Helping you move research to impact

I worked with the team on two multi-day events focused on enhancing the teaching and facilitation skills of professionals working in Knowledge Translation. Our planning work was collaborative and friction-free. Words that come to mind about them are: competent, organized, dedicated, and fun! They know their audience well and together we crafted learning that the participants found highly practical and helpful for their work in KT.

I had the pleasure of working with Gen and her team on the Implementation Science Training Initiative, and it remains one of the most thoughtful and collaborative training experiences I’ve been part of. They created an interdisciplinary learning community that brought together the next generation of implementation scientists to support and lead health system change in BC—connections and collaborations that continue to thrive today. Their work reflects a rare combination of strategic insight and deep generosity as collaborators, creating the relationships and learning environments needed to move knowledge into action.

Katie designed and managed the UBC President’s Roundtable on the Opioid Overdose Crisis with thoughtfulness and precision. She brought together diverse voices—including community leaders, people with lived experience, and researchers—and created a structure that enabled meaningful exchange and fresh thinking about collaborative solutions.

I had the pleasure of working with Katie for seven years at UBC. During that time, she consistently demonstrated exceptional strength in community–university engagement, program design, and team leadership. She played a central role in shaping and delivering high-impact initiatives—such as the CUES Fund and UBC Connects at Robson Square—that brought together diverse participants and strengthened meaningful collaboration between researchers and communities. As a manager, Katie built and sustained a high-performing, highly engaged team, balancing clear direction with trust and autonomy, and navigating complex personnel and organizational challenges with professionalism and care. Katie also has a unique ability to translate complex institutional priorities into thoughtful, inclusive programs that build trust, strengthen partnerships, and deliver tangible results.

As a long‑time admirer of the strategic value of knowledge exchange—thanks in large part to the vision, passion, and expertise of Genevieve Creighton—and as the inaugural community partner in the KxM Research to Impact Fellowship Program, I had the privilege of seeing firsthand how transformative this work was.

The Research to Impact Fellowship was a seven‑week program designed for early‑career researchers to build skills in sharing knowledge across academic, policy, nonprofit, and community settings. Fellows learned through workshops, self‑paced content, cross‑disciplinary collaboration, and mentorship, logging more than 50 hours of hands‑on learning. Foundry served as the community partner, posing a real‑world knowledge exchange and mobilization challenge for Fellows to tackle in teams.

What made this partnership exceptional was that it was collaborative from the start. Gen and her team engaged us not as “end users,” but as true co‑developers, valuing our perspectives and shaping the program with us. The experience was energizing, generative, and deeply aligned with Foundry’s commitment to bringing research and practice closer together in service of young people and communities.

The Fellowship itself was genuinely innovative—not just a new training program but a reimagining of how research can move into action. It broke down silos, connected communities, equipped emerging researchers with real‑world knowledge exchange skills, and shifted mindsets about what research can be: not only a tool for understanding systems, but an intervention for transforming them for the better.