Carolyn Sparrey

Dr. Carolyn Sparrey is the director of the SFU Neurospine Lab. Her primary research focus for the past two decades has been applying engineering principles and ideas to human health and wellbeing. Carolyn’s work spans fundamental injury models and tissue mechanics through the development and validation of a broad range of health technology solutions from concept through commercial product testing. When the pandemic limited human research activities in 2020, she took the ImageTech Lab through the clinical accreditation process, working closely with colleagues in medical imaging. Running a clinical practice and integrating into the range of workflows, IT systems integration, purchasing contracts, provincial service contracts etc. gave her new insights into the range of barriers and challenges to translating health technologies from concept to implementation. Our prior Health Research BC Convene and Collaborate award to discuss the future of health technology research highlighted a keep gap in patient and caregiver education opportunities which motivated our current REACH activities.