TDRA works with over 50 clinicians and researchers to foster provincial, national and international collaborations in the prediction, diagnosis, and management of dementia.
Governance of TDRA is comprised of the Coordinating Centre Core Team, an Executive Committee, a Research Operations Committee (ROC), a Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC), and a Patient and Family Advisory Council (PFAC).
Coordinating Centre Core Team
Tarek K. Rajji, MD, FRCPC
Executive Director

Luca F. Pisterzi, PhD
Director, Strategy & Operations
Winnie Qian, MSc
Research Coordinator
Executive Committee
The Executive Committee makes major strategic decisions, provides guidance on long-term sustainability, and ensures TDRA initiatives are aligned with the priorities of their own institutions.
Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC)
The Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) acts in an advisory capacity to the TDRA's Executive Director and Coordinating Centre. The SAC brings perspective from each of the partner institutions, patients and caregivers, trainees, and topically relevant external parties to advise the Executive Director on strategy, alignment, support and sustainability, initiatives, and partnerships.
Members of the SAC include:
- Graham Collingridge
- Kullervo Hynynen
- Barbara Liu
- Alan Moody
- Benoit Mulsant
- Reinhart Reithmeier
- Allison Sekuler
- David Tang-Wai
- Aristotle Voineskos
- Donald Weaver
Research Operations Committee (ROC)
The Research Operations Committee (ROC) functions to:
- Coordinate, review, and evaluate projects generated by the TDRA Research Working Groups (RWG) or from external groups for TDRA involvement based on alignment with mission and vision and feasibility
- Support and integrate research ideas emerging from the RWG
- Lead work focused on standardizing and integrating research into clinical dementia care
- Bridge basic science and clinical research
- Train in dementia research and innovation
- Act as a Grants and Publications Committee, where appropriate
The ROC consists of the TDRA Coordinating Centre and a representative from each of the RWGs:
- Clinical Database
- EEG (group discusses ways to standardize EEG brain wave monitoring for people with dementia)
- Fluid Biomarkers (group discusses changes within body fluids (e.g., blood, cerebrospinal fluid found around the brain and spinal cord, etc.) that can help with early diagnosis of dementia)
- Genetics (group discusses research on the gene changes that are linked to dementia)
- Long-term care (group discusses discusses research specific to people with dementia living in long-term care settings)
- Neuroimaging (group discusses ways to standardize brain scans for people with dementia, such as developing a standard MRI brain scan protocol)
- Neuropathology (group discusses research on the brain changes linked with dementia, which may involve discussion of autopsies and post-mortem brain materials)
- Neurotechnology
- Open Science (group discusses making research more accessible to people outside of the research field)
- Pre-clinical
Patient and Family Advisory Council (PFAC)
The TDRA’s Patient and Family Advisory Council was created to bring together people living with dementia, care partners, family members, and representatives from community organizations to help integrate the lived experience voice into TDRA’s work.
With meetings taking place four times a year, the Patient and Family Advisory Council members provide input on priority items that are focused and within scope. Some of the goals of this council are to:
- Provide feedback on strategic goals, direction and research led by the TDRA
- Facilitate knowledge translation efforts with community organizations
- Guide the creation of educational tools intended for research study participants
- Provide a forum for study participants and partners to provide feedback on their experience in a TDRA study.
Our current Patient and Family Advisory Council members are listed below.
Chairs
David Bogart, Patient Family Lead
Dr. Sanjeev Kumar, Scientific Co-chair
Dr. Carmela Tartaglia, Scientific Co-chair
Community Members
Chaitali Desai
Alicia Heaver
Paul Lea
Frank Palmer
Representatives from patient advocacy groups
Alison Li
Parkinson Canada
Patrice Lindsay
Heart and Stroke
Kari Quinn-Humphrey
Alzheimer Society of Toronto
TDRA Members
Dr. Tarek Rajji
Executive Director
Dr. Luca Pisterzi
Director, Strategy & Operations
Winnie Qian
Research Coordinator