MEET THE TEAM
THE LIMB LENGTHENING AND RECONSTRUCTION TEAM CONSISTS OF ORTHOPAEDIC SURGEONS, PHYSIOTHERAPIST, OCCUPATIONAL THERAPIST, MEDICAL OFFICE ASSISTANT, AND RESEARCH STAFF.
DR. ANTHONY COOPER, FRCSC
ORTHOPAEDIC SURGEON & TEAM LEAD
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Dr. Cooper graduated from the University of Leeds - School of Medicine (2003). He did his basic surgical training in Leeds and then moved to Sheffield for his higher surgical training. After completing his pediatric orthopaedic fellowship at BC Children's Hospital, Dr. Cooper joined BCCH as a pediatric orthopaedic surgeon in 2014 and a clinical investigator at the BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute.
Dr. Cooper specializes in limb lengthening and reconstruction, hip deformities, and trauma. He runs the multidisciplinary Pediatric Limb Reconstruction clinic and research program. His research involves studies on patient reported outcomes, quality of life, complications of limb reconstruction, genetics of rare orthopaedic conditions, geometrical modelling and medical imaging studies. He has research collaborations with orthopaedic surgeons and researchers across Canada, Ethiopia, India, UK and USA.
MICHELLE JACOBS
PHYSIOTHERAPIST
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Michelle is a physiotherapist who is experienced in treating and assessing function of patients undergoing limb reconstruction surgery.
JENNIFER LAW
WORK LEARN STUDENT
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Jennifer is an undergraduate student studying Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience at The University of British Columbia. She was previously a UBC Co-op student and summer student. She is involved in patient recruitment, data collection, and data entry for various projects in the Limb Lengthening and Reconstruction research program.
DR. HARPREET CHHINA PH.D.
RESEARCH ASSOCIATE
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Harpreet leads the Limb Lengthening and Reconstruction Research Program, where she focuses on improving care and long-term outcomes for children and adolescents with limb differences. She lead the developement of LIMB-Q Kids, a special questionnaire designed with input from children, families, and healthcare teams from 18 centres around the world. LIMB-Q Kids helps us better understand how lower limb differences and complex treatments affects a child’s daily life, mobility, and overall well-being. It is now used internationally to support patient-centred care.
Harpreet is also leading the development of a new tool that will allow doctors and prosthetists to measures how satisfied children are with their prosthesis. She is helping bring patient-reported outcome measures into everyday clinical care at the Limb Reconstruction Clinic at BC Children’s Hospital. She co-founded the International Limb Differences Network and serves as the scientific lead for the International Limb Difference Registry, which helps improve care and research across countries. Harpreet is also committed to patient engagement, knowledge sharing, and mentoring young researchers through the Walk Tall Research Program.
DR. TAQDIR ALI, PH.D.
POSTDOCTORAL FELLOW
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Taqdir Ali is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Orthopaedics, BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute, University of British Columbia. He completed his Ph.D. in 2019 from Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Kyung Hee University, South Korea. He got his B.S Degree in Computer Science from Kohat University of Science and Technology (KUST), Pakistan. He has more than six years industrial experience as a software engineer, software architect and a researcher in reputable UK-based software industry. Before joining his current position, he also worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Medical Genetics, BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute, University of British Columbia (2021 – 2023). During his research career, he worked on different projects of healthcare and wellness domain. His current research includes knowledge acquisition, Clinical Decision Support Systems, Knowledge Standardization, Applications of Machine Learning, Text Processing, and e-Health standardization.
AMIT KALRA, MBChB
RESEARCH COORDINATOR
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Amit is a recent graduate from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. He is responsible for overseeing the design, planning, and implementation of all of the research projects in the Limb Lengthening and Reconstruction Program.
DR. CARRIE KOLLIAS, FRCSC
ORTHOPAEDIC SURGEON
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Dr. Kollias is a pediatric orthopedic surgeon and investigator at BC Children’s Hospital. Her research spans clinical studies in pediatric hip, foot, and trauma care, as well as health systems research with a focus on surgeon well-being. She also serves as Co-Director of Mentorship & Wellness with UBC Orthopaedics, supporting initiatives that foster professional development and sustainability in surgical practice.
SUMAIR SINGH SHERGILL
CO-OP STUDENT
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Sumair is an undergraduate student studying Computer Science at The University of British Columbia. He is involved in data preprocessing, model training and model evaluation of several AI and ML projects in the Limb Lengthening and Reconstruction research program. Sumair is also supporting the clinical team with data collection for patient reported outcomes.
JAKE HARRIS
OCCUPATIONAL THERAPIST
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Jake graduated from Camosun college with a bachelor degree in sports and fitness leadership. He went on to complete a masters in occupational therapy at the University of British Columbia in 2019. He started work at Richmond Hospital in the acute orthopaedics unit and then transitioned to neurology. In 2021, he moved to Vancouver General Hospital on the hospitalist medicine unit before getting a float position. In this position, Jake spent time on many different units including ICU/burns, orthopaedics and trauma, plastics, medicine, neurology and vascular surgery.
KAYLEE MCGEOUGH, BEng
RESEARCH COORDINATOR
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Kaylee is a research assistant for the Limb Lengthening and Reconstruction Team. She is involved with the development of the POISE-ILDR project, a database which will serve to encapsulate a multitude of orthopedic issues on an international scale.
ANNIE WANG
CO-OP STUDENT
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Annie is an undergraduate student studying Cellular, Anatomical, and Physiological Sciences at the University of British Columbia. She is involved in patient recruitment, data collection, and data entry for various research projects in the Limb Lengthening and Reconstruction research program. She is also responsible for tracking patient-reported outcomes feedback for new projects.