Michelle Pittman is a Nurse Practitioner specializing in addiction medicine, mental health, Hepatitis C, and sexual health. She holds a Bachelor of Nursing from the University of New Brunswick and a Master of Nursing from Athabasca University. Michelle works as an Addictions and Mental Health NP at RECAP Health Services in Fredericton, where she leads a nurse-led Hepatitis C treatment program that has achieved WHO elimination targets within the injectable opiate agonist therapy (iOAT) population. She is active in provincial, national, and international advocacy and knowledge translation. Michelle serves on the steering committee with Action Hepatitis Canada, the Nurses’ Committee with INHSU, executive member Nurse Practitioners of New Brunswick, board member of CATIE and the Canadian Association of Hepatology Nurses. Outside of work, Michelle is a proud wife and mother to an adventurous five-year-old.

Jennifer Purdy has been a licensed pharmacist in New Brunswick, Canada, since 2009 and currently serves as pharmacy manager at King Street Pharmacy. Over the past three and a half years, they have focused on mental health and substance use disorders, bringing a frontline perspective on how pharmacists can support patients beyond the prescription counter.

Stuart has been working for The Hepatitis C Trust for 15 years. Having had hepatitis C himself at a young age, he was an ideal candidate for working with those affected by hepatitis C, and for the Trust which is primarily a patient led organization. Stuart played an integral part in developing the Hepatitis C Trust peer programs and has worked nationally to ensure best practice BBV interventions are delivered within nationwide drug service providers. Stuart has also fed into BBV policy at national level, the development of the Operational Delivery Networks and NICE guidance for the approval of new HCV treatments. Stuart is passionate that an effective HCV and combined harm reduction strategy exists to ensure that patients receive equity of access to services.

Jon Soske, PhD is a person in long-term recovery and an award-winning educator and interdisciplinary social scientist whose work centers the lives of people marginalized by healthcare and substance use disorder treatment systems. As Lead Qualitative Scientist on a CDC R01 grant, he has spent years studying community health workers and peer recovery specialists — documenting how peer workers absorb the failures of broken systems while quietly transforming care from within. A Systems of Care Fellow at RISD's Center for Complexity and a scholar at Brown University Health's Division of Addiction Medicine, he has led transdisciplinary research teams across academic, clinical, and community settings with a deep commitment to mentoring people with lived experience of addiction, homelessness, and incarceration as full partners in the research process.

Dr. Kathryn Dong is an Associate Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. In addition to her training in emergency and addiction medicine, she also completed a Masters in Population Health at the University of Alberta. Her clinical work is as an inpatient addiction medicine physician at a large, urban hospital. Her work focuses on improving health care access and outcomes for people who use substances and seek care in emergency departments and acute care settings.

Lorrie Marcotte is a psychoeducator specializing in addiction, homelessness and mental health, with a strong focus on community-based and person-centred care. Her practice is rooted in harm reduction, compassion, and trauma-informed approaches, with an emphasis on building trust, reducing barriers, and supporting people on their own terms.

Stéphanie Marsan is a family physician and medical chief of the addiction medicine service at the Centre hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal. She is also a clinical assistant professor at the Université de Montréal. Herminthe Clerjuste is a nurse clinician who works at the Centre hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal's addiction medicine service

Georgia Koep-Freifeld is a Research Assistant in the Department of Public Health, Environments and Society at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She works on the Improving Hospital Opioid Substitution Therapy (iHOST) Study. Her work on the iHOST Study uses qualitative methods to explore how people who use opioids understand and experience hospital care with a particular focus on discharge against medical advice. Additionally, she supports the co-production of research outputs with the iHOST Peer Advisory Group. Georgia received interdisciplinary social science training during her undergraduate degree (BSc) in Global Health at the University of British Columbia and holds an MSc in Public Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Carol Strike, PhD, is a Professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto. She is a social scientist who, for over 25 years, has studied HIV/HCV prevention and harm reduction services with the goal of improving health services for people who use drugs.

Dr. Adrian Guta is an Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in the School of Social Work at the University of Windsor. His research examines HIV, substance use health, and drug policy, with a focus on the experiences of people who use drugs, using community-based and participatory research approaches.