Lab Director

Dr. Marie Savundranayagam 

Dr. Savundranayagam’s research focuses on improving caregiving relationships through enhanced communication, identifying ways to enhance personhood for individuals living with dementia, and uncovering the mechanisms by which caregiver interventions are effective. She received the Canadian Institutes of Health Research’s Age Plus Prize for her work on communication problems and burden among family caregivers of persons living with dementia. Her research has received fundings from the Hartford Foundation and the Alzheimer’s Association International Grants Program, and she is part of the Canadian Consortium on Neurodegeneration in Aging.

She created Be EPIC^TM, a person-centered communication training program for for personal support workers in dementia care. Since 2021, she has led the development and testing of Be EPIC-VR^TM, the virtual reality version of Be EPIC in collaboration with experts in dementia care, virtual reality design, social epidemiology, as well as lived-experience advisors and employment and education partners. Her research on Be EPIC and Be EPIC-VR received funding from the Future Skills Centre, the Alzheimer Society of Canada, and the Centre for Aging and Brain Health Innovation.

Dr. Savundranayagam serves as associate editor for the Clinical Gerontologist and is on the editorial boards of Educational Gerontology, Journal of Family Communication, and Social Work in Health Care.

She teaches courses on health and aging in the School of Health Studies at Western University and has already received several teaching excellence awards. She integrates her expertise in dementia care, communication, and knowledge translation into her teaching and supervision, and involves graduate and undergraduate trainees in her research, giving them hands-on experience in program development and evaluation.