Keynote and Panel
Presented by the Interdisciplinary Centre on Climate Change (IC3) and Faculty of Applied Health Sciences (AHS)
Join IC3 & AHS for a webinar event, featuring a keynote by World Wildlife Fund Canada President and CEO, Megan Leslie, and panel discussion with the University of Waterloo's Zahid Butt and Goretty Dias. Our speakers will share their expertise as they discuss climate change and its impact on the environment, food systems and our health.
Register to attend the webinar!
Keynote
Megan Leslie, President & CEO, World Wildlife Fund Canada
Megan Leslie began as President and CEO of World Wildlife Fund Canada in December of 2017 after nearly two years at the organization, first as a consultant on ocean governance, then as head of ocean conservation. Before joining WWF, Megan was a Member of Parliament representing Halifax for two terms during which she was deputy leader of the Official Opposition, environment critic and vice-chair of the government committee on environment and sustainable development. In Parliament, Megan introduced a motion to ban plastic microbeads; this motion passed unanimously, leading to a ban on the Canadian manufacture, sale and importation of these products. She also expedited the creation of Sable Island National Park Reserve.
Panelists
Zahid Butt, Assistant Professor, School of Public Health and Health Systems
Dr. Zahid Butt is a physician epidemiologist and an Assistant professor in the School of Public Health and Health Systems. His research applies a ‘syndemic’ framework to examine inter-relationships between epidemics of infectious diseases, social disparities, co-morbidities, and substance use, using epidemiological, statistical, spatial and machine learning methods. Dr. Butt's research activities in the domain of public health, big data analytics and spatial epidemiology have led to more than 100 papers in several high impact journals such as The Lancet, Lancet infectious diseases, Nature, BMJ etc. He is an associate editor for BMC Public Health and section Editor-in-Chief for International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.
Goretty Dias, Associate Professor, School of Environment, Enterprise and Development (SEED)
Professor Goretty Dias has a background in natural sciences and engineering. Recently, her work has focused on sustainability and life cycle assessment (LCA) of dietary patterns, Canadian agriculture products, and bioenergy. Her research interests lie in the use of LCA and other sustainability assessment tools to analyze various agricultural and biobased product systems in order to create more sustainable agriculture and food systems.
Moderator
Daniel Scott, Executive Director, IC3, Professor, Geography and Environmental Management, University Research Chair and Director, Master of Climate Change Program
Opening Remarks
Manvi Bhalla, MSc Student, School of Public Health and Health Systems