Dr. Elissa Abrams is an Associate Professor at the University of Manitoba and holds an adjunct appointment at UBC. She is President of the Allergy Section of the Canadian Pediatric Society, Chair of the Food Allergy/Anaphylaxis Section of the Canadian Society of Allergy and Clinical Immunology and member of the Joint Task Force on Practice Parameters. She is a Senior Medical Advisor at Public Health Agency of Canada. She has a Master of Public Health from Johns Hopkins with a focus on health systems and policy. She has published over 200 articles in peer-reviewed journals and co-authored over 15 allergy practice guidelines through the CPS and CSACI.

Marion Groetch, MS, RDN, is the Director of Nutrition Services at the Jaffe Food Allergy Institute and Associate Professor in the Division of Allergy & Immunology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Her primary responsibilities include providing clinical care, leadership in food allergy research, and professional education. She is a registered dietitian nutritionist with over 25 years of pediatric experience, most of which has been focused on caring for patients and their families living with food allergy. Due to her unique and extensive experience and her international recognition in the field of nutrition and food allergy, Marion has had the opportunity to teach, around the world, to dietitians, physicians, nurses, and the lay public on diverse nutrition topics. She has contributed significantly to academic research having been asked to join or lead consensus and guideline publications on wide-ranging food allergy topics.

Marion is an active member of the European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology Research and Outreach Committee, the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology (AAAAI) Adverse Reactions to Foods Committee, the AAAAI Eosinophilic Gastrointestinal Diseases Committee, and is the Chair of the International Network for Diet and Nutrition in Allergy (INDANA). She serves on the Executive Editorial Board of the Journal of Food Allergy. Marion enjoys supporting patient advocacy groups as a senior advisor to Food Allergy Research and Education (FARE), on the Medical Advisory Board of International Food Protein Induced Enterocolitis Syndrome (IFPIES), and as a member of the American Partnership for Eosinophilic Disorders (APFED) Health Sciences Advisory Council. Her awards include the 2015 AAAAI Allied Health Professionals Recognition Award acknowledging her role as a leader, mentor and educator. Marion enjoys collaborating with health care professionals and patient advocacy groups in her quest to improve the lives of families living with food allergy.

Dr. Mack is a Pediatric Allergy, Asthma and Immunology Specialist.   He is an Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at McMaster University and is an active member of the Pediatric Emergency Department.  His interests include early childhood allergy prevention, anaphylaxis education and oral food desensitization.

Beatrice Povolo is the Director, Food Safety & Regulatory Affairs at Food Allergy Canada. In this capacity, she leads the organization’s food safety initiatives working with both government and industry stakeholders, with a specific focus on access to accurate ingredient information in food labelling and foodservice. She is actively involved in international discussions related to allergen management as a member of the Health Canada delegation for the CODEX Committee on Food Labelling (CCFL) and collaborates internationally with other patient organizations globally. Beatrice is currently the Project Management Lead for a multi-stakeholder initiative for the development of Allergen Management and Pre-cautionary Allergen Labelling Guidelines for the Canadian food industry. She graduated from the University of Toronto, with an Honours BA in political science and economics.

Dr. Jennifer Protudjer, PhD is the Endowed Research Chair in Allergy, Asthma and the Environment; and, an associate professor in the Department of Pediatrics and Child Health, University of Manitoba; a research scientist at the Children’s Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba; an epidemiologist with the Clinical Trials Platform at the George and Fay Yee Centre for Healthcare Innovation; Section Head, Allied Health, and Co-Lead, Research Pillar, of the Canadian Society of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.; and, sits on the steering committee for Canada’s National Food Allergy Action Plan.

She also holds an adjunct professorship in the Department of Foods and Human Nutritional Sciences, University of Manitoba; and, and is an affiliated researcher at the Karolinska Institute, where she completed her post-doctoral training.

Her primary research interests include environmental risk factors for, and societal consequences of allergic disease, using both quantitative and qualitative methods.

Dr. Ben-Shoshan graduated from The Sackler School of Medicine, Tel-Aviv, Israel and completed his fellowship in Pediatric Allergy/Clinical Immunology at Montreal Children’s Hospital in 2009.  Dr Ben-Shoshan has been granted his Msc degree in Epidemiology in McGill in 2011.  In 2011 he was granted the Emerging Clinician Scientist  fellowship award by AllerGen NCE and in 2013 and 2019 the  FRSQ junior 1 and Junior 2 salary awards respectively.

In 2017, he has received the F. Estelle R. Simons award for Research by the  CSACI. More recently he has established the first world-wide cohort to assess children with suspected antibiotic allergy through graded challenges for which he received a CIHR grant ,  and together with Dr Bruce Mazer established the first rigorously designed and evaluated program in Canada for milk desensitization and more recently they have established protocols for peanut , tree nut and egg desensitization. 

He has established the largest cross- Canada registries that collect data on the diagnosis and management of food allergy, anaphylaxis , drug allergy , anaphylaxis, mast cell disorders and primary immunodeficiencies.  His research has resulted in more than 180 published manuscripts. His work on the diagnostic approach of antibiotic allergy in children has led to a fundamental shift in clinical practice for the diagnosis and management of amoxicillin allergies in children. This study was named a top 10 publications worldwide for Pediatrics in 2016 by the New England Journal of Medicine Journal Watch and in 2019  he has been funded by the Canadian Institute of Health research to continue and explore this important topic.In 2021 together Dr Protudjer he had been granted support by the Doggone Foundation, to a project aiming to overcome  Barriers to COVID-19 Vaccination and more recently he had received CIHR support to study barriers to the management of anaphylaxis and new strategies for oral immunotherapy.

Ben-Shoshan is currently a physician in the division of Allergy/ Immunology and Dermarology at Montreal Children’s Hospital and is involved in research initiatives on anaphylaxis, chronic urticaria, drug allergy   and immunodeficiency.

Theme areas : food allergy, oral immunotherapy,  anaphylaxis , drug allergy , chronic urticaria , mast cell disorders, primary immunodeficiency.

Dr. Venter is a Professor of Pediatrics, Section of Allergy/Immunology at the Children’s Hospital Colorado and University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine, where she is conducting research in allergy prevention and working with children with food allergies. She is the past chair of the International Network of Dietitians and Nutritionists in Allergy, and a member of the American Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (AAAAI), American College of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (ACAAI), European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (EAACI) and the British Society of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (BSACI). Dr. Venter is a senior advisor to Food Allergy Research and Education (FARE). She is a registered dietitian in the United Kingdom and United States. She has had publications in international journals, book chapters and edited a book on Food Hypersensitivity. She moved from the UK in 2015 where she had been performing research into allergy prevention and prevention.

She was a member of the EAACI and AAAAI food allergy guidelines on Allergy Prevention and the EAACI guidelines on the Diagnosis and Management of Food Allergy guidelines., the NICE (UK) food allergy guidelines and the National Institutes for Allergy and Infectious Diseases Peanut Allergy Prevention Guidelines. Dr. Venter is currently the chair of the EAACI work group on Immunomodulation and nutrition.