Meridith Marks Award Winner

Recently, Ryan was awarded the Professorship in Technology-Enabled Education at St. Michael’s Hospital (SMH) and the University of Toronto. Concurrent with that new appointment, Ryan is now the Research Director & Scientist at the Allan Waters Family Simulation Centre, SMH. In addition to his roles at SMH, Ryan is an Education Scientist at the Wilson Centre, University Health Network, and an Assistant Professor and Education Scientist in the Department of Medicine, University of Toronto. Ryan earned his PhD at the University of Toronto, and completed his post-doctoral fellowship with the Centre for Health Education Scholarship at the University of British Columbia. He translates his training from the disciplines of Kinesiology and Neuroscience to enhance his research study designs.

Ryan conducts research in three related domains: (i) clarifying how healthcare trainees and professionals manage (through self-regulation) their life-long learning, (ii) understanding how to optimize the instructional design of healthcare simulation (and other technology-enhanced learning modalities) for training and assessment of healthcare professionals (iii) identifying best practices in the training and assessment for bedside invasive medical procedures (e.g., lumbar puncture, central line insertion, thoracentesis). Examples of questions he asks include how trainees prepare for future learning, how they learn to self-monitor effectively (i.e., think about their own thinking), how educators and trainees differ in their conceptions of learning, how validity evidence is collected and organized in assessment of health professionals, and how to design training using educational technologies (e.g., iPad apps, web-based simulators) to enhance learning outcomes.

Ryan teaches in local, regional, national, and international settings, with learners from all stages of training (i.e., undergraduate to graduate students to continuing professional development). For example, he is a part of the ‘aster faculty’ of two courses offered by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada Practice, Performance, & Innovation Unit. He also serves as an Associate Editor for the journal Advances in Health Sciences Education, and a Senior Editor for the journal Advances in Simulation.