Dr. Sjaarda was the Scientific Research Director at the Queen's Genomic Laboratory at Ongwanada, adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Queen’s University and a faculty member in the Center for Neuroscience Studies at Queen’s University.

Dr. Sjaarda is interested in using informatics, genomics, and big data to address current challenges in health care.

Dr. Sjaarda also has significant wet lab experience including sample management, processing and extraction, NGS, and quantitative PCR assays.