Cindy-Lee Dennis, PhD

Dr. Cindy-Lee Dennis has a simple maxim: “Healthy babies start with healthy parents.” This belief has led Dr. Dennis to focus her research career, as a professor at the University of Toronto, on rigorously evaluating interventions that can directly improve the health of mothers and fathers, with the overall goal of improving child health and well-being. She has over 20 years of experience leading large cohort studies and clinical trials — including intervention care models that leverage technology to improve clinical effectiveness and accessibility —  recruiting participants from all across Canada. She also developed the Breastfeeding Self-Efficacy Scale, the most widely used breastfeeding measure internationally that has been translated into over 20 different languages to identify women early who are at-risk of poor breastfeeding outcomes. In total, Dr. Dennis has led eight Cochrane systematic reviews related to perinatal mental health and published over 225 peer-reviewed research papers. She has received numerous awards and honors, including a Fellowship in the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences and the Marcé Medal from the International Marcé Society for Perinatal Mental Health.