CROSH Leadership Team
Dr. Sandra Dorman is the Director of the Centre for Research in Occupational Safety and Health, and a Full Professor at Laurentian University. Dr. Dorman’s expertise is in physiology/pharmacology and her research program focuses on health promotion and disease prevention in the occupational setting. Her recent work has centred on fatigue mitigation (including nutrition, fitness, sleep, stress and psychosocial hazards) in physically demanding workforces (such as Mine Rescue, Mining, Wildland Firefighting, and Structural Firefighting) with high incidences of fatigue-related injuries. Currently, she is focusing on two primary themes in the occupational setting: 1) modifiable contributors to fatigue, and 2) the use of wearable technology in the occupational setting. She has a track record for successfully addressing host-identified problems and communicating information back to the host organization.
705-675-1151 ext. 1015
Dr. Godwin is the Associate Director of CROSH. As an emerging leader in OHS research, Dr. Godwin has a consistent track record in publishing original research pertaining to line-of-sight and the reduction of fatal injuries in the workplace. Her occupational health and safety interest include developing a portable data collection tool to gather long-term joint loading data in industrial sectors, using methods of functional data analysis to evaluate the effect of fatigue on cumulative loading waveforms and investigating gender differences that occur in manual material handling tasks.
705-675-1151 ext. 1079
Research Leads
Dr. Sinden is the Research Lead for Human Factors and Ergonomics at CROSH. Dr. Sinden’s research aims to prevent and reduce the human and financial impact of workplace injuries through 1) Applied Ergonomics. She collaborates with employers, workers and other stakeholders, using principles of knowledge translation, to develop tools that can be used in primary and secondary injury prevention. 2) Identifying Determinants of Occupational Task Performance. Dr. Sinden uses motion-capture and electromyography to identify how gender impacts development of muscle fatigue during occupational task performance.
Nicole Lafrenière is a Master Lecturer at Laurentian University, Lecturer at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine, and the Collaborative Simulation Educator between Health Sciences North, Laurentian University and the Northern Ontario School of Medicine. Nicole completed her Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BScN) with honors at Laurentian University and has her Master of Nursing from Laurentian University. Nicole comes with expertise in education, nursing, simulation, patient experiences and interprofessional practice/education. She has past clinical experience in pediatrics, public health and in the operating room. Additionally, Nicole participates in several research initiatives specific to simulation, interprofessional education and reproduction. She is happily married and the mother of Maverick and Eric Lafreniere and enjoys working with others and watching her kids play hockey.
Dr. Nicholas Ravanelli is an Assistant Professor in the School of Kinesiology at Lakehead University. Dr. Ravanelli’s overarching research objectives are to derive efficient, safe, and effective evidence-based strategies to mitigate heat-related illness for occupational settings, explore the impact of common comorbidities in the workforce on thermoregulatory function, and advance our current understanding of fundamental thermoregulatory control mechanisms.
CROSH Staff
Dr. Katie Goggins is CROSH’s Senior Scientist. She is an Adjunct Professor in the School of Kinesiology and Health Sciences at Laurentian University and Part-Time Professor, Safety and Environmental Studies, Cambrian College. Her research interests focus on the role of biomechanics, human factors, and ergonomics on industrial health and safety and occupational disease.
Tobi has a BA in English from the Royal Military College of Canada, an HBSc in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Toronto, and a Masters in Science Communication from Laurentian University. As the Marketing Communications Specialist at CROSH, he assists with communications, knowledge translation and exchange, and marketing.
705-675-1151 ext. 1422