BIO

Anna is interested in the gut-brain axis and the impact the gut microbiota has on mental health. Her project currently consists of a systematic review that assesses the efficacy of microbiome manipulation trials on depression symptoms. She is also interested in analyzing the effectiveness of alternative treatment plans for patients with anxiety and depression.

BIO

Dr. Alannah McEvoy is currently a postdoctoral fellow within the SAMAAN lab. Her current research focuses on conducting genome-wide association studies and polygenic risk scores within the opioid use disorder population. Dr. McEvoy often collaborates with her peers in order to refine skills and knowledge of psychiatric disorders.

Dr. McEvoy has additional publications avaialble at https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38102185/

BIO

Jackie coordinates several of the projects in progress in the SAMAAN lab and, specifically, the pharmacogenetics of opioid substitution treatment response (POST) study.

BIO

Dr. Tea Rosic is a child and adolescent psychiatrist at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario and lecturer in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Ottawa. Dr. Rosic completed her medical training and general psychiatry residency at McMaster University, followed by fellowship training in child and adolescent psychiatry at UOttawa. She has successfully  completed her PhD in health research methodology at McMaster University, under Dr. Samaan’s supervision. Her research focuses on the impact and treatment of psychiatric comorbidity in individuals with opioid use disorder. Dr. Rosic’s other research interests include treatment of concurrent mental health and substance health disorders in adolescents, assessment and management of vaping and understanding health service use patterns among individuals with concurrent disorders.

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Myanca is interested in methodological techniques for geriatric psychiatry research. Her projects assess outcome measurement and reporting in clinical trials for older adults with depression. She is also interested in the use of cluster analytic methods to predict patterns of co-occurring chronic conditions among older adults with opioid use disorders.

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Dr. Leen Naji is an assistant clinical professor of family medicine at McMaster University and an assistant professor of medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She is currently completing her PhD in the health research methodology program at McMaster University, focusing her thesis on identifying predictors of treatment outcomes for patients with opioid use disorder.

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Dr. Brittany Dennis (MBBS, PhD) is a clinician scientist with training in general internal medicine and an area of focused competency in addiction medicine. She is currently completing the BCCSU addiction medicine fellowship. Prior to her undergraduate medical training at the University of London (MBBS), she completed a PhD in health research methodology at McMaster University, under the supervision of Dr. Zena Samaan. To establish capacity in large-data base analytics she received post-doctoral training at Stanford University, the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) and through the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Research in Addiction Medicine Scholars Program (Boston and Yale University).

Dr. Dennis has been an important contributor to over 85 peer-reviewed publications, 20 national and international presentations, an expert panel for Canada’s 2023 national guidance on opioids for chronic non-cancer pain and a textbook chapter on opioid use disorder. She has held five grants as a junior principal investigator ($105,000 total funds) since 2020. As one of Canada’s first addiction-focused research methodologists, her work has advanced the prioritization of patient important outcomes and directly informed methods to improve evidence synthesis, enhance measurement selection, increase generalizability and promote guideline development for studies evaluating therapies for patients with addiction. Her scholarship is highlighted by numerous accolades including the prestigious David L. Sackett Award ($5,000 prize), Paul O’Byrne Research Award ($5,000 prize) and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Funded Intersections in Metal Health Perspectives in Addictions Care training fellowship ($21,000). Her PhD work, alone, received the outstanding thesis award for doctoral dissertations and garnered her a valedictorian title.

BIO

Dr. Samaan is the principal investigator of the SAMAAN lab. After earning her medical degree, she completed her psychiatry and research training in Ireland and the United Kingdom. Dr. Samaan holds a master’s of science from Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, and a PhD in psychiatric genetics from the Institute of Psychiatry and Kings College London, UK. She is a staff psychiatrist at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton and a Professor at McMaster University.

Dr. Samaan’s research interests focus on mood and substance use disorders, as well as risk factors and intervention for suicidal behaviour. Her work focuses on identifying genetic and social determinants of course of disease and treatment response and the identification of patient-important outcomes. Dr. Samaan is also interested in the development of precision-based medicine approaches to clinical management of psychiatric disorders.

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Jennifer works as a research assistant for the Brief Intervention and Contact (BIC) study. She is instrumental in recruiting and interviewing those participating in the study.

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Joe Steinman is a medical student at McMaster University (c2025). Prior to medical school, he received his BSc in Chemical Physics (Math minor) from Trent University, followed by an MSc and PhD in Medical Biophysics (Medical Physics and Imaging) at U of T. From 2020 until the start of medical school, he was a postdoc in the Department of Physiology at U of T. His research prior to medical school focused on developing and applying imaging technologies to investigate microvascular remodeling in a mouse model of traumatic brain injury (TBI). Through combining blood flow imaging with 3D microscopy of microvascular network structure, the research examined how changes to brain blood vessels influenced blood flow and recovery from TBI.

During the postdoc, Joe studied brain-vascular recovery in neonatal hypoxic-ischemic injury. As a member of the SAMAAN lab, he is a research analyst on the BRAVE Depression trial, as well as contributor to other studies.