Truly an East-coaster, and never far from water, Colleen completed medical school at Memorial in Newfoundland, residency in PM&R at Dalhousie in Nova Scotia and is Medical Director at New Brunswick’s Stan Cassidy Centre for Rehabilitation and Clinical Research Director of UNB Institute of Biomedical Engineering. She married a Campbell from Prince Edward Island, thus establishing connection with all four Atlantic provinces. She is Professor at Dalhousie University Faculty of Medicine, and Adjunct Professor at the University of New Brunswick Faculty of Kinesiology. Believing in the strength of collaboration, or perhaps having difficulty saying no, she is a member of many networks: Canadian ALS Research Network, Praxis Spinal Cord Institute, Canadian Neurologic Diseases Network, Atlantic Mobility Action Project. Research interests and outputs are broad, reflecting a tendency to being an early adopter (FOMO), including applied technologies for mobility impairment and function, patient reported outcomes. Development of best practice recommendations are priorities, and she contributes as member of the PVA SCI Guidelines Consortium, Heart and Stroke’s Best Practices Advisory Committee, Canadian SCI Pain Guidelines Committee, ALS Canada Best Practice Recommendations Working Group and the Canadian Thoracic Society Home Mechanical Ventilation Guidelines Committee.  

International health work predates medical training. With husband Jeff and a team of rehabilitation volunteers she founded Team Canada Healing Hands in 2002, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to advancing rehabilitation capacity in lower resourced countries. She has had opportunity to work in areas of rehabilitation care, training, and disaster response in many countries. She is chair of the Disaster committee of the International Spinal Cord Society, and is currently appointed to the Spinal Cord Injury technical working group of the WHO Emergency Medical Teams and SCI Modules for national health systems, and steering committee of the WHO World Rehabilitation Alliance.  

She is proud mom of her young adult sons Sam and Vénel. In another life, she would have been an adventure travel agent.