Steven Hawken profile picture

Contact Information

Steven Hawken, PhD
613-737-8899 Ext. 10672
shawken@ohri.ca

Website: stevenhawken.ca



ORCID logo https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3341-9022

Steven Hawken

Senior Scientist, Clinical Epidemiology Program
Ottawa Hospital Research Institute
Associate Professor, School of Epidemiology and Public Health
University of Ottawa
Scientific Lead, Big Data
Ottawa Methods Centre
Adjunct Scientist
Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences
Affiliate Investigator
Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute

Research Interests

My research interests include: 

1) Linking large health administrative databases (‘Big Data’) to clinical and biological databases to answer important health questions. 

2) Using metabolomics and perinatal data from Newborn Screening Ontario and Better Outcomes Registry and Network coupled with ICES health administrative data to predict newborn health outcomes (gestational age, intra-uterine growth restriction, infections, complications) as well as future health outcomes in childhood.

3) Applying advanced statistical modeling methods and cutting-edge machine learning / AI modeling approaches to large administrative databases and clinical and biological data to answer important health-related questions.

Brief Biography

Dr. Hawken is a Senior Scientist at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, an Associate Professor in the School of Epidemiology and Public Health at the University of Ottawa, Adjunct Scientist at ICES and Affiliate Investigator at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute. He completed a Master of Science in Applied Statistics at the University of Guelph in 2001 and a PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Ottawa in 2015. Dr. Hawken has over 20 years of experience working in the fields of biostatistics and epidemiology. Early in his career, he served as the statistician for the landmark INTERHEART study led by Dr. Salim Yusuf, a global case-control study of risk factors for acute myocardial infarction, which led to several high-impact publications in The Lancet. He later served as the founding Lead Data Analyst for ICES uOttawa, where he had primary responsibility of overseeing a team of 10 highly skilled statistical analysts/SAS programmers from 2010 to 2015. More recently he also co-developed a successful research program focused on pediatric vaccine safety, newborn screening metabolomics, and personalized health with collaborators at OHRI, CHEO RI as well as national and international co-investigators. Over the course of his career, Dr. Hawken has published over 100 peer-reviewed publications. As the Scientific Lead for Big Data analytics within the Ottawa Methods Centre, he provides methodological and statistical guidance to other researchers within the OHRI and The Ottawa Hospital. He is currently working on a variety of projects applying advanced statistical/AI and ML methods in the areas of newborn screening metabolomics, maternal-newborn and pediatric epidemiology and personalized health for end of life decision support.

Selected Publications

Diseases, conditions and populations of interest





Research and clinical approaches