Our team

Staff bios

Hiltrud Dawson - Health Promotion Consultant, Best Start Lead

Hiltrud has extensive experience in the maternal newborn field as a nurse, midwife, and lactation consultant. Before joining the Best Start team, she led a multidisciplinary team at Hamilton’s St. Joseph’s Healthcare that implemented the Baby-Friendly Initiative and became Ontario's first Baby-Friendly Hospital. Hiltrud has led many of Best Start’s healthy child development initiatives, including the On Track Guide.

Marine Delage-Deluget - Bilingual Executive Assistant

Marine began her career at Health Nexus as an FASD project assistant and moved on to her current position of Executive Assistant. She has experience in international projects coordination in the luxury industry but has always been very interested in the health field.

Malou Gabert - Bilingual Senior Administrative Assistant

Malou Gabert is the FASD Projects assistant, as well as a senior administrative assistant for Health Nexus. Back in France she had experience in administrative support and joined Health Nexus when she moved to Canada, at first working on the FASD One Stop project and now taking care of all FASD projects.

Angela Geddes - FASD Projects Coordinator 

Angela is an FASD Projects Coordinator who has extensive experience working within the mental health field with a focus on increasing individual and community capacity through direct support services, education, and health promotion initiatives. Angela has a particular interest and passion in the area of FASD, and remains committed to reducing both the incidents and the impact of prenatal exposure to alcohol.

Wendy Katherine - Executive Director

Wendy Katherine brings her experience as a clinical care provider in hospitals and community settings, and a broad background in government program accountability, implementation and strategic planning to her role as Interim Executive Director at Health Nexus.  Wendy has spent her career leading collaborations that catalyze unlikely organizations into partnership to improve outcomes and optimize value.  Among Ontario’s first registered midwives, Wendy was a pioneer in delivering community and hospital-based reproductive health care before joining the senior management team at the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care to develop population health improvement programs and strategies including the Better Outcomes Registry and Network (BORN), Integrated Cancer Screening, among many others.  A graduate of the Rotman School of Management MBA Program, volunteer Executive Director of the South Central Maternal Newborn Regional Network, Provincial Council for Maternal and Child Health committee member, published author and speaker, Wendy is passionate about evidence-based health care policy and value in publicly funded health systems.  When not at the office, Wendy can be found at French class or at a local rink improving her wrist shot.