PSCP VOLUNTEER BOARD
Donna Lynn Smith, RN CHE FCAN
President and Program Director
Over a long career in nursing education and leadership, Donna has continuously been inspired and challenged by her work as a registered nurse and her relationships with nursing colleagues, particularly in her current role with the United Nurses of Alberta.
Respected as a servant-leader and mentor, she has contributed to the career development of many nursing leaders and colleagues. Her contributions to nursing, health services, health policy and interdisciplinary collaboration were recognized when she was inducted as a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Nursing in 2024.
A graduate of the three-year diploma program at the University of Alberta Hospital School of Nursing (1967) she earned BScN and MEd (Counselling Psychology) degrees at the University of Alberta. She also has the designation Certified Health Executive of the Canadian College of Health Leaders.
Donna has had a career-long commitment to improving nurses’ work environments so that new nurses would be supported and retained in the profession. As Director of Nursing at Lethbridge Auxiliary Hospital (1973-78) and at UAH (1978-88), she led innovations to improve quality of care and create opportunities for nurses to learn and be recognized for their contributions. Having developed an expertise in interdisciplinary collaboration, she became founding Co-Director (with Dr. John Dossetor) of the Centre for Health Ethics at the University of Alberta. She also was invited to become the first Executive Director of the innovative Co-ordinating Council of Health Sciences Deans at the University of Alberta.
Later, as Associate Professor in the Faculty of Nursing, she co-ordinated the Leadership Stream of the MN program and supervised the work of many graduate students. She is the co-author and Editor (with Dr. Judith Hibberd) of the widely respected textbook Nursing Leadership and Management in Canada.
As she retired from the U of A Faculty of Nursing, Donna had the opportunity to become the first Professional Responsibility Advisor with the United Nurses of Alberta. In this position, she has focused on the goal of elevating the PRC process internally and externally so that its essential contributions to patient safety are amplified and valued. This work has led naturally to her volunteer engagement in patient safety research and her leadership role in creating the Patient Safety Community or Practice.
Masood Peracha, MBA, CPA, CMA, CISA
Treasurer
Masood Peracha is a senior financial and risk-management professional. He has extensive health-care and public-sector-systems auditing, compliance and business consulting experience. He holds a Master of Business Administration degree from Athabasca University, along with professional designations including Chartered Professional Accountant and Certified Information Systems Auditor.
His professional background includes 15 years as the head of Internal Audit at University of Alberta Hospitals (later Capital Health Authority). Subsequently, in 12 years as a consultant, (including “Big Four” accounting and auditing firm experience) he provided governance, risk and control advisory services to a variety of public and private sector organizations.
Prior to his retirement in March 2017, he was employed for nine years as Principal Advisor, Risk Management and Compliance and later as Director, Project Risk Advisory Services at the Alberta Pensions Services Corporation. During this time, he played a lead role in the design, development and establishment of the Enterprise Risk Management and Internal Audit functions at the Corporation, while also serving in a risk assessment and advisory capacity in support of the organization’s implementation of a major systems transformation project.
Now retired from active employment in the public sector, Masood serves as President of Apex GRC Consulting Inc., which provides governance, risk and compliance services within the Alberta public sector.
Between 2018 and 2024, Masood served on the Health Quality Council of Alberta as Chair of the Audit and Finance Committee of the board. On November 7, 2024, he was appointed to the College of Hearing Aid Practitioners of Alberta as a public member.
A widely respected community leader, he has served on a number of community and voluntary boards for over 30 years and was Chair of the Edmonton Council of Muslim Communities. His service to the community was recognized in 2012 with the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal and again in 2022 with the Queen Elizabeth Platinum Jubilee Medal.
Richard Pilger
Secretary
An award-winning writer and editor, Richard has wide communications experience. For many years the editor of the University of Alberta’s alumni magazine, New Trail, Richard was credited with leading the transformation of alumni magazines in Canada from little-read, glorified newsletters into legitimate news magazines.
In 1997 and again in 1999, under his leadership New Trail was recognized as the best alumni magazine in Canada by the Canadian Council for the Advancement of Education (CCAE). Richard, himself, is particularly known for his writing on scientific and medical topics, for which he has received awards from CCAE and the international organization Council for Advancement and Support of Education.
An article he wrote when nanotechnology was beginning to receive widespread scientific attention (“The Big, Big Future of Tiny”) was reprinted on the Website of the Chemical Institute of Canada, where it long served as a primer on this emerging field. Another article, this one about the work of U of A professor Linda Fedigan, was a finalist in the “Profile” category of the Western Magazine Awards in 1997.
In 2001, Richard became an associate director of the U of A’s Alumni Office and, while still serving as the supervising editor of New Trail, he took on a new initiative: creating a robust program of alumni education and travel.
In his leadership roles with the U of A’s Alumni Office, Richard also gained valuable experience in relationship building and events management. A side benefit was the opportunity he had to meet and spend time with so many accomplished individuals, from Nobel Prize winners and eminent politicians, to prominent business people and well known authors and entertainers.
Since his retirement from the U of A in 2010, he has done freelance writing for publications including the Globe and Mail. Long active in the community, he has volunteered with many organizations, including the U of A’s Institute for Stuttering Treatment and Research, for which he notably created and designed their communication vehicle The Stars of ISTAR.
Heather Murray, RN, BScN, CEN, TCRN
Member at Large
Heather is the President of United Nurses of Alberta Local 68. She graduated with distinction from Tarleton State University, Stephenville, Texas, in 2014 and also holds specialty certifications in Emergency and Trauma Nursing through the Board of Certification of Emergency Nurses.
Her clinical experience includes nursing in the Emergency and Cardiac PCU setting at a public county hospital in Fort Worth, Texas. As she worked in this Pathway to Excellence hospital and supportive work environment between 2014 and 2018, she developed confidence in clinical decision-making that prepared her for roles in both rural and urban Canadian emergency departments in B.C. and Alberta from 2019 to the present. She has also worked as a casual home care nurse for Maskwacis Health Service and as a Patient Care Co-ordinator and Nurse Educator with MacEwan University.
Motivated by concern about patient safety, Heather became a leader in her UNA Local at a time when she and her colleagues were struggling with working conditions that were hazardous to patients and abusive to nurses. Through diligent and difficult work with colleagues using the PRC and Disputes Resolution processes in the UNA Collective Agreement, Heather found her “patient safety voice” and supported her colleagues to do the same. Her concern about the need for WCB presumptive coverage for nurses propelled her into political activism in her local community and beyond.
She and her husband operate a farm-to-table business in the district of Westerose, Alberta. She continues her rural nursing practice while a student in the MN program at the University of Saskatchewan.
Heather was invited to join the volunteer Board of the PSCP to contribute her perspectives as a clinical nurse with insights into the under-researched areas of patient safety of rural healthcare, and moral distress associated with patient safety concerns in the workplace.
Amy Gerlock, BA
Member at Large
Amy Gerlock is a member of the D-Map Research team and the second author of its 2018 publication [Church, J., Gerlock, A., and Smith, D.L. (2018)], “Neoliberalism and accountability failure in the delivery of services affecting the health of the public” which appeared in the International Journal of Health Services, 48(4), 641-662).
Her role in this research was to identify reports of public inquiries that met the criteria for inclusion in the research, and then to identify media and other commentary about the 18 health-care catastrophes studied. The identification, cataloguing and organization of this documentary data is the engine of capacity-building for the D-Map research, and a resource that can be used by other researchers and students going forward.
With a BA in political science from the University of Alberta and graduate work in public administration, Amy joined the Alberta public service in strategic planning and management audit. She then went on to the Alberta Department of Intergovernmental Affairs as Director of Social Policy, where she supported the Minister and senior bureaucrats in inter-provincial meetings and negotiations.
As Executive Director of the Alberta Liberal party between 1995-97, Amy hired Dr. John Church, who had recently arrived in Alberta, as Research Director. After forming her own consulting company in 1997, she participated in a number of independent evaluation projects during the later 1990s and early 2000s. She also undertook several international projects under the auspices of the Canadian Executive Services Organization.
For many years, Amy has been a tutor at the University of Athabasca, where she has also developed materials for health policy courses.
An active participant in the continuing work of the D- Map research program, she has contributed to the development of PSCP, which culminated in its incorporation in December 2024. In her continuing work with the D-Map program, Amy will assist students and collaborators in accessing and understanding the data resources of the PSCP.
Joan Wagner, PhD RN
Member at Large
Dr. Joan Wagner is a distinguished Canadian nurse scholar and Professor Emerita in the Faculty of Nursing at the University of Regina in Saskatchewan. She is known for her contributions to nursing education, leadership development, and workplace health research.
Across her career, Wagner combined extensive clinical experience with academic scholarship to influence nursing practice, policy, and education within Canada and beyond. She served as the Coordinator for Research and Scholarship for the Faculty of Nursing at the University of Regina.
She is also the editor and author of the open-access textbook Leadership and Influencing Change in Nursing. Her research has focused on nursing management and the use of the synergy tool in emergency departments.
Joan began her professional journey as a registered nurse after completing her undergraduate nursing degree in 1973, working in both hospital and community health settings. In these early years, she developed a deep appreciation for the complexities of health-care delivery and the critical role nurses play in supporting patient outcomes. Her front-line experience as a care provider laid the foundation for her later academic and research interests.
With a commitment to lifelong learning and inquiry, she pursued advanced education culminating in a PhD in 2010. This academic milestone marked a transition to formal teaching and research, where Wagner sought to bridge practical nursing with evidence-informed leadership and organizational development strategies.
Joan’s multidisciplinary research focuses on healthy workplaces, spirit at work, workplace empowerment, and leadership within healthcare workplaces. She was the principal investigator for a Saskatchewan Health Research Foundation–funded study investigating the use of the synergy tool in the emergency departments in the Regina area. Joan has published her research in the Western Journal of Nursing Research, Journal of Nursing Management, Canadian Journal of Nursing Research, Canadian Journal of Nursing Leadership, and Journal of Health Organization and Management. She has presented widely on her body of research at a local, national, and international level.
Matthew Yip, BA MA
Member at Large
Matthew is a law student at the University of Saskatchewan who continues his collaboration with the Patient Safety Community of Practice following a full time Research Residency during the summer of 2025.
A two-time winner of the Jason Lang Scholarship, which recognizes and rewards the outstanding academic achievements of Alberta post-secondary students, Matthew completed his Honours BA in Political Science focusing on Canadian defence policy.
As one of 13 students from across Canada to be nominated and selected for the Deputy Minister’s Future Leaders in Defence Forum, he gained field experiences in defence scenario simulation exercises led by civilian and military officials and in simulated policy conferences and presentations discussing real-world scenarios. These carried forward to summer employment with the Alberta Emergency Management Agency and his completion of an MA capstone project focused on Alberta’s provincial alert system.
As a Graduate Teaching Assistant (U of A), a volunteer community league soccer coach, and a member of a student team selected for the University of Alberta Competition in Programs in Public Administration National Case Competition, he has developed skills in teamwork, leadership and collaboration.
A sports enthusiast, Matthew is a qualified soccer official appointed to the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference list of officials, and a five-year participant with Canadian Advanced Referee Development (CARD) Edmonton. He received eight appointments to matches as an assistant, including a quarterfinal match in the 2019 Toyota National Championships and the 2019 U15 Boys National Quarterfinal, as well as appointments to a Tier 2 U17 Boys Gold Medal game, and a Tier 1 U15 Boys Bronze Medal Game in 2022.
He relaxes by playing hockey, hiking and biking.