Danika was formerly the Associate Vice-President, Tri-agency Institutional Programs Secretariat, at the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. In this role, she managed the Canada Research Chairs Program, the Excellence Research Chairs Program, the Canada First Research Excellence Fund, the Canada 150 Research Chairs Program and the Research Support Fund. She most recently oversaw the implementation of the New Frontiers in Research Fund.

Danika obtained her Bachelor of Science (honours) from St. Francis Xavier University and her PhD in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology and the Biotechnology Laboratory (now the Michael Smith Labs) at the University of British Columbia, for which she was awarded the Governor General’s Gold Medal. She conducted her postdoctoral training as a Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Immunology at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California.

Following her postdoctoral research, Danika worked as a research scientist at two Vancouver-based biotechnology companies. In 2006, she moved to Ottawa and joined CIHR, where she held key director general positions within the Research, Knowledge Translation and Ethics Portfolio. In 2015, she was named one of Canada’s emerging leaders as a member of the Governor General’s Canadian Leadership Conference.