Alumni Profile - Vyshnave Jeyabalan, MHIS'20

Current position: Community Engagement Coordinator, Centre for Aging + Brain Health Innovation (CABHI)

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What is your current role?

"As the community engagement coordinator at CABHI, I engage end-users (older adults and their care givers, health care providers etc.) and apply their lived experience to identify, co-design and inform innovations. Currently, I manage a new project that aims to expand end-user engagement activities through an online platform. I also run a company called Aced It! (@aced.it_) to help high school, undergraduate, and graduate students in their academic endeavours."

How did HIS help you get where you are in your career?

"My thesis and the knowledge translation course got me interested in community engagement and integrated knowledge translation so I started looking for jobs related to it. The role at CABHI as community engagement coordinator focused on both community engagement and knowledge translation, which was perfect for me! The theoretical knowledge I obtained from the program was very helpful in landing the job.”

“As a kid I always wanted to help people. This program gives you the opportunity to look at healthcare and say, 'how can we make it better?'”

What would you say to a person considering the program?

"The HIS program is a good intersection between health science and health informatics; you get the best of both worlds. There is the opportunity to customize the program to fit what you really want through the project you choose to do and the courses you take."

What was the focus of your thesis?

"I did my thesis on context-specific challenges of using drones for healthcare from the perspective of frontline staff and project managers worldwide. More specifically, I was interested in community engagement and how this was being done in these communities where drones were being introduced."