidence-based renewal of the curriculum for Masters, NP, and PhD Programs. She is a member of the Canadian Centre for Advanced Practice Nursing Research (CCAPNR). She has published over 50 peer-articles in related to nursing roles and health services. Currently her research focuses the development and evaluation of models of care which include specialized and Advanced Practice Nurses.

Alkhansa Ahmad Alawad is a Registered Nurse and currently working as the Program Coordinator for the New Nurse Graduates in Ras Al Khaimah Region within Emirates Health Services since August, 2021. She started her career journey as staff nurse and progressed professionally and academically to assume the role of a Clinical Resource Nurse within same organization. She has successfully achieved Master degree in Health Profession Education awarded by the Gulf Medical University, UAE and currently is a Certified Registered Nurse Infusion by Infusion Nurses Certification Corporation (INCC) and a Basic Life Support Instructor by American Heart Association (AHA).

Alkhansa has worked extensively on professional development programs’ design, delivery and evaluation. One of the main programs she contributed to is the simulation-based Maternal-Fetal Triage Index (MFTI) training program for emergency nurses. Additionally, she conducted low-fidelity simulation-based training on Eclampsia management, cardiopulmonary resuscitation and medication administration. She successfully conducted organized drills for the protocol of actions by Rapid Response Team.

Alkhansa is a highly motivated professional committed for the delivery of world-class healthcare services supported with solid research skills. She has been honored with Best Nurse Award by Saqr Hospital, UAE in 2015.

After graduating with a diploma in nursing in 1989, Dr. Duchscher’s early career was focused on developing expertise as a direct care nurse, researcher, leader and educator in cardiothoracic and high acuity (critical care) contexts.  Instrumental to her early development was a 10-year tenure developing and coordinating heart, lung and multi-organ donor transplant teams across Canada and the United States. Judy’s commitment to advanced education can be seen in her acquisition of a Post-Graduate Diploma in Intensive Care Nursing from the University of Manitoba, a Diploma in Cardiovascular Nursing from Stanford University in California, a Clinical Transplant Coordinator Diploma from John’s Hopkins in Baltimore, Critical Care Registered Nurse (CCRN) certification through the American Association of Critical Care Nursing, a Post-RN Baccalaureate and Master’s degree in nursing from the University of Saskatchewan and a PhD from the University of Alberta. For the past 23 years Dr. Duchscher has been an active researcher and consultant in the area of new graduate professional role transition – work for which she has received 32 national and international grants, awards and scholarships. The findings of her research generated a theory of Transition Shock and a model of the Stages of Transition resulting in the publication of more than 18 peer-reviewed articles, 2 books, 10 book chapters and the delivery of over 400 keynotes and workshops throughout Canada, the United States, Australia and Asia on the topic of new nurse integration. In 2003, Dr. Duchscher founded and then served as the Executive Director of a federally registered non-profit nursing organization entitled Nursing The Future (NTF). For 10 years this provincially funded (Saskatchewan Ministry of Health) organization served as a bridge between the ideals taught in undergraduate nursing education and the realities of the ‘real’ world of professional practice, offering grassroots support to graduates struggling with their entry into the workplace, leadership opportunities to students and new graduates who led transition support networks across Canada, and an international conference that supported knowledge translation and dissemination on the topic of professional role transition. After taking a momentary break in 2014 to return to acute-care where she managed a 41-bed telemetry unit, Dr. Duchscher returned to academia in 2018 as an Associate Professor at Thompson Rivers University and re-engaged in her work with new nurses.  In 2020 she was seconded by the Canadian Nurses Foundation to re-establish Nursing The Future as the national platform of support for new nurses in this country. Dr. Duchscher maintains that “it is the vision, creativity and passionate commitment of these young professionals, supported by the expert knowledge and practice experience of their senior mentors that will drive nursing and healthcare forward”.