Florence Dzierszinski, PhD

Dr. Florence Dzierszinski is the President and Chief Executive Officer, Research Institute at The Royal. She is focused on creating access to mental health care through research, delivered by interdisciplinary teams that bring together scientists and clinicians, with clients, patients and their loved ones at the centre. She leads a team of researchers who are developing novel approaches and technologies to make ground-breaking advances in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of mental illness and addiction.

Dr. Dzierszinski has a long history of health research herself, including a CIHR Canada Research Chair at McGill University and awards from Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI) among others. Leveraging deep expertise in organizational design and change management, she is driven today by creating the organizational conditions and key partnerships that ensure scientists, clinicians, healthcare professionals and clients, patients and families work closely so that discoveries are translated into care more quickly.

In addition to her dual roles at The Royal and the IMHR, she is a member of the CIHR Scientific Advisory Board of the Institute of Neurosciences, Mental Health and Addiction (INMHA). She served as the vice Chair of the Board of OSSU [Ontario SPOR SUPPORT Unit], Ontario’s catalyst for patient-oriented research, and on the Board of Frayme, a knowledge mobilization network focused on system transformation for youth mental health.