Lisa Ridgway Portrait

Lisa Ridgway passed away on November 14th, 2025. I learned of her death through a bounce-back email, ending abruptly just over a year of our research partnership.

Lisa Ridgway’s passing is an irreparable loss that I mourn. What remains in my heart is her unbeatable energy and her determination for patient leadership in research.

Lisa had been involved in patient-oriented research since 2018. She was a lawyer by training and profession, a Research Ambassador for Canada’s Strategy for Patient-Oriented Research (SPOR) BC Support Unit, and a peer-reviewed author.

Here is a snippet from Lisa’s profile on ResearchGate:

My research work is at the cross-section of patient engagement / experience, medicine (eg. biomarkers, pharmacogenomics, major depressive disorder) and non-interventional and interventional therapy (eg. rTMS), all in mental health. I am a regional, provincial and national research ambassador in Canada for patient-oriented research. My focus is on the one absolute, that is, that mental health is health. I also live, work and play on the un-ceded land of the Lek’wungen peoples and nation.

I encourage you to read Lisa’s – in her own words – “ode to partnership and many years collaborating with the BC SUPPORT Unit.” I recall that she was glad to see it finally published, after some back-and-forth with the journals, in the summer of 2025.

Ridgway, L., & Loo, S. (2025). Patient-oriented research- it’s personal: two BC SUPPORT unit patient partners sharing their journey in patient-oriented research. Research involvement and engagement, 11(1), 89. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40900-025-00764-6

Lisa’s contributions to AWARE are invaluable.

She was the one who proposed to offer focus groups, in addition to interviews, suggesting that some patient partners might feel more comfortable sharing as part of a group.

She shared valuable insights into the potential power dynamics of our planned Steering Committee.

We would brainstorm over Zoom, in emails, and in the comments on LinkedIn, conceptualizing research waste through a patient partner’s eyes. It was through these discussions that I learned that research waste and misconduct are conceptually fuzzy from a general public point of view.

It was Lisa who clarified that the use cases for a research waste tool, for a patient partner, could fall into different categories: 1) when invited to join a research team (before, during, after); 2) as a peer reviewer; 3) when “shopping around” – at informal journal clubs where patient partners will get together and talk about papers.

The SPOR Evidence Alliance has shared messages of condolence with Lisa’s husband on behalf of the team and has made a donation to Victoria Women in Need Community Cooperative charity, of which Lisa was a strong supporter, in her memory.

“Go, go, go!” – as Lisa would say to me!