IAB Members - Biographies
(September 2007 - August 2009)
Dr. Gilles Paradis, Chair
MD, MSC, FRCP(C)
Medical Consultant
Department of Public Health, Montréal, QC
Associate Professor, Department of
Epidemiology and Biostatistics,
McGill University
Gilles Paradis is a medical consultant in the Department of Public Health of Montreal, Associate-Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics of McGill University, Head of the Division of Preventive Medicine of the McGill University Health Center (MUHC), and leader of the Public Health and Preventive Medicine Axis of the MUHC. He is also the Scientific Director for the Quebec Population Health Research Network, a province-wide network of researchers, which supports the development of capacity in population health and health services research in Québec.
He completed his MD at the University of Montréal and his specialty training in community medicine as well as his MSc in epidemiology at McGill University. After a two-year fellowship at Stanford University, he returned to Montreal and has been involved in community-based cardiovascular disease (CVD) prevention research in low-income populations and Aboriginal communities, as well as in the epidemiology of CVD risk factors, particularly in children and adolescents. His current research involves the metabolic consequences of obesity, including insulin resistance syndrome and a randomized trial of best practices for heart health promotion by physicians and other professionals in Quebec. He chaired the Scientific Program Committee of the 4th International Conference on Preventive Cardiology in Montreal in 1997. He has over 70 peer-review publications and conducted over 100 oral communications.
Dr. Patricia J. Martens, Vice-Chair
BSc, Cert.Ed. MSc, IBCLC, PhD
Associate Professor, Department of
Community Health Sciences;
Director, Manitoba Centre for Health
Policy, University of Manitoba
Dr. Martens is an epidemiologist and a health services researcher. She is a CIHR New Investigator, an Associate Professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences, University of Manitoba, and Director of of the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy.
Her interests in health services research include projects on the health status and health care use patterns of residents of Manitoba's Regional Health Authorities (RHAs), Manitoba's children, and Manitoba's Registered First Nations people, as well as rural hospital performance indicators. She also does research in the area of program evaluation of maternal/child community-based and hospital-based interventions, with interests in the areas of breastfeeding programs and maternity hospital policies and practices.
Patricia co-directs a five-year Canadian Institutes of Health Research The Need To Know project, working with a collaborative team of decision-makers and planners from Manitoba's rural/northern RHAs, academics associated with MCHP, and planners from Manitoba Health. Collaborative research, two-way capacity building and knowledge translation are aspects of this project - the first research project looked at health status and health care use patterns of RHAs and districts. The second project, in its beginning stages, is looking at mental health issues across RHAs, including diagnoses patterns and health care use patterns.
Dr. Kristan Aronson
Professor, Division of Cancer Care
and Epidemiology,
Cancer Research Institute;
Department of Community
Health and Epidemiology
Queen's University
Dr. Kristan Aronson is a professor in the Division of Cancer Care and Epidemiology at the Queen's Cancer Research Institute, and in the Department of Community Health and Epidemiology at Queen's University, where she is also the Graduate Program Director.
Dr. Aronson completed her Bachelor of Science degree, with a concentration in physical geography and environmental sciences (1981), and a master's degree in science, with a concentration in epidemiology and biostatistics (1985), both at McGill University. She received additional training in Heidelberg and at the University of Edinburgh, and obtained a PhD in epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of Toronto, followed by a postdoctoral award at the International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon, France. After obtaining a Research Scholar Award in 1991, Dr. Aronson became a professor at the University of Toronto and began conducting research on the determinants of breast cancer.
Dr. Aronson's research program examines the relative contribution of genetic and environmental factors in the etiology of cancer through multi-disciplinary studies. Advances in understanding of basic mechanisms of cancer causation, biomarkers of exposure and disease, and understanding of the human genome are incorporated into these studies, funded by CIHR and the Canadian Breast Cancer Research Alliance (CBCRA). Dr. Aronson's extensive voluntary involvement with peer review committees contributed to her earning a Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal.
Dr. James Blanchard, MD, MPH, PhD
Associate Professor
Department of Cummunity
Health Sciences;
Canada Research Chair in
Epidemiology and Global Public
Health, University of Manitoba
James F. Blanchard is an epidemiologist and public health specialist who obtained his medical degree from the University of Manitoba in 1986. He subsequently received a Master of Public Health (1990) and Ph.D. in Epidemiology (1997), both from the Johns Hopkins University. He is currently an Associate Professor of Community Health Sciences at the University of Manitoba (Canada), and Canada Research Chair in Epidemiology and Global Public Health (awarded in 2004).
Since 2001, Dr. Blanchard has been living and working in Bangalore, India to support the implementation of HIV/AIDS programs on behalf of the University of Manitoba. Between 2001 and 2006 he was the Resident Coordinator of the India-Canada Collaborative HIV/AIDS Project (ICHAP), which is a 5-year project based in the states of Karnataka and Rajasthan designed to build capacities to respond to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Since December 2003, he has been the Project Director for the “Sankalp” Project, which is a 5-year focused HIV/AIDS prevention project in Karnataka funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation under “Avahan”, its India AIDS Initiative. In addition to his project-related work, Dr. Blanchard has provided technical assistance and strategic advice to a number of government and non-government associations, including the governments of Canada, India and Pakistan, the Canadian International Development Agency and the World Bank. Prior to his work in India, Dr. Blanchard was Manitoba’s Provincial Epidemiologist and Head of the Manitoba Collaborative Epidemiology Unit (1992-2000). In that role he developed an applied program of surveillance and research of both communicable and non-communicable diseases. He helped establish internationally recognized research programs in inflammatory bowel disease and diabetes, and continues to conduct research in these areas.
Dr. David Butler-Jones, MD, MHSc, CCFP, FRCPC, FACPM
Chief Public Health Officer of Canada
David Butler-Jones is Canada's first Chief Public Health Officer and head of the Canadian Public Health Agency. He is a frequent speaker and media commentator and has served as a consultant on health care issues for different jurisdictions.
From 1995-2002 Dr. Butler-Jones was Chief Medical Health Officer for the Province of Saskatchewan, and Executive Director of the Population Health and Primary Health Services Branches. He has worked in many parts of Canada and has experience with consultations and work exchanges in places as diverse as the Dominican Republic, Turkey, Scotland, Brazil, Kosovo, and Chile.
He has served on a number of National Processes including:
- Founding co-chair of the Canadian Coalition for Public Health in the 21st Century;
- The National Advisory Committee on SARS and Public Health;
- The National Climate Change and Health Assessment Committee;
- The Canadian Institutes of Health Research – Advisory Board for the Institute of Population and Public Health;
- Past President, Canadian Public Health Association;
- Past Vice President, American Public Health Association;
- Past Chair, Canadian Roundtable on Climate Change and Health 2000;
- Past International Regent, American College of Preventive Medicine;
- Past member, Governing Council for the Canadian Population Health Initiative; and
- Past Chair, National Coalition on Enhancing Preventive Practices of Health Professionals.
Until recently he carried on a part time academic clinical teaching practice in the Department of Family Medicine- University of Saskatchewan, Faculty of Medicine. Among his research activities have been, Co-Principal Investigator (CPI) for the Saskatchewan Population Health and Dynamics Survey, CPI for the Heart Health Dissemination Research Program, and Principal Investigator for a Cooperative Agreement (adverse effects of marketed drugs) with the US-FDA.
Dr. Butler-Jones trained at the University of Toronto and Queen's University. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, a Fellow of the American College of Preventive Medicine and a Certificant of the College of Family Physicians of Canada. He is married to a United Church Minister and they have three children.
Dr. Roy Cameron, PhD
Executive Director, CCS/NCIC
Centre for Behavioural Research
and Program Evaluation
Lyle Hallman Institute;
Professor, Department of Health
Studies and Gerontology
University of Waterloo
Roy Cameron is a Professor in the Department of Health Studies and Gerontology at the University of Waterloo, and Executive Director of the Canadian Cancer Society/National Cancer Institute of Canada's Centre for Behavioural Research and Program Evaluation (CBRPE). Roy was educated at the University of Waterloo (MA in English, PhD in Clinical Psychology) and Duke University Medical Center (Clinical Internship). He has been a faculty member at the University of Saskatchewan and a Visiting Scholar at Stanford.
Roy is committed to creating infrastructure that enables linkage of science and practice in population oriented approaches to disease prevention and control. To this end, he is overseeing development of the national Sociobehavioural Cancer Research Network, operated by CBRPE; he played a seminal role in developing an emerging system for supporting evidence-informed decision making in chronic disease prevention; and he instigated and led development of the Canadian Tobacco Control Research Initiative.
His own research program has focused on tobacco control. He has been concerned with integrating research programs with policy and practice, and the development of the new science of population level intervention.
Roy is currently a member of the Canadian Cancer Society - National Cancer Institute of Canada's Joint Advisory Committee on Cancer Control; the Primary Prevention Action Group of the Canadian Strategy for Cancer Control; and the Conference of Principal Investigators of the Canadian Heart Health Initiative.
Dr. James Dunn, MSc, PhD
Research Scientist, Centre for
Research on Inner City Health
St. Michael's Hospital;
Assistant Professor,
Department of Geography
University of Toronto
Dr. Jim Dunn is a research scientist at the Centre for Research on Inner City Health (CRICH) and an assistant professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Toronto. He also holds appointments as an associate member of the Centre for Urban and Community Studies and the University of Calgary.
He received his bachelor of arts and science degree (1991) and his master of geography degree, with a concentration in health geography (1993), both from McMaster University. He earned a PhD in health geography from Simon Fraser University in 1999.
Dr. Dunn's research program focuses on questions regarding socio-economic determinants of health, and the influence of economic and social policies and programs on health inequalities. He currently co-leads an international study of the relationship between income distribution and population health in North American metropolitan areas. He is developing studies regarding the effects of social housing on the health of low-income families, the effects of supportive housing for people with mental illness on health, quality of life and health care utilization, and the influence of neighbourhood socio-economic factors on the partial patterning of early child development outcomes in urban Canada.
Dr. Dunn is the recipient of awards for both research and teaching and currently holds a CIHR New Investigator award.
Dr. Slim Haddad, MD, PhD
Professor
Department of Social and
Preventive Medicine
University of Montréal
Slim Haddad is a physician specializing in public health (Université d’Aix-Marseille, France); he holds a PhD in health economics from Université Claude Bernard, in Lyon, France. Dr. Haddad is a Professor in the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine at the University of Montréal. He supervises the Population, Health and Development axis at the University of Montréal’s Interdisciplinary Health Research Group (GRIS) and directs the Quebec Population Health Research Network’s research axis in world health. Dr. Haddad is a researcher at the CHUM Research Centre in Montreal.
Dr. Haddad is active in world health research. He has participated in a movement that has led CIHR, Health Canada and other federal and provincial institutions to progressively recognize and promote Canada’s role in world health research. His principal expertise lies in three spheres: studying the interface between economic and health policies; capabilities (poverty, access to public services; socioeconomic vulnerability); and health. He has coordinated the successful completion of a number of research projects in sub-Saharan Africa and in South Asia. Dr. Haddad teaches planning and evaluation for public health programs, health economics, and theories of social justice as they apply to health.
Dr. Penny Hawe, MPH, PhD
Professor
Department of Community Health Sciences
University of Calgary
Dr. Penny Hawe is Professor and Markin Chair of Health and Society in the Department of Community Health Sciences in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Calgary. She assumed the position in July 2000.
Prior to that, Dr. Hawe worked in the Department of Public Health at the University of Sydney, in Australia. She completed a Bachelor of Science (Honours) at the University New South Wales in 1977. Her major was in community psychology. Dr. Hawe received her Master of Public Health from the University of Sydney in 1990 and her PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Melbourne in 1997. Dr. Hawe’s main research interests are in population-level preventive interventions and social environments and health. She is the Director of a recently established CIHR International Collaborative Centre for the Study of Social and Physical Environments and Health. The Centre links 17 investigators in Canada, Australia, USA and UK on an interdisciplinary program of work on the theory, methods and ethics of complex interventions.
Dr. Susan Kirkland
Associate Professor and Clinical
Research Scholar
Departments of Community Health and Epidemiology and Medicine
Dalhousie University
Dr. Susan Kirkland is an Associate Professor and a clinical research scholar in the
Departments of Community Health and Epidemiology and Medicine at Dalhousie University.
Dr. Kirkland completed both her Bachelor of Science degree with a concentration in Ninesiology and Health Studies (1983) and her Masters degree with a concentration in Health Behaviour (1987) at the University of Waterloo. She obtained her Doctor of Philosophy degree at the University of Toronto with a concentration in Epidemiology.
Her research lies in the areas of chronic diseases, women's health and aging. She is particularly interested in cardiovascular disease and osteoporosis among women, and explores the interplay between gender and the genetic, social, cultural and economic determinants of health. Dr. Kirkland has been instrumental in the development of a number of large scale initiatives, including the Maritime Centre of Excellence for Women's Health and the Atlantic Interdisciplinary Research Network for Social and Behavioural Issues in Hepatitis C and HIV/AIDS. She has been involved in the design, and analysis of a number of longitudinal studies, including the Canadian Multicentre Osteoporosis Study, the Canadian Heart Health Surveys and the Canadian Study of Health and Aging. She is currently one of three principal investigators involved with CIHR's Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging. This 20-year study of 50,000 Canadian men and women over the age of 40 examines how everything from social and physical environments to lifestyle and behavioral factors to the health care system influence disease, health, and well-being.
Dr. David Mowat, MBChB, MPH, FRCPC
Medical Officer of Health
Peel Region Public Health
Ontario, Canada
Dr. David Mowat is Medical Officer of Health for Peel Region.
Previous to his current position, he was one of three Deputy Chief Public Health Officers, fulfilling particular responsibilities for strengthening public health practice, and for the Agency's activities in regional offices across Canada.
Dr. Mowat has been the Director General, Office of Public Health Practice with responsibilities for surveillance systems, knowledge translation, the development of the public health workforce, and public health information policy, privacy and law.
Dr. Mowat joined Health Canada in 1998, moving to the Public Health Agency of Canada in 2004. Previous appointments include Consultant in Maternal and Child Health in the Public Health Branch of the Government of Newfoundland, Medical Officer of Health for Kingston and area (where he also taught in the Department of Community Health and Epidemiology and the School of Policy Studies at Queen's), and Chief Medical Officer of Health for Ontario.
Dr. Mowat received his medical training in the UK, at the University of Edinburgh, and a master's degree in public health from the University of California at Berkeley. He is also a fellow in community medicine of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. He is an adjunct faculty member at Queen's and the University of Ottawa.
Dr. Jason Robert, PhD
Assistant Professor, Center for Biology & Society and School of Life Sciences
Arizona State University
Jason Scott Robert has primary research interests in the philosophy of the life sciences and in bioethics. His research areas are diverse: developmental biology (including stem cell biology), evolutionary biology, psychiatry and neuroscience, determinants of individual and population health, and the bioethics of novel bio-interventions. His first book is Embryology, Epigenesis, and Evolution: Taking Development Seriously (Cambridge University Press, 2004), and he is now working on a new book project on bioethics and the complexity of health.
Dr Robert is affiliated with the IPPH, the CIHR Institute of Genetics, and the Stem Cell Network. Currently, he sits on the CIHR IG New PI Priority and Planning Committee, and on the Training Committee of the Stem Cell Network. He also serves on the World Psychiatric Association - World Health Organization Joint Working Group on Philosophical and Methodological Foundations of Psychiatric Diagnosis and Classification. Formerly Assistant Professor and CIHR New Investigator in the Department of Philosophy at Dalhousie University, Dr Robert is now Assistant Professor in the School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, where he is affiliated with the Human Dimensions of Biology Group and the Center for Biology & Society.
Dr. Jean Shoveller
Associate Professor
Department of Health Care and Epidemiology
Faculty of Medicine
University of British Columbia
Dr. Jean Shoveller is an associate professor in the Department of Health Care and Epidemiology at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Medicine.
She earned her bachelor of science degree and her master of arts degree, both with a specialty in health education, from Dalhousie University. Dr. Shoveller obtained a PhD in Interdisciplinary Studies at University of British Columbia (UBC) in 1997, and then completed two years of postdoctoral training at the BC Research Institute for Children's and Women's Health. She assumed her current faculty position in 1999.
Dr. Shoveller is well-known for her contributions to the use of qualitative methods as well as survey methodologies; she also has written extensively about social context and structure as determinants of health. Her research program addresses the theme of reducing health and social inequalities among youth. Most of her CIHR-funded research focuses on rural and northern populations, with a particular emphasis on investigating the impacts of gender and place as key determinants of young people's sexual health. She serves on CIHR's Psychosocial and Behavioural peer review committee, and reviews for many international and Canadian peer reviewed journals.
In 2002, Dr. Shoveller received two career scholar awards: one from the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research and another from the National Cancer Institute of Canada. That same year, she was also named recipient of the Dorothy J. Lamont Scientist Award by CIHR and the National Cancer Institute of Canada.
Dr. Margaret Whitehead, PhD
W.H. Duncan Chair of Public Health
Faculty of Medicine
University of Liverpool
Professor Margaret Whitehead holds the W.H. Duncan Chair of Public Health in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Liverpool in the United Kingdom. She is also the Head of the World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre for Policy Research on the Social Determinants of Health.
Professor Whitehead earned her Bachelor of Biology in 1970 at York University and her Doctor of Philosophy degree at the Karolinska Institute of Stockholm in 1997. She was elected Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health of the Royal Colleges of Physicians of the United Kingdom in 2001.
For the past 20 years, Dr. Whitehead's key research interests have involved social inequalities in health and in health care - and what can be done to reduce them. To this end, she has been part of various national and international efforts, which include sitting on the UK Government's Independent Inquiry into Inequalities in Health (the Acheson Inquiry), and being a founding member of the Global Health Equity Initiative funded by the Rockefeller Foundation and SIDA. Currently, she is a member of two European Union networks related to international experiences on inequalities; one evaluates the impact on inequalities of complex interventions, while the other one traces the health inequalities impact of public policies and political context.
Her books related to the above include: The Health Divide, published together with the seminal Black Report, which has become a Penguin non-fiction best-seller; Tackling inequalities in health: an agenda for action; and Challenging inequities in health: from ethics to action. The policy briefing documents she co-wrote for the WHO have been translated into over 20 languages.
Dr. Elinor Wilson, PhD
President
Assisted Human Reproduction Canada
Dr. Wilson has a Master of Health Sciences from McMaster University, and a PhD in Administration Management from Walden University in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Following early training and practice in nursing, and a term as Director, Professional Services at the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario, Dr. Wilson moved into a number of increasingly responsible positions with the Heart and Stroke Foundation Canada. She also worked at Preventive Health Services in Health Canada for two years on an executive exchange, to increase the public health capacity particularly with respect to national issues in prevention. Most recently, she served as Chief Executive Officer for the Canadian Public Health Association, responsible for managing an operating program and project budget in excess of $15 million, and for building relationships with stakeholders, members, partners and donors across the public, private and NGO sectors. Her professional activities are numerous, including Chair of the Research and Science Committee at the Health Charities Council of Canada, and member of the Institute of Population and Public Health Advisory Board at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. She was formerly Vice President of the World Heart Federation, Chair of the Chronic Disease and Health Surveillance Working Group, and member of the WHO Expert Advisory Group on Global Cessation Policy. Dr. Wilson has experience working with academia, government, non-government and the private sectors, and at the international, national and provincial levels. Dr. Wilson has published extensively on a variety of public health issues including women's health.
Dr. Michael Wolfson, PhD
Assistant Chief Statistician
Analysis and Development
Statistics Canada
Dr. Michael C. Wolfson is Assistant Chief Statistician, Analysis and Development, at Statistics Canada. In this role, he is responsible for analytical activities generally at Statistics Canada, for the health statistics program, and for specific analytical and modeling programs.
Prior to joining Statistics Canada, he held a variety of positions in central agencies including the Treasury Board Secretariat, Department of Finance, Privy Council Office, House of Commons, and Deputy Prime Minister's Office with responsibilities in the areas of program review and evaluation, tax policy and pension policy.
In addition to his federal public service responsibilities, Dr. Wolfson has been a Fellow of the Canadian Institute of Advanced Research since 1988. His recent research interests include analysis of the determinants of health, design of health information systems, income distribution, tax/transfer and pension policy analysis, and microsimulation approaches to socio-economic accounting and to evolutionary economic theory. Dr. Wolfson received his BSc in computer science and economics from the University of Toronto, and his PhD in economics from Cambridge University in 1977.