Wednesday, December 16, 2020

Hannah Tait Neufeld named new Canada Research Chair

Portrait of Hannah Tait Neufeld

Hannah Tait Neufeld, a professor in the School of Public Health and Health Systems, has been awarded a new Tier 2 Canada Research Chair (CRC) in Indigenous Health, Wellbeing and Food Environments from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), totalling $500,000 over five years.

Neufeld joined the University of Waterloo in September last year. Her research focus for the past 20 years has been on incorporating community-based research methodologies to continually engage and support project partners, community members and trainees to investigate food as a medium to bridge environments and share land-based knowledge.

Her proposed CRC program of research aims to build on this work by continuing to explore the complexity of urban Indigenous food environments and conceptions of Indigenous food systems and practices.

“I am thrilled and amazed by this opportunity and the promise that it holds to support crucial time and resources to invest in the Indigenous communities I work with and expand this on-going research program,” Neufeld said.

Prior to joining the University, Neufeld was an Assistant Professor in Applied Human Nutrition at the University of Guelph, and a CIHR Banting Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Geography/Indigenous Health Lab at Western University. Her PhD and MSc are from the University of Manitoba. She has also worked at the World Health Organization on maternal and infant nutrition health policy documents and developed the WHO electronic Library of Evidence for Nutrition Actions (eLENA).

Neufeld was one of nine University CRC recipients (and 259 in Canada) announced by the Honourable Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, today. Tier 2 Chairs are awarded to exceptional emerging researchers, acknowledged by their peers as having the potential to lead in their field. Tier 1 Chairs are awarded to outstanding researchers who are acknowledged by their peers as world leaders in their fields.

Neufeld joins several others in the Faculty with Canada Research Chairs: