The Canadian College of Health Leaders and Johnson & Johnson MedTech are pleased to announce the recipients of the 2026 Robert Wood Johnson Awards. Established in 1956, the Robert Wood Johnson Awards are presented to students from seven Canadian universities offering a Master of Health Administration. Recipients are selected by their respective faculty for their individual achievements and promising contributions to health services management.
CCHL and J&J MedTech are pleased to welcome the University of Regina to the Robert Wood Johnson Awards. This year marks the first time a recipient from the University of Regina has been recognized.
Congratulations to our award recipients!
Karen Teune
University of Toronto
Lauren Rogers
Dalhousie University
Ria Robinson
University of Alberta
David Yang
University of British Columbia
Reem Al‑Abdulsalam
Université de Montréal
Pamela Bader
University of Ottawa
Joshua Proffitt
University of Regina
These awards, sponsored by Johnson & Johnson MedTech, are part of the CCHL National Awards Program and will be presented at the June 15 luncheon during the 2026 CCHL National Conference.
Watch the recipients’s acceptance video from the Honouring Health Leadership Event this past June!
About Our Recipients
Karen Teune, University of Toronto
Karen Teune is a Charge Cardiac Sonographer at the University Health Network (UHN), one of Canada’s largest and most complex multi-site academic health sciences centres. With over 16 years of frontline clinical experience, she is recognized for her leadership in high-acuity environments and her commitment to supporting both patients and care teams within a strained and evolving healthcare system. Currently completing her Master of Health Administration at the University of Toronto, Karen is focused on translating her clinical experience into system-level improvement. Her work centres on enabling practical, scalable solutions that enhance care delivery, improve workflow efficiency, and better support healthcare providers.
During her practicum with UHN’s Connected Care team, Karen contributed to the development of an operational framework for outpatient commitments and standards, aimed at enabling more consistent workflows, improving data transparency, and equipping leaders to identify gaps and better support teams across diverse clinical settings. She also collaborated with the Ontario Ministry of Health on stakeholder engagement to inform policy recommendations on responsible health data access, including governance considerations for private sector involvement. Outside of her professional work, Karen balances her career with raising three children and values time spent outdoors and biking to work. These experiences continue to shape her commitment to building a more sustainable, equitable health system and a better future for the next generation.
Lauren Rogers, Dalhousie University
Lauren Rogers graduated from Western University with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing in 2019. She gained valuable healthcare experience by working as a bedside nurse and Patient Care Facilitator on an Acute Medicine Inpatient unit in Ontario. Through her nursing education and professional experience, Lauren gained an appreciation for the complex relationship between health and justice, which led her to pursue the combined Juris Doctor (JD) and Master of Health Administration (MHA) program at Dalhousie University.
Throughout the JD/MHA program, Lauren’s passion for health law and policy has continued to grow. Her residency at the Huron Perth Healthcare Alliance and her summer employment at HIROC and Lerners LLP have been instrumental in developing her leadership skills and deepening her understanding of healthcare systems, policy, and law. Upon graduation, Lauren plans to become licensed to practise law in Ontario and pursue a career in healthcare litigation.
Ria Robinson, University of Alberta
Ria Robinson is a Registered Nurse and public health professional with a strong foundation in clinical care, community service, and health system leadership. Her frontline experience spans primary care, continuing care (including long-term, palliative, and geriatric psychiatry), and public health programs. Through direct patient care and nursing audits, she has developed expertise in quality improvement, clinical leadership, and advocacy within complex, resource-constrained environments. She demonstrates sustained leadership across governance, faith-based, and community settings. Ria serves as a Board Member for the Edmonton Pregnancy Care Centre, supporting strategic initiatives for vulnerable women and families. Within her church community, she has held multiple leadership roles, reflecting her commitment to mentorship, community-building, and service.
Her leadership extends to academic and global contexts. She served as VP Administration and President of the University of Alberta’s Health Sciences Students’ Association, advancing interdisciplinary collaboration. She also contributed to global health equity as VP Finance and Director of Marketing with Learning Beyond Borders, supporting education initiatives in rural Uganda. In the spring, Ria completed a Master of Public Health with a graduate embedded certificate in Health Economic Evaluation and is currently working toward her Certified Health Executive designation. During her final practicum at Hope Mission Homeless Health Services, she applied economic evaluation tools to support responsible resource allocation and the sustainable delivery of health care programs for individuals experiencing homelessness. Guided by servant leadership values, Ria is committed to leveraging a blended approach of clinical and health administrative expertise to design and lead solutions that extend beyond traditional healthcare delivery, addressing structural and systemic barriers to improve health outcomes for underserved communities.
David Yang, University of British Columbia
With a Bachelor of Medical Laboratory Science, David began his career alongside clinical laboratory scientists, improving diagnostic testing and building biobanks for secondary use. Through this work, he discovered the transformative value of reusing health data and biospecimens to improve health outcomes. Since then, David has pivoted his career to how health data are accessed, governed, and used respectfully and ethically to drive meaningful change in health care. He has contributed to multi-jurisdictional health data networks through his work with the Health Data Research Network Canada and other international networks. He is committed to advancing equitable access to health data for secondary use, strengthening data governance practices, and improving population health outcomes.
As a second‑generation Taiwanese immigrant settler, David is grateful to grow and refine his leadership skills in UBC’s Master of Health Administration program on the unceded and traditional territories of the Coast Salish Peoples. With renewed and empowered perspectives, David aims to advance connected care through pan-Canadian health data interoperability by bringing a systems-level lens to ensure equity remains central as we collectively build a more inclusive, innovative, and impactful health care system.
Reem Al‑Abdulsalam, Université de Montreal
Arriving in Montréal with a passion for making a difference in the healthcare system, Reem Al‑Abdulsalam first built strong clinical expertise as a clinician at the Montreal Heart Institute. This experience allowed her to deeply understand the human and organizational challenges within the hospital environment and to directly observe the impact of care processes on patients’ quality of life. Driven by a desire to broaden her influence beyond clinical practice, Reem is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Health Services Administration at the Université de Montréal, along with a management internship at CHU Sainte‑Justine. Her training enables her to combine strategic vision with frontline experience, developing advanced skills in project management, stakeholder engagement, care pathway optimization, and organizational transformation. Throughout her journey, Reem has distinguished herself through her mobilizing and collaborative leadership. She is able to anticipate challenges and bring teams together around common goals. Her ability to translate complex issues into concrete and sustainable solutions makes her a driving force in care improvement and organizational performance projects. Firmly committed to the continuous improvement of Québec’s healthcare system, Reem places the experience of patients and professionals at the heart of her actions. Her hybrid profile—combining clinical excellence, strategic leadership, and innovative vision—illustrates her potential to become a catalyst for change in the most demanding hospital environments and the most complex organizations.
Pamela Bader, University of Ottawa
Pamela’s career is rooted in broad experience within the healthcare sector, driven by a commitment to improving the patient experience. As a first-generation healthcare professional, she was exposed early to clinical environments, which sparked her interest in how care is delivered and organized. To better understand the broader healthcare system and how to improve it, Pamela pursued a Master of Health Administration from the Telfer School of Management at the University of Ottawa. Her graduate research at The Ottawa Hospital, which optimized MRI access through data-informed strategies, earned her the Michael Garron Award for Healthcare Innovation, highlighting her unique ability to design solutions with broad, national applicability.
Today, Pamela is a Senior Project Manager at Canadian Blood Services, where she leads strategic initiatives with the organ and tissue donation and transplant team. In this role, she works closely with partners across jurisdictions to advance programs that strengthen coordination, improve system performance, and enhance patient outcomes.
Joshua Proffitt, University of Regina
Josh, a healthcare leader with experience in acute care operations, clinical leadership, and system‑level health services management, becomes the first-ever recipient from the University of Regina to be recognized. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BScN) from St. Francis Xavier University (2014) and is a Master of Health Administration (MHA) candidate, due to graduate in Spring/ Summer 2026, he completed his MHA at the University of Regina. Josh is an active member of the CCHL and is working towards his CHE designation. Josh worked as a registered nurse in surgical services at the QEII Health Sciences Centre in Halifax from 2014 to 2020. In 2020, he transitioned into leadership, assuming his first management role overseeing a Hospitalist Medicine unit. In 2023, he moved from inpatient service to managing a community emergency department before moving into his current role as Health Services Director – Inpatient Medicine, in January 2024, where he provides strategic and operational leadership across inpatient services.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Josh played a critical leadership role, including redeployment with his nursing unit to support a long-term care facility in Halifax. In recognition of his contributions to Nova Scotia’s pandemic response, he was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Medal. Josh is recognized for his ability to lead through complexity, align clinical operations with organizational strategy, and drive patient-centered, sustainable healthcare delivery.
