Meet the Team
Dr. Novak is a Scientist at KITE Toronto Rehabilitation Institute-UHN and Assistant Professor in the Department of Occupational Sciences and Occupational Therapy, University of Toronto. Her research focuses on understanding mobility and community accessibility in challenging environments and the impact of environmental design on mobility in persons with and without disability. Dr. Novak is the lead author of the “Canadian Roadmap for Accessibility Standards”, published with Canadian Standards Association. Dr. Novak is actively involved with current changes to the National Building Code of Canada and Canadian accessibility standards to build an age-friendly and safe environment. Her past research has been translated to inform built environment standards [Novak et al., 2016; King & Novak, 2017; Komisar et al., 2018,2019]. She is a current member of CSA B651 Technical Committee and a member of Accessibility Standards Canada’s technical committee currently developing standards for outdoor spaces.
Dr. Dutta is the Director of the Engineering Health Team at KITE and an Assistant Professor in the Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Rehabilitation Sciences Insititute at the University of Toronto. His team's goal is to develop better guidelines, standards, products and tools helping individuals with disabilities to live safely and independently in their communities and to counteract inactivity and isolation. His team's past work includes providing recommendations on updated accessibility standards for mobility scooters [Dutta et al., 2011; King et al., 2011], which have been included in the latest version of the CSA Group's Accessible Design for the Built Environment Standard (B651-18). Dr. Dutta is also leading research projects for Accessibility Standards Canada on improving emergency evacuations for individuals with disabilities as well as improving accessibility of our National Parks.
Dr. Campos is the Chief Scientist of Challenging Environments Assessment Laboratory (KITE) and an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology (University of Toronto). Dr. Campos’ research focuses on enhancing safe mobility during walking under realistic and challenging conditions. This includes understanding how age-related sensory impairments (e.g., vision, hearing) and cognitive impairments can increase the risk of falls (e.g., in healthy older adults, those with hearing loss, dementia). She uses virtual reality and simulation technologies to a) carefully recreate realworld conditions, to ensure the generalizability of research outcomes to real-world applications and b) adapt these technologies for training and rehabilitation interventions.
Iris joined the Home and Community Team as a post-doctoral fellow in 2017. Dr. Levine’s primary research goal is to evaluate fall hazard—what differs between those who fall and those who fracture. Iris received her BS in Exercise Science from SUNY University at Buffalo, and her MSc and PhD in Kinesiology (Biomechanics) from the University of Waterloo. Her doctoral research linked falling configuration and individual faller characteristics with mechanical risk of injury. Iris currently developing new ways to assess hazards associated with slips in indoor, outdoor and occupational environments, in real-time. Her goal is to inform building code and accessibility standards, improve assistive device recommendations and support the design of more effective interventions to allow people to fall more safely.
Dr. Alison Novak
Principal Investigator
Dr. Tilak Dutta
Dr. Jennifer Campos
Co-Investigator
Dr. Iris Levine
EnABL Scientific Associate
​​iris.levine@uhn.ca
Partners
Canadian Disability Foundation
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Through our societies, we provide opportunities for people with physical disabilities to enable their individual journeys.
Rick Hansen Foundation
To create and deliver innovative solutions that lead to a global movement to remove barriers and liberate the potential of people with disabilities.
AGE WELL Network of Excellence
DeafBlind Ontario
AGE-WELL is dedicated to the creation of technologies and services that benefit older adults and caregivers. Our aim is to help older Canadians maintain their independence, health and quality of life through technologies and services that increase their safety and security, support their independent living, and enhance their social participation.
DeafBlind Ontario Services provides an array of services to people who are Deaf, hard of hearing, non-verbal and deafblind that are customized to each individual’s unique needs, method of communication, and goals to enrich their life.