Dr. Zariffa pledges to focus on community, collaboration and assessing success as he steps into his new role
Dr. José Zariffa is no stranger to KITE.
The Senior Scientist and Associate Professor with the University of Toronto trained as a graduate student and post-doctoral fellow in biomedical engineering at the Institute while also studying at UofT. For the last decade, Dr. Zariffa has served as a principal investigator with the Neural Engineering and Therapeutics (NET) Team.
With all of this impressive experience under his belt, it should come as no surprise to anyone at KITE that Dr. Zariffa has been appointed KITE’s Associate Director, Scientific. He officially took over the role on July 1st and succeeds Dr. Elizabeth Rochon, who stepped down from the role in June in order to retire, following a four-year term.
Dr. Zariffa’s research focuses on developing technology to measure human function in order to create personalized and responsive approaches for treating central nervous system injuries, such as spinal cord injury or stroke. He has led a range of projects from studying the use of novel technologies to monitor hand function at home, to connecting assistive devices directly to the nervous system.
As he steps into his new position, we asked Dr. Zariffa to reflect on his goals for the future.
How do you feel about being appointed Associate Director, Scientific?
It's humbling. It's my responsibility to help KITE succeed and maintain its high quality of research. I take this very seriously as I want to do everything in my power to assist my colleagues by ensuring the Institute gives them the support necessary to continue doing their excellent research.
What inspires you or motivates you to continue to do what you do?
At KITE, it's easy to feel motivated. We're doing work that has a clear societal impact. We're all here to advance society's ability to prevent disability, restore function after injury or disease, and help people stay in their homes as they age instead of entering a long-term care facility. All things that have had a noticeable impact so, it's easy to feel good and stay motivated to do this kind of work. And of course I get to work with many wonderful colleagues at different stages of their careers, which is a huge source of inspiration.
Tell us about the experiences that have set you up for success in your new position.
I've been at KITE for a while. I was here as a graduate student originally, so I've grown through much of my career here. KITE is a place that's close to my heart so I was motivated to take on this new position to help the Institute be the best it can be. I enjoy mentoring others and have participated in the various processes associated with appointments and promotions. So through involvement in many of those discussions, I had an affinity for the work that led to my being appointed to this position.
What goals do you want to achieve as Associate Director, Scientific?
A big part of the role is assessing research. Which includes annual review processes, promotion reviews, and appointment reviews. A key aspect of this is recognizing success. But successes can look different for everyone. Coming up with ways to acknowledge those successes and, at the same time, embracing the diversity of research can be tricky. So we must embrace equity and diversity in assessing research and understand the different disciplines everyone brings to the table. There are conversations ongoing about how we assess research and what metrics we use to do that. Most people agree that some of the methods that were used in the past have fundamental limitations but the tricky question is, what do we do instead? What do we replace those old metrics with? So, my goals are to help guide and navigate some of those complexities and recognize what excellent research is, even though it can look like many different things.
If you could go back to when you first started at KITE, what would you say to yourself then?
I would encourage myself to connect with partners at KITE, clinician partners, and industry partners and maintain a broad view of all activities at the institute. I'd also tell myself to foster those opportunities and be open and curious.
What advice would you give to other researchers at KITE?
One thing we do well at KITE is that we focus on the real world impact of our research. I would encourage everyone to keep pushing towards greater impact in all its forms. The culture we have at KITE is something that you need to nurture and foster; if you ignore it, then we can lose that. So, in a way, this job is easy because KITE has so many outstanding researchers, everybody's so strong, and it’s a truly great institution. So let’s recognize what we're doing well, but let's also keep pushing ourselves and find what we can do even better!