BC SUPPORT Unit welcomes Dr. Linda Li as new scientific director

Photo: Linda Li is the new scientific director for the BC SUPPORT Unit.

BC’s health research community will benefit from a new scientific director who will advance health evidence to improve BC’s health system.

The BC SUPPORT Unit, part of Michael Smith Health Research BC, welcomes Dr. Linda Li as its scientific director, effective August 1st. Linda is an experienced scientific leader and an expert in patient-oriented research.

“The best care is delivered by health systems that listen to and act on patients’ needs,” said Dr. Stirling Bryan, chief scientific officer, Michael Smith Health Research BC. “That’s why we’re grateful Linda will be leading this work. Her leadership will help advance the way we move evidence developed with patients into practice.”

Linda will play a vital role in Health Research BC. Her portfolio will include the BC SUPPORT Unit’s learning health systems program and advancing patient-oriented research, as well as supporting Health Research BC’s science program.

“When people with lived experience and communities participate in research, we all benefit,” said Linda. “I’m excited to help improve the health system and ensure patients are at the core of what we do.”

Linda is professor and Harold Robinson/Arthritis Society Chair in Arthritic Diseases in the department of physical therapy at the University of British Columbia, and a senior scientist at Arthritis Research Canada. She holds a Canada Research Chair in Patient-oriented Knowledge Translation, and she received a number of awards from Michael Smith Health Research BC.

Linda succeeds Dr. Lindsay Hedden in the role. Lindsay moved into a permanent professorship in health services research in the faculty of health sciences at Simon Fraser University this spring.