Key Research Collaborators
Shelly Weiss, MD, FRCPC
Dr. Weiss is a Paediatric Neurologist at SickKids, Toronto ON with expertise in epilepsy and sleep neurology and a Professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto. Dr. Weiss has held national and international leadership positions in sleep medicine including being the Past President of the Canadian Sleep Society and a past member of the Governing Council of the World Sleep Society representing North America. Dr. Weiss is currently the Vice-Chair of the fellowship program committee in sleep disorder medicine at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons, Canada. Her research interest areas are in paediatric epilepsy, and paediatric sleep disorders which includes the development and evaluation of eHealth interventions for the treatment of paediatric insomnia. In Corkum LABS. Dr. Weiss has been involved in the creation of Better Nights, Better Days for Typically Developing Children. She is a co-principal research with Dr. Corkum on the Better Nights, Better Days for Children with Neurodevelopmental Disorders study and the Better Nights, Better Days for Children with Epilepsy study.
Elizabeth Keys, PhD
Dr. Keys is a Registered Nurse and Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia in the School of Nursing. She has a clinical background in community and public health nursing focused on promoting child and family wellbeing in the community. The goal of her program of research is to promote and maintain infant and parental mental health by supporting parent-child interactions and sleep health. In her research, Dr. Keys examines how innovative approaches and models of care, such as eHealth and precision health, can be leveraged to contribute to sustainable health services transformation that results in real-world improvements in the lives of families. She now leads the SLeep solUtions to proMote Better Early childhood Relationships (SLUMBER) Research Lab at the UBC Okanagan campus. Prior to joining the School of Nursing at UBC Okanagan in 2021, Dr. Keys completed an interdisciplinary CIHR-funded postdoctoral fellowship at Dalhousie University in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience. During her postdoctoral fellowship, Dr. Keys modified the ABCs of SLEEPING mobile app for use with parents of infants aged 6 to 12 months of age. Currently in Corkum LABS, Dr. Keys is a co-investigator on the BNBD during COVID-19 study.
Gabrielle Rigney, PhD
Dr. Rigney is a lecturer and Discipline Lead for Undergraduate Psychology at Central Queensland University. She is based at the Appleton Institute in Adelaide, Australia. Her broad research areas are paediatric sleep and eHealth sleep interventions. She completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Dalhousie University in 2016-2018. During her two years at Dalhousie, Dr. Rigney predominantly worked on the development of eHealth programs for parents of children with insomnia, working with a large team of paediatric sleep specialists across Canada. She had a lead role in modifying the Better Nights, Better Days program so that it was suitable for parents of children with neurodevelopmental disorders (Better Nights, Better Days for Children with Neurodevelopmental Disorders), using a transdiagnostic approach to treatment. In collaboration with Dr Corkum, Dr Rigney has also extended the work from her PhD with school-aged children and adolescents, developing eHealth programs Better Nights, Better Days-Youth and Healthy Sleep for Healthy Schools. In Corkum LABS, she is currently involved in the Healthy Sleep for Healthy Schools and Better Nights, Better Days – Youth studies.