Michael Wood, Board Chair, PhD, MBA

Director, Office of Research and Innovation, North York General Hospital

Dr. Michael Wood is the Chair of the CIMTEC Board of Directors. Dr. Wood is facilitating research at hospitals in Toronto as Director of Research and Innovation for North York General Hospital and Director of Research Strategy and Implementation for the Joint Department of Medical Imaging, which encompasses University Health Network, Mount Sinai Hospital, and Women’s College Hospital.

Michael earned a PhD in Medical Biophysics from the University of Toronto, where after initial experience at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, he returned to conduct research and teaching in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Today, He remains active in academics as a Professor at the University of Toronto, Deputy Editor of the Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging, and on the Editorial Board of Investigative Radiology.

Michael is passionate about innovation and is supporting start-up companies as Board Chair of the Centre for Imaging Technology Commercialization and on the Board of its for-profit subsidiary CIMTEC Medical, Inc. Michael also serves on the Research Committee of the Council of Academic Hospitals of Ontario. These activities follow two terms as a Founding Board Member of Clinical Trials Ontario and Board of the Society for Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Treasurer after the merger to form the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, which now comprises 8,000 members from 58 countries.

There also is a business dimension to Michael’s career. After becoming a Professor, Michael studied for an MBA and then applied the learnings at GE Healthcare in the United States in managing the 1.5T MRI product line globally and then revitalizing the technology pipeline through collaboration with academic researchers. Returning to Canada in 2010 as VP Research of the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre and the Thunder Bay Regional Research Institute, and promoted subsequently to CEO of the research institute, Michael and the team launched this young organization into the Top 40 Research Hospitals in Canada. 

Affiliations: 

Director, Research and Innovation, North York General Hospital

Director of Research Strategy and Implementation, Joint Department of Medical Imaging, UHN, Mount Sinai Hospital and Women's College Hospital

Professor, University of Toronto