Our Board
Dr. OmiSoore Dryden
Co-Lead
Dr. OmiSoore H. Dryden, a Black queer femme, is the James R Johnston Chair in Black Canadian Studies, Faculty of Medicine, an Associate Professor at Dalhousie University, and the Interim Director of the Black Studies (in STEMM) Research Institute. Dr. Dryden engages in interdisciplinary scholarship and research that focuses on Black LGBTQI communities, blood donation systems in Canada, systemic/structural issues that affect health and well-being, medical education, and Black health curricular content development. Dryden is a content expert and Associate Scientist with the Maritime Strategy for Patient-Oriented Research (SPOR) SUPPORT Unit (MSSU).
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Dr. Dryden is the Principal Investigator of #GotBlood2Give / #DuSangÀDonner a research project that seeks to identify the barriers Black gay, bisexual, and trans men encounter with donating blood and also analyzes how anti-black racism, colonialism, and sexual exceptionalism shapes the blood system in Canada. Most recently, Dryden is the Principal Investigator on the project Don’t Count Us Out! – a community-informed, culturally sensitive approach to health promotion for African Nova Scotian communities with an initial focus on COVID-19 pandemic. Dryden is a member of the Black Feminist Health Science Studies Collective, a board member of the Health Association of African Canadians, and the past co-president of the Black Canadian Studies Association (2019-2021).
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Dr. Onye Nnorom
Co-Lead
Dr. Onye Nnorom is a distinguished physician, advocate, public speaker, and leader in the field of public health and equity. She is a family doctor and public health and preventive medicine specialist and Assistant Professor at Dalla Lana School of Public Health and the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the Temerty Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto. She is the co-founder of the Black Health Education Collaborative, a national organization committed to transforming medical and health professional education in service of improved health of Black communities across Canada.
Born in Montreal to parents of Nigerian and Trinidadian backgrounds, she learned at an early age the impact of social injustice and the power of community action. Dr. Nnorom completed her medical training at McGill University and then completed a Master of Public Health (Epidemiology) and residency training at the University of Toronto. With a particular focus on Black populations, her expertise lies in the intersection of racism and health, and she has been instrumental in advancing equitable healthcare practices and medical education policies.
Professor Sume Ndumbe-Eyoh
Executive Director
Sume Ndumbe-Eyoh is the Executive Director of the Black Health Education Collaborative and an Assistant Professor in the Clinical Public Health Division at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto.
She is a catalytic leader who mobilizes knowledge and activates networks to advance policy and practice on social and economic issues that impact health and wellbeing. She spent a decade with the National Collaborating Centre for Determinants of Health, where she provided leadership to public health practice on health equity, the social determinants of health including racism, in partnership with institutions across Canada. She has served in an advisory capacity for working groups and committees led by numerous national health organizations including the Public Health Agency of Canada, Canadian Institutes for Health Information and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
Sume provides strategic consultations to organizations as principal of Another World Lab. She holds a Master of Health Sciences in Health Promotion and Global Health from the University of Toronto. Hailing from Cameroon, she is grateful to live, work and play in Turtle Island and is committed to working towards decolonial futures.
Dr. Barbara-Ann Hamilton-Hinch
Board Member
Dr. Barb Hamilton-Hinch is from the historical African Nova Scotian communities of Beechville and Cherry Brook. She is the mother of three amazing boys. She is said to be the first historical African Nova Scotian to graduate with a PhD from Dalhousie University. Dr. Hamilton-Hinch is an Associate Professor in the School of Health and Human Performance and the Assistant Vice Provost Equity and Inclusion at Dalhousie University.
Dr. Hamilton-Hinch holds several other positions at Dalhousie University. She is the co-team lead for the Improving the Health Outcomes of People of African Descent Research Flagship with Healthy Populations Institute, she is one of the founders of Imhotep Legacy Academy, co-chair of Promoting Leadership in Health for African Nova Scotians, co chair of the Faculty of Health Diversity and Inclusion Committee and a member of several other committees.
Her work examines the impact of structural, systemic, and institutional racism on diverse populations, particularly people of African descent. Some of Dr. Hamilton-Hinch’s current research projects include: Closing the Opportunity Gap for African Nova Scotian Learners, Racialized Bodies and Elite Sports, and A culturally specific COVID-19 response strategy for African Nova Scotians in the Prestons.
Dr. Delia Douglas
Board Member
Delia D. Douglas holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a Master of Science in Sport Studies from Miami University (Oxford, OH). Her scholarship is interdisciplinary, drawing upon critical race and gender studies, Black diaspora studies, postcolonial studies and sport studies, and is attentive to the continuing significance of the legacies of enslavement, imperialism, and settler colonialism.
Some of her written work has been published in the Journal of Black Studies, Gender Place and Culture, the Journal of Critical Race Inquiry, Sociology of Sport Journal, and the Journal of Sport and Social Issues and has been referenced in popular media such as the New York Times, Flare, Vox, and the Bleacher Report. She has taught at the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice at the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, and at selected US universities, and has developed online courses on Critical Race Theory for Athabasca University, Thorneloe University, as well as the University of Manitoba Inner City Social Work Program at the William Norrie Centre. Dr. Douglas' expertise in race, gender, and sport is recognized internationally, and she has been an invited speaker at the United Nations at Geneva. Dr. Douglas is the Director of the Office of Anti Racism at the Rady Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Manitoba.
Dr. Gaynor Watson-Creed
Board Member
Dr. Gaynor Watson-Creed is the Assistant Dean of Serving and Engaging Society for Dalhousie University’s Faculty of Medicine, and Chair of the Board of Engage Nova Scotia.
She is a public health specialist physician with 16 years experience, having served as the former Medical Officer of Health for the Halifax area and Deputy Chief Medical Officer of Health for Nova Scotia.
Dr. Watson-Creed has an MD from Dalhousie University, an MSc from the University of Guelph, and a BSc from the University of Prince Edward Island. She received a Doctor of Science, honoris causa, from Acadia University in 2021.
She also sits as chair or member of several national population health councils and boards, and is a passionate advocate for high-quality public health services in Canada.
Dr. Kannin Osei-Tutu
Board Member
Dr. Kannin Osei-Tutu MD, MSc, CCFP is a University of Toronto trained family physician who specializes in acute care inpatient medicine and has spent the past 11 years of his professional career caring for patients with diseases related to socio-political inequity and marginalization.
He is a Clinical Assistant Professor and Associate Director of Student Advising and Wellness at the Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary. He holds local, provincial, and national leadership roles including Director of Resident Support for PGME, co-curriculum lead for the development of health equity anti-racism curriculum, founder and President of the Black Physicians’ Association (BPAA), the CPSA Anti-racism Anti-discrimination Action Committee, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Strategic Advisor for the RCPSC, Chair of the Accreditation Work Group to Address Anti-Black Racism, Steering Committee member of the CANMED25 project, and Board Member of the Black Physicians of Canada (BPC). He is an active collaborator on several regional and national research projects that examine wellness, sense of belonging, and equity in clinical medicine. His emerging program of research seeks to reconceptualize compassion in an intentionally inclusive way and develop digital technology and artificial intelligence tools to promote equity in health outcomes.
