Melina Albanese

Melina is an Epidemiology PhD candidate and research assistant at the University of Toronto (since 2021). Prior to starting her PhD, Melina completed her B.Sc. in Biology (2018) and M.Sc. in Population and Public Health (2021) at the University of British Columbia (UBC).

Melina has several years' research experience, having previously worked as a research assistant at the UBC Centre for Health Services and Policy Research and the Human Early Learning Partnership at UBC, before starting her PhD and research assistant position at the University of Toronto. Through her academic training and several research assistantships, Melina has experience utilizing quantitative methods to analyze self-reported patient data, survey data, and population-level administrative datasets. Her research ability is demonstrated by several peer-reviewed publications.

Melina's current research is at the intersection of chronic disease epidemiology and women's reproductive health. She is currently working on several projects examining the reproductive health of women with chronic conditions and access to reproductive health services among people with disabilities. Her PhD dissertation utilizes Ontario health administrative data (which are generated at every healthcare encounter) to examine the patterns of comorbid (i.e., co-occurring) chronic conditions among people with migraine with a recognized pregnancy as well as the association between pre-pregnancy maternal migraine and adverse perinatal outcomes. Melina is passionate about helping achieve health equity.

In addition to being a student at the University of Toronto, Melina is also a trainee member of the Women's Health Research Cluster based at UBC and a trainee member of the 2-year interdisciplinary CIHR-funded Guiding interdisciplinary Research On Women's and girls' health and Wellbeing program (2022/23-2023/24 cohort). Her work is supported by the Ontario Graduate Scholarship (2023-24) and the GROWW Program Scholarship (2022-2024).