Purnima Sundar (PhD) is the executive director at the Ontario Centre of Excellence for Child and Youth Mental Health (the Centre). Along with the leadership team, she sets the vision and strategy for the Centre. Purnima has over 20 years of experience doing community-based, participatory action research, evaluation, implementation and knowledge mobilization in the areas of child and youth mental health and race/equity. Purnima’s training has been in the fields of psychology and social work, with a focus on community development and social planning. Since joining the Centre in 2008, she has worked with government partners across ministries, agency leaders and young people and their families to ensure high-quality, evidence-based mental health service delivery for Ontario’s children and youth.

Melissa Jennings (she/her) is the interim director of special projects and operations at the Ontario Centre of Excellence for Child and Youth Mental Health.

She has a master’s degree in child studies and a bachelor’s degree in psychology.

Early in her career, she was involved in a range of program evaluation and community-based research initiatives in the areas of school-age child care, early years, social-emotional learning, violence against women and programming for seniors. Melissa joined the Centre’s leadership team eight years ago and has led the evaluation support program, the knowledge broker team and most recently key internal planning- and performance-related activities.

In her interim role, Melissa oversees the Centre’s operations.

Jaime Brown (PhD) is the director of knowledge mobilization at the Ontario Centre of Excellence for Child and Youth Mental Health (the Centre). Jaime’s systemic and outcomes-focused approach to knowledge mobilization has helped her to build strong relationships with national, provincial and local partners to advance the important work of improving child and youth mental health in Ontario and beyond.

Jaime holds a PhD in Applied Social Psychology. She has 15 years of experience leading research, evaluation and knowledge mobilization initiatives related to health, mental health and addictions services, child and youth development, disability supports, collective impact and cross-sectoral community interventions.

Since joining the Centre in 2017, Jaime has played an instrumental role in growing the Centre’s Innovation Initiatives research funding program and in supporting key provincial initiatives and groups, such the Lead Agency Community of Practice. Recently, Jaime has led the Centre’s COVID-19 product development efforts, to ensure we are meeting the knowledge needs of the sector throughout the pandemic.