Prof. Tanya Packer is the Director of the School of Health Administration and Asst. Dean, Partnerships at Dalhousie University. She completed her undergraduate professional qualification as an occupational therapist at Western University, followed by a masters and PhD in the Department of Anatomy at Queen’s University. Her academic career spans three continents (North America, Asia and Australia/New Zealand) and four prestigious universities (Queen’s University, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Curtin University and Dalhousie University). She currently holds several senior positions at Dalhousie including Director of the School of Health Administration and Assistant Dean (Partnerships) within the Faculty of Health and the Vice Chair (Student Affairs) of the Dalhousie University Senate.

Prof. Packer is an internationally recognized scholar and researcher with over 70 peer reviewed journal articles and more than $8 M in peer reviewed grants in the last eight years. She has supervised over 40 research trainees and is currently supervising PhD students from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Iran and the Netherlands. Prof. Packer and her research group focus on improving care for patients with chronic and complex conditions, including patient engagement in care, interventions to improve quality of life, and health services research to improve care. She currently holds research funding from the Canadian Institutes on Health Research (CIHR), the Patient Centred Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) in the US and the Prinses Beatrix Spierfunds in the Netherlands. She is a visiting professor at both Radboud medical university and HAN University in the Netherlands. In 2013, she won the Dr. Jane Gillett Research Award from the Brain Injury Association of Canada, for her work on the study Living with the Everyday Impact of a Neurological Condition.