Meet Our Speakers

Antoine Boivin, MD PhD, is a practicing physician and Co-director of the Canada Research Chair in Partnership with Patients and Communities. For over 20 years, he has been caring, teaching and doing research with patient, families and community members.

Over the past decade, his core program of research has focused on the integration of people with lived experience as full members of healthcare teams, including people with chronic physical and mental health conditions, addiction, cancer, end-of-life care, migrants with precarious status, indigenous people and people experiencing homelessness.

His research chair was the first in Canada to be co-led with a patient: it includes people with lived experience doing research as partners alongside health and social scientists. He is co-founder with a patient of the Center of Excellence for Patient and Public Partnership, one of the largest organizations dedicated to support partnership at the level of health institutions and systems. He collaborates with several international teams in North America, Europe and Asia, including the World Health Organization.

Jo-Anne Manski-Nankervis is an Academic General Practitioner (GP) and Academic Director of Primary Care and Family Medicine at Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine. Her research focus is on the development and implementation of technology to inform decision making in general-practice, health services research and the use of data to describe and improve general-practice activity, with a focus on cancer, chronic diseases such as chronic kidney disease, and antimicrobial stewardship. She is a contributor and proponent of practice-based research networks and programmes to develop primary care clinician researchers.

She aims to include primary care professionals and people that attend primary care in the development and implementation of research to ensure it meets the needs of end users and can be translated into practice.

Ms Ai Ling Sim-Devadas is a patient advocate, breast cancer survivor and a patient engagement professional. Committed to growing patient engagement in Singapore’s healthcare landscape, she is the Deputy Director of the Office of Patient Engagement (OPEN) at NTU’s Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, to deepen patient public partnership for medical research and education.

In advocating the patient’s perspective, she is the Founding Co-Chair (2018-2022) and now the Patient Mentor at the SingHealth Patient Advocacy Network, Singapore’s first Patient and Family Advisory Council (PFAC) and also a member of the Agency for Care Effectiveness (ACE) Consumer Panel. Globally, she serves on The Beryl Institute Global Patient and Family Advisory Board as the first Asian board member to bring patients and families’ perspectives from this region.

Kenneth Mah is the Vice President and Co-founder of the Rare Disorders Society Singapore (RDSS). Together with his wife, Patricia Mah, he leads the rare disorders community in Singapore. Under his leadership, RDSS was awarded the charity status in 2015 and received IPC status in 2022. He continues to raise the awareness of rare disorders amongst the public and dedicates his time away from home to support other families with loved ones living with rare disorders. Kenneth is a member of the SingHealth Patient Advocacy Network (SingHealth SPAN), KKH SPAN since 2017 and 2023 respectively.

He is also a member of the ACE Consumer Panel, since April 2024, to support ACE in their effort to promote greater public understanding of HTA processes. Kenneth’s daughter, Chloe, 15, has been diagnosed with Pompe disease when she was seven months old. His extraordinary dedication in juggling between family and helping the community earned him the SingHealth Inspirational Patient and Caregiver Award in 2012, and the Club Rainbow Exemplary Caregiver Award in 2019. In September 2023, Kenneth was conferred the Singapore Silent Heroes ”Outstanding Adult” award by Prime Minister Lawrence Wong. Kenneth holds a Master of Business Administration from Victoria University (Australia), an Advanced Diploma in Marketing and a Diploma in Engineering (Electronics) from Ngee Ann Polytechnic.

Ritu Jain is Assistant Chair (Internships and Attachments) and senior lecturer both at the Language and Communication Centre and concurrently (courtesy appointment) at the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine.

She is research active in her dual interests: Language Policy & Intergenerational Language Transmission as well as Health Equity and barriers to health access such as that impeding populations living with HIV and other stigmatized conditions.

Ritu is editor of Multilingual Singapore: Language Policies and Linguistic Realities (2021) and has published in journals such as Language Policy, Current Issues in Language Planning, and Orphanet, the Journal of Rare Diseases.

She contributes to health-related initiatives in Singapore and globally. She also co-chairs the Agency for Care Effectiveness (MoH) consumer panel and heads various rare disease organisations such as DEBRA International.

Kelsey Hegarty is an Academic General Practitioner who holds the Joint Chair in Family Violence Prevention at the University of Melbourne and the Royal Women's Hospital.

Since 2017 she has led the Safer Families Centre where she works closely with a group of survivors of domestic and family violence in co-design. Her research includes interventions to prevent violence against women through early identification and response to domestic violence in health care settings and early engagement through the use of technologies to encourage help seeking.

Sophie Park is Professor of Primary Care and Clinical Education in the Nuffield Dept. of Primary Care Health Sciences at the University of Oxford. She is a GP in Hertfordshire and Honorary Professor of Primary Care and Medical Education at University College London.

Sophie is internationally recognised for her research about clinical education and the primary care workforce. She is a strong advocate for patient involvement and partnership in education and research. Her research explores workforce sustainability across clinical education, organisation and delivery of primary healthcare, to support equitable and effective patient care, healthcare services and learning systems.

Jonty Heaversedge is Clinical Director, Population Health Office, National Healthcare Group, Singapore. He is also Director of The Health and Social Change Academy within the Centre for Healthcare Innovation, and Adjunct Professor for Clinical Studies at Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine. In his current role he is tasked with establishing data driven Population Health Management approaches to drive innovation and improvement in care, optimise population outcomes in north and central Singapore, and enhance equity of access to services for local residents.

Prior to this he worked as Chief Medical Officer for NHS Southeast London Integrated Care Board (ICB), helping to oversee the planning and provision of care to 2M local residents. He was also Clinical Director for Imperial College Health Partners (ICHP) – working with NHS partners in northwest London to support the adoption and spread of innovation and management of complex change across the health and care system. 

Ellil Mathiyan is a double cancer survivor who is passionate about Patient Advocacy, providing psychosocial support to other patients and working with healthcare professionals, teams and institutions to effect change to improve outcomes, and amplify the patients’ and caregivers’ voices to elevate patient experience.

He is the co-founder and current President of the Ostomy Association of Singapore (OAS), Interim Vice-President of the Asia-South Pacific Ostomy Association, Mentor at the SingHealth Patient Advocacy Network (SPAN), SPAN@CGH (Changi General Hospital)and SPAN@SGH (Singapore General Hospital), Member SPAN@DEM (Department of Emergency Medicine), Consumer Panel Member in the Agency for Care Effectiveness (ACE) in the Ministry of Health, Member of the Service Excellence Committee in Singapore General Hospital, International Editorial Board Member of the Journal of Patient Safety & Healthcare Quality (JPSHQ) and has leadership roles in the Colorectal Support Groups in the Singapore General Hospital, Changi General Hospital and the Singapore Cancer Society. Patient Partner of OPEN Voices, Office of Patient Engagement (OPEN) Lee Kong Chian School Of Medicine

Hazwady Nazran is a talented singer-songwriter and an OPEN Voices patient partner. Hazwady has overcome a significant health challenge: anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis. Through his music, he has found solace, strength, and a powerful means of sharing his journey. Discover how the transformative power of music helped him navigate recovery and emerge as a resilient artist.

Candy Gan is a two-time TEDx speaker, patient advocate, and co-author of My Name is Adam. I have Type 1 Diabetes – Singapore’s first bilingual children’s picture book that vocalises, localises, and normalises the T1D lived experience.

She volunteers as an admin for typeOne.sg: Singapore’s sole community group for everyone living with, or caring for those living with, T1D. Internationally, she contributes in various panels, namely: Action 4 Diabetes, Diabetes Centre Berne, League of Diabetes’ international advocates group.

In the day, she works in public health at NUHS, having begun her career in MOH healthcare services regulations. She obtained her Bachelors and Masters from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).