Our team.

Kara Redden manages the day-to-day operations of the CCfV Challenge Unit and directs and supervises the team of nurses and research assistants. She is committed to providing quality and compassionate patient care while facilitating best practices at the patient-, clinical- and management-level. Kara’s background is in community and Public Health, pandemic response, and women’s health research. Her career has included contributing to women’s health research as a research assistant, assessing students in postpartum and newborn care as an instructor at McGill University, managing a health clinic, and, most recently, leading a team of nurses as a charge nurse with the Provincial COVID Response Team / Public Health Mobile Unit in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Dr. May ElSherif is a clinical scientist and the Associate Director for Laboratory Management at CCfV, leading a team of research staff and collaborating with researchers from across Canada. Her background ranges from clinical responsibilities to microbiology and work related to infectious disease, vaccinology research, vaccine and clinical trials, and surveillance. In her earlier medical career, Dr. ElSherif worked as a primary health care physician in Egypt, and as a physician with a US Medical Research Unit in Cairo. She later transitioned into a role as Medical Research Scientist and Training Coordinator with her unit and held the lead lab position for the WHO/Eastern Mediterranean Regional Office Rotavirus Surveillance Network (EMRSN).

Dr Scott Halperin is the Director of the Canadian Center for Vaccinology (CCfV) and Nominated Principal Investigator of the Canadian Immunization Research Network. He has played a foundational role in the establishment of these and other Canadian collaborative research networks undertaking evaluative vaccine research that informs public health policy and practice. Dr. Halperin’s area of expertise is pertussis, and his research focuses on the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of pertussis and other vaccine-preventable diseases. Dr. Halperin is also a Professor of Pediatrics and Microbiology and Immunology at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.