HEALTHYDESIGN.CITY - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Committee
- Senior Planning Advisor
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Committee
- Partner
- Planner at DIALOG
Antonio is an urban planner at DIALOG, with a keen interest in the interface between wellbeing and the built environment. He has collaborated with Conference Board of Canada and others for the publication of the Community Wellbeing Framework, and is a member of the National Roundtable of Health and Design Professionals currently working on the second version of the Community Wellbeing Framework. His professional experience and research focuses on the intersection of architecture, planning, and urban design. He's internationally recognized for transforming cities into vibrant urban places that respond to their social, economic, and environmental contexts.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Committee
- Project Manager With the Population & Public Health at the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control
- Project Manager, Healthy Built Environments Population and Public Health
Charito is a project manager with the Population & Public Health at the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control. Charito manages the healthy built environment program area, with a focus is on the ways in which population health and individual lifestyle choices are influenced by the built environment. As a team, their goal is to prevent chronic disease and injury by addressing broader social determinants such as food security and healthy eating, health equity, healthy communities and schools, and the built environment. She works very collaboratively with the regional health authorities, Ministry of Health, and various community-based organizations.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Committee
- Postdoctoral Fellow, School of Public Health and Pediatrics, University of Alberta
Charlene is a geographer dedicated to defending the "health of the land" for all by developing GIS solutions through integrative collaborations on human health, habitat, and air and water quality. She has an Interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and Medical Sciences - Pediatrics at the University of Alberta, where she has the privilege of collaborating with amazing researchers on the environmental health aspects of adverse birth outcomes, childhood cancers, asthma, congenital heart defects, infant gut microbiota, and autism spectrum disorders. Her current postdoctoral project addresses climate change health impacts on at-risk populations by modeling and mapping large databases of health outcomes and sources of environmental exposures.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor, Memorial University of Newfoundland
As Canada Research Chair in Population Physical Activity, Dr. Fuller's interests include advancing our understanding of how urban environments can promote or limit physical activity, and how environment can be structured to reduce social inequalities in health. Physical activity is important for the prevention and treatment of many diseases including diabetes, mental health, and some cancers. Unfortunately, physical activity is notoriously difficult to change. Only 15% of the Canadian population meet physical activity guidelines, with more educated and higher income people being more active. Working closely with cities and local community organizations, and using mobile health technologies Dr. Fuller's research examines the best ways to design and build cities and towns that equitably increase physical activity for the entire population. His team develops new interventions and works with cities to evaluate the impact of existing interventions including bicycle share programs, bridge construction, and snow clearing on physical activity.
DIRECTOR - Dany Doiron has been working as an environmental epidemiologist for 10 years, and has special expertise in linking environmental data with health data to support a wide range of studies on how people are affected by the built environment. His research focuses on the effects of ambient air pollution on respiratory health. Dany is a Research Associate in the Respiratory Epidemiology and Clinical Research Unit of the McGill University Health Centre and serves as the Chief Operating Officer of the Canadian Obstructive Lung Disease Cohort (CanCOLD), a population-based cohort that seeks to better understand Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). He is also the Managing Director of the Canadian Urban Environmental Health Research Consortium
Job Titles:
- Public Health Physician With Health Canada 's Environmental Health Science
David Stieb is a Public Health Physician with Health Canada's Environmental Health Science and Research Bureau and an Adjunct Professor in the School of Epidemiology, Public Health and Preventive Medicine, and member of the School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies at the University of Ottawa. In addition to conducting primary research, including linking national administrative cohort data and exposure surfaces, and key systematic reviews and meta-analyses of epidemiological studies of air pollution and health, he has made notable contributions to knowledge translation, working with federal, provincial and municipal public health and NGO partners. These include acting as health science lead in the development of Canada's Air Quality Health Index, a public health risk communication tool (www.airhealth.ca). He also co-developed the Air Quality Benefits Assessment Tool and other applications that translate knowledge to estimate the human health impacts and costs/benefits of changes in ambient air quality resulting from proposed regulatory or other initiatives.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Committee
- Lecturer in Sustainable and
- Planner
Dr Helen Pineo is an urban planner and academic who specializes in healthy and sustainable urban development. Her research focuses on urban design, planning and governance in relation to urban health and sustainability. Helen has investigated the development and use of urban health metrics. She developed the THRIVES Framework (Towards Healthy uRbanism: InclusiVe, Equitable, Sustainable) which provides a new way to conceptualize the health and wellbeing impacts of urban design and planning. Prior to entering academia in 2018, she worked as an urban planner for over a decade on new developments and planning policy, in the UK and internationally.
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor, Dalla Lana School of Public Health and the Institute for Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, University of Toronto
- Scientist at MAP Centre for Urban Health Solutions
Dr. Gillian Booth is a Scientist at MAP Centre for Urban Health Solutions within the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute of St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto. Dr. Booth is also an Adjunct Scientist at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES), a Professor in the Department of Medicine and the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto, and a practicing endocrinologist. Dr. Booth's research focuses on health outcomes related to diabetes; specifically how socioeconomic, environmental and health care factors influence the risk of diabetes and its complications. She has extensive experience in using large provincial health care and survey databases, and in using geographic information systems (GIS) methodology to study contextual factors influencing the development of diabetes. One of her major research interests is on the built environment and its role in the obesity and diabetes epidemics.
Job Titles:
- Professor, School of Mathematics and Statistics, Carleton University
Dr. Paul Villeneuve is an environmental and occupational epidemiologist. His research focuses on investigating the associations between environmental and occupational exposures and a number of adverse health outcomes. His projects include evaluating the impacts of long-term exposure to air pollution and the risk of chronic diseases such as cancer, diabetes and dementia, as well as the health benefits of urban greenness. He collaborates closely with Health Canada, the Public Health Agency of Canada, the Ontario Occupational Cancer Research Center, Cancer Care Ontario, and several other academic researchers across Canada, and the US. He is on the editorial boards of Environmental Research, Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention, and the Canadian Journal of Public Health.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Committee
- Director of the Centre for Health Equity Training, Research and Evaluations ( CHETRE ), and the Healthy Urban Environments ( HUE ) Collaboratory
Evelyne currently holds appointments as Visiting Professor, Université de Montréal; and Visiting Professor, Maastricht University (The Netherlands). She is WHO European Research Director for Healthy Cities. She was a member of global scientific committees of the 2019 and 2020 IUHPE and Healthy Cities conferences and member of the IUHPE Executive Board. She is currently the Chair of the Global Scientific Committee of IUHPE2022. Professor De Leeuw has a reputation in building public health curricula in tertiary education around the world, establishing Schools of Public Health in The Netherlands, Denmark, advising such endeavours in Kazakhstan, Estonia and El Salvador.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Committee
- Graduate Student, Mount Saint Vincent University
Gurneet Dhami is a dietetic professional pursuing her Masters in Applied Human Nutrition at Mount Saint Vincent University in Kjipuktuk (Halifax) on the East Coast. She is an emerging researcher with expertise in community-based projects, food security and health equity. Gurneet has presented her anti-racism research in dietetics at conferences, workshops, podcasts and panels. She is currently leading a project with her community in collaboration with the York Region Food Network with the formation of a youth advocacy group focused on sustainability and food justice. Her interest in interdisciplinary collaboration and systems thinking approaches will guide her advisory role.
Job Titles:
- Chairman of the Advisory Committee
- Chairman, Ontario Public Health Association
Helen works with public health partners to promote and advocate for action on environmental health issues. She is a part-time faculty with Conestoga College's School of Health & Life Sciences, teaching the Community Health and Healthy Built Environments course. Helen is a certified Public Health Inspector with over 35 years experience in environmental public health. Retiring in 2018, she is now a Board Member with a number of non-profit organizations including: the Ontario Public Health Association, the Canadian Health Association for Sustainability and Equity, and the Windfall Ecology Centre In 2020, Helen was appointed to the Town of New Tecumseth's Environmental Advisory Committee.
Job Titles:
- DIRECTOR
- Assistant Professor, Dalla Lana School of Public Health and Department of Chemical Engineering & Applied Chemistry, University of Toronto
Jeffrey Brook has 25 years of experience as an Environment Canada scientist working at the science-policy interface. During this time he spent 15 years as faculty at the University of Toronto, where he was involved in research, lecturing and graduate student training. He is one of Canada's leading experts in air quality, recognized at all levels of government and academically, including for his substantial contributions in air pollution health research. Dr. Brook has led scientific assessments to inform policy nationally and internationally, and advised multi-stakeholder groups shaping policy. He has led a variety of multi-disciplinary research teams in government, government-academic partnerships and in academia. Recently his efforts have expanded beyond air quality, for example for 8 years he has led the Environmental Working Group of the Canadian Health Infant Longitudinal Development (CHILD) study and co-led the Gene x Environment Research Platform within the AllerGen Network of Centres of Excellence.
Job Titles:
- HealthyDesign.City Data Director
has been working as an environmental epidemiologist for 10 years, and has special expertise in linking environmental data with health data to support a wide range of studies on how people are affected by the built environment. His research focuses on the effects of ambient air pollution on respiratory health. Dany is a Research Associate in the Respiratory Epidemiology and Clinical Research Unit of the McGill University Health Centre and serves as the Chief Operating Officer of the Canadian Obstructive Lung Disease Cohort (CanCOLD), a population-based cohort that seeks to better understand Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). He is also the Managing Director of the Canadian Urban Environmental Health Research Consortium (CANUE).
PREVIOUS DIRECTOR - Eleanor Setton brings 30 years of training and experience in the development, analysis, modelling, and visualization of environmental and socio-economic geospatial data. Her focus over the past 15 years has been on environmental exposures, from carcinogens in air, water and other pathways, to health-impacting urban factors including air quality, greenness, walkability, weather and others. She has a special interest in advancing the characterization of urban and rural environments using high resolution imagery and computer vision/machine learning, as well as developing data-driven tools for policy makers and the general public toward improving environmental conditions for all.
DATA DIRECTOR - Joey Syer has been the HealthyDesign.City Data Director since November 2022. He oversees the development of HealthyDesign.City datasets and projects dedicated to their improvement. Joey is also a part-time course instructor at the University of Victoria in Population Health and Geographic Information Systems (GIS), and Spatial Epidemiology and Outbreak Detection. Prior to HealthyDesign.City, he spent 10 years (2012-2022) as a geomatics specialist at Hemmera, an Ausenco Company. Joey holds degrees in GIS and Epidemiology. He has a strong interest in environmental epidemiology, using GIS, remote sensing, and machine learning to improve environmental exposure data quality, and a wide range of health outcomes.
DATA SCIENTIST - Priya Patel is an environmental engineer and data scientist with a background in urban environmental modelling. She worked for six years as an engineering consultant before returning to graduate school at the University of Toronto for a Master's degree. Her research was focused on modelling air pollution and microclimates using satellite imagery and machine learning. Priya is passionate about using environmental data to create actionable insights that can lead to real-world changes in urban design.
POST DOCTORAL RESEARCH FELLOW - Mohammad Noaeen is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow (PDF) at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto. He joined HealthyDesign.City in June 2022, specializing in environmental health research and developing applications for data analysis and visualization. Simultaneously, he has been a PDF at the Ethical Intelligence Lab at Harvard Business School since January 2022, focusing on social and ethical studies pertaining to autonomous machines. Prior to his current appointments, Mohammad worked as a PDF in Transportation Engineering at the University of Toronto. He obtained his PhD in Software Engineering from the University of Calgary, where he concentrated on urban traffic network management using data analysis, traffic theory, and reinforcement learning.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Committee
- Planner
- Urban Planner and Population Health Assessment, Brantford, Ontario
Kristen Boulard is the Urban Planner at the Brant County Health Unit located in Brantford, Ontario. She has previously worked in both the private and public sectors in Development Planning and Urban Design in the Hamilton and Burlington Region. Kristen's role at BCHU is to plan for and promote the development of healthy communities for residents of all ages through the development of Official Plan policies relating to climate change and health and leading a Climate Change and Health Vulnerability Assessment for the Health Unit.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Committee
- Postdoctoral Fellow, Earth Sciences and Civil & Mineral Engineering, University of Toronto
Laura works on a variety of projects looking at the impacts of traffic on greenhouse gas emissions, urban air quality, population exposure and health. Laura has recently collaborated with the advocacy group Environmental Defence as well as Ontario Public Health Association to highlight how electric vehicles and cleaner trucks can help reduce pollution, tackle climate change, improve health and save lives in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area.
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor, Dalla Lana School of Public Health
- Principal Investigator and Scientific Director of the Population Health Analytics Lab
Laura Rosella is the Principal Investigator and Scientific Director of the Population Health Analytics Lab. She is an Associate Professor in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto, where she holds Canada Research Chair in Population Health Analytics. In 2020, she was made the Inaugural Stephen Family Research Chair in Community Health at the Institute for Better Health, Trillium Health Partners. Her additional scientific appointments include the Vector Institute and Site Director for ICES UofT. Her research interests include population health, predictive models to support public health planning, and population health management. She has authored over 130 peer-reviewed publications in the areas of epidemiology, population health and health services research. She has been awarded several national grants, including a CIHR Foundation grant to support her population health analytics research program. Notably, Dr. Rosella was recently awarded the Brian MacMahon Early Career Epidemiology Award by the Society for Epidemiologic Research and was named one of Canada's Top 40 Under 40. She was president of the Canadian Society for Epidemiology and Biostatistics (CSEB) from 2018-2020.
Job Titles:
- Expert
- Professor, School of Population and Public Health
Michael Brauer is an internationally recognized expert in urban and environmental health. He is Director of UBC's Bridge Program, Professor in UBC's School of Population and Public Health, and Professor at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. Dr. Brauer's research has uncovered relationships between transportation-related and biomass air pollution, and reproductive, respiratory, and cardiovascular health, and identified impacts of multiple exposures mediated by urban form on population health. He has participated in studies throughout the world and served on advisory committees to the UN Climate and Clean Air Coalition Scientific Panel, the World Health Organization, the US National Academy of Sciences and Institute of Medicine, the Royal Society of Canada, the International Joint Commission and governments in North America and Asia.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Committee
- National Coordinator - Active Neighbourhoods Canada Centre D'Écologie Urbaine De Montréal
- Planner and Designer at the Montréal Urban Ecology Centre
Mikael St-Pierre is an urban planner and designer at the Montréal Urban Ecology Centre. His practice is centered on community town planning and participatory democracy. Mikael is National Coordinator for the Active Neighbourhoods Canada network, an initiative that aims equitable access to healthy built environments for all Canadian communities. In 2016, Mikael was identified as one of Canada's 20 Emerging Innovators by the American Express Leadership Institute and Ashoka. He is also lecturer in the Urban Studies department at Université du Québec à Montréal.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Committee
- Design - Minded Urban Planner and Project Manager
- Urban Planner and Project Manager
Nathan Roth is a design-minded urban planner and project manager, currently with the Open Space Planning & Design Section of the City of Edmonton. His professional experience includes community planning and design projects with Indigenous Nations and Communities, strategic policy development for citywide green networks of public parks and ecological areas, public realm and urban design, and most recently managing the planning and design phases of large-scale public park and open space site-specific development projects. He holds a Master of Planning degree from Dalhousie University, a Bachelor of Arts in Urban & Regional Studies from the University of Lethbridge, and studied architecture in-between degrees at Dalhousie and the University of California, Los Angeles.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Committee
- Corporate Social Planner, City of Delta, British Columbia
- Social Planner
Olga Shcherbyna is a social planner with over 12 years of experience building inclusive and equitable communities. Mrs. Shcherbyna believes in planning with communities vs. planning for communities and brings this motto to any project she works on. Mrs. Shcherbyna co-authored two book chapters and is a guest lecturer at the Langara College Applied Planning Program. She currently works as a Corporate Social Planner with the City of Delta, leading its social planning policy and community development work.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Committee
- Member of the Canadian Institute of Planners
Olimpia is a member of the Canadian Institute of Planners (CIP), and a registered professional planner in Alberta and Quebec with over 20 years of comprehensive and management experience across Canada. She has served as Senior Planning Advisor for Alberta Municipal Affairs since 2008 and worked previously on wide strategic initiatives as Principal Planner for the City of Edmonton, several municipalities in Quebec, and as Coordinator Planning and Lands for the Government of Nunavut. Having earned a Bachelor of Science and a Master in Urban Planning from the University of Montreal, Olimpia is completing a PhD in Public Health at the University of Alberta integrating planning and health policies.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Committee
- Public Space Workshop Landscape Architect
Job Titles:
- Environmental Engineer and Data Scientist
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Committee
- Climate Change Coordinator, Engineering and Public Works, Town of New Glasgow, Nova Scotia
Rachel coordinates sustainability initiatives, climate mitigation planning, and community engagement to promote climate conscious behaviours. She is working to develop and implement a local climate action plan to drive emission reductions in New Glasgow, NS, and improve community climate resilience. Rachel brings extensive experience in climate change and sustainability. Prior to joining the Town of New Glasgow, Rachel worked in climate resilience and adaptation planning in public health in Ontario. Rachel received her Bachelor of Arts in Economics from St. Francis Xavier University, and completed her Master's in Environmental Studies in the Environment, Resources and Sustainability program from the University of Waterloo.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Committee
- Assistant Professor, School of Public Health, University of Alberta
Shelby Yamamoto is an epidemiologist with a particular interest in exploring environmental factors that impact vulnerable populations. Her research, based at the University of Alberta's School of Public Health, focuses primarily on the impacts of air pollution and climate change. She is currently involved in projects that will: create an interactive online tool to map climate change-related chronic disease as a way to inform public health policies; create an interactive, web-based platform for stakeholders to identify vulnerable communities (e.g. older adults, immigrant) and co-develop climate change toolkits aimed at vulnerable populations; and generate critical local data about community climate change vulnerability and resilience that can be used to inform planning activities.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Committee
- Deputy Chief Administrative Officer and Director of Planning and Community Development
Spencer is responsible for overseeing the drafting, implementation, and monitoring of the procedures, policies, regulations, and processes that relate to the growth and change of Coaldale's built environment. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of planning and development, his role also focuses on ensuring that growth and change is undertaken in a logical, efficient, and fiscally responsible manner that responds to the needs and desires of the Town's stakeholders. Spencer is working with Alberta Health Services' Healthy Communities by Design south region committee to pilot a tool for collecting public perspectives on how healthy communities are in Alberta and also instructs at the University of Lethbridge.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Committee
- Research Scientist With the Centre for Surveillance
- Research Scientist, Public Health Agency of Canada
Stephanie is a Research Scientist with the Centre for Surveillance and Applied Research at the Public Health Agency of Canada and an Adjunct Professor in the School of Epidemiology and Public Health at the University of Ottawa. She has a BSc in Human Kinetics and a PhD in Population Health both from the University of Ottawa and an MSc in Epidemiology from Queen's University. Dr. Prince Ware's research is focused on the measurement of physical activity and sedentary behaviour, determinants of these health behaviours with a focus on the built environment, and health behaviour interventions including the evaluation of natural experiments.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Advisory Committee
Umayangga Yogalingam is a recent Masters of Public Health graduate in the Social and Behavioural Health Sciences stream from the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. She is the Research and Knowledge Translation Lead at The Sandbox Project, a national charity facilitating collaboration between child- and youth-related organizations to improve the health and well-being of children. Umayangga also co-leads the Young Canadians Roundtable on Health (YCRH), a national youth-led advisory committee dedicated to being Canada's strong youth voice in issues of child and youth health. Her interests include mental health, health equity, environmental health, and the impact of race, culture and ethnicity on health.
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor, Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, University of Montreal
Dr. Kestens has investigated a wide variety of topics, including active mobility, resource accessibility and the roles of food environments, aging, and mental health. He brings this multidisciplinary background to bear in the research program of his CIHR/PHAC Applied Public Health Chair in Urban Interventions and Population Health. The objectives of the Chair's research program are to analyze population-based urban interventions, identify the operating mechanisms and conditions required for them to succeed, and thus transform the health of urban populations and reduce health inequalities within them. Dr. Kestens is a Principal Investigator for INTErventions, Research and Action in Cities Team (INTERACT). This ingoing initiative is a pan-Canadian collaboration of interdisciplinary scientists, urban planners, and public health decision makers advancing research on the design of healthy and sustainable cities for all.