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Board of Directors

We are governed by a volunteer board of directors that ensures that our activities fulfill our mission and mandate. Our board reflects the diversity of Ontario’s population and Health Nexus’s areas of expertise. Following are the profiles of our Board of Directors.

Profiles

David I Hay - Chair
(board member since 2006)

David is a principal of Information Partnership, a policy research and information management consulting firm. From 2004-2007, David was the Director, Family Network of the Canadian Policy Research Networks. From 2002-2004, David was the Manager of Reports and Analysis at the Canadian Population Health Initiative at the Canadian Institute for Health Information. Prior to moving to Ontario, David worked in British Columbia in the areas of applied community research, community development and policy with public, private and non-profit sector organizations. David has a PhD in Community Health from the University of Toronto, and resides in Ottawa.

Maryse Bélanger
(Board member since 2009)

Maryse is a Mental Health Advocate, who is working at improving the Canadian Mental Health System in establishing better ways for service providers to reach out to people dealing with mental illnesses. Maryse is a News Producer and Television Journalist by trade, with 13 years experience in the television broadcasting industry. She worked on the assignment desk for CTV National News, as the Daily News Service’s Assignment Editor for 8 years. Before joining CTV, she was a Producer and TV Journalist on Parliament Hill in Ottawa for CPAC. She also worked in communications before entering the news industry, where she managed and implemented various promotional campaigns and developed communications tools and materials. Maryse is thrilled to have joined Health Nexus’ Board of Directors since she believes that this organization contributes directly to the well-being of Canadians. Maryse is fluent in French and English and has a degree in Communications with specialization in Medias.

Juana Berinstein
(board member since 2010)

Juana Berinstein is the Director of Policy and Communications for the Association of Ontario Midwives. She has been involved in policy initiatives, systemic advocacy and research in the areas of women’s health and poverty. She has a Master’s degree in Communication and Culture with a focus on public policy. She is fluent in Spanish and has been involved with the Latin American and LGBTTQ communities as a volunteer and activist.  She lives in Toronto with her partner and two daughters.

Marie Boutilier-Dean
(Board member since 2009)

Marie Boutilier-Dean is a health sociologist, who holds a status appointment as Assistant Professor in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health; she is also a principal in Mapleview Consulting.  She conducts qualitative and participatory/action research on a range of health issues. She is a frequent reviewer of scholarly journals and funding proposals, has experience on non-profit boards, and holds a Ph.D. in Community Health, University of Toronto, specializing in Health Promotion.  She hails from southwest Ontario (Brantford) and now lives, with her family, in west Toronto.  Her most recent projects have been with the Health Promotion program at U of T, and the Kenyan government.

Eliseo Martell
(board member since 2004)

Eliseo is presently the Manager of the Youth Health Program, Waterloo Region Public Health, where he has worked in various management and director positions since the early 1990’s. He presently lives in Kitchener Ontario. He is trained as a medical doctor overseas and was a professor in the School of Medicine, Community Health Programs and a Director of Community Health Program, both in his native El Salvador.

Eliseo has been actively involved in the annual conferences of the OPHA, holds a Masters degree in Public Administration from the Central American Institute of Public Administration and a Masters Degree in Public Health from the Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Eliseo has been involved in various fields of research and has published a number of papers on evaluating the effectiveness of different health programs.

He is a past president of the OPHA Board of Directors, a member of the Social Planning Council, Region of Waterloo, board member of the KW Counselling Services and has chaired the Multicultural Health Coalition, Waterloo Region.

Marilee A. Nowgesic
(Board member since 2008)

Marilee was recently nominated as the Executive Director to the Aboriginal Sports Canada. Worked with several clients (such as federal, provincial and non-government agencies) to develop social marketing campaigns, communications strategies, education programs and policy development initiatives which were targeted for Aboriginal communities across Canada. Born and raised in her home community of Fort William First Nation near Thunder Bay, Ontario – Ms. Nowgesic is Ojibway and of the Eagle clan. The oldest of four siblings, Ms. Nowgesic obtained her undergraduate degree in Sociology and continued her graduate studies in the same discipline with a focus on Aboriginal people. An overarching and recurring theme in work with her various clients is to design a workshop/seminar series to develop awareness and positive understanding of the traditional knowledge, cultural protocol and current issues of Canada’s Aboriginal people.

Diane Quintas
(board member since June 2009)

Diane Quintas is a Franco-Ontarian who resides in Thunder Bay with her husband and their daughter.  She is fluent in French, English and Spanish and has a Master’s degree in Psychology.   She presently works as the Assistant Director of the Réseau francophone de santé du Nord de l’Ontario.  The Réseau is an organization that works towards improving access to primary health care for Francophones living in minority situations in Northern Ontario.  In this position she has been instrumental in the organization of various different health promotion and prevention information days and forums for the Francophone community across Northern Ontario.

Diane has also worked as a mental health practitioner for approximately ten years in various capacities.  She presently runs a private practice in counselling with a focus on serving the Francophone community in Thunder Bay.  

Megan Williams
(board member since 2006)

Megan is a Health Promotion Specialist at the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit, working out of the Barrie office. She brings experience in program planning and implementation, policy, community/partnership development, teaching and group facilitation. Megan also has an extensive background in journalism, communications and social marketing. Megan has a Master of Public Health from Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Australia, and resides in Barrie.