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The School of Public Health and Health Systems is a division of the Faculty of Applied Health Sciences
People profiles
Kelly Anthony
Lecturer
Research interests: attitudes regarding public policies (both US and Canadian) designed to protect disadvantaged groups; prejudice; attitudes towards, and responses to, dying and the death process; individualism and collectivism and culture.
Jose F. Arocha
Associate Professor
Research interests: health informatics and socio-cognitive studies of human-computer interaction, principles of HCI design, health education and modelling understanding of health and disease.
Stephanie Austin
Medical School student
Stephanie Austin chose the Health Studies program because it seemed like the “ideal pre-med program,” combining natural and social science courses.
Philip Bigelow
Associate Professor, Associate Director Graduate Research Programs
Research interests: interventions in occupational health; evaluation and measurement of health and safety management systems; risk assessment and standard setting in occupational health
Roy Cameron
Professor
Research interests: health behaviour change, disease prevention, tobacco, population level intervention, evidence-based practice.
Sharon Campbell
Research Associate Professor
Research interests: cancer prevention, health policy, tobacco control.
Feng Chang
Assistant Professor
Research interests: safe, effective, and efficient medication use in older people; new applications for pharmacists as a health care resource particularly in rural and smaller communities
Helen Chen
Assistant Research Professor
Research interests: health informatics, translatonal research in healthcare and medicine, health system integration, semantic interoperability, healthcare decision making and decision support, health data analytics, medical imaging informatics, patient safety
Martin Cooke
Associate Professor
Research interests: the social demography and health of Aboriginal peoples; social inequality, the welfare state, and the life course; population ageing and retirement.
Joel Dubin
Associate Professor
Research interests: longitudinal data methodology and analysis, survival methodology and analysis, graphical methods. Application areas include nephrology, cancer, smoking cessation, aging, and the environment.
Susan J. Elliott
Professor, Dean (Faculty of Applied Health Sciences)
Research interests: environment and health, medical geography, global environment, urban social geography, philosophy and method.
Tara Elton-Marshall
Research Assistant Professor
Research interests: policy evaluation, population health, psychological determinants of health, health disparities, Aboriginal health, global health, tobacco control, gambling
Nancy E. Fenton
Assistant Professor (Adjunct)
Research interests: medical geography, emotional geography, risk perception, children and youth, quality of life, child-centred methodologies, qualitative and post-structural methods, communities of practice, mentorship competencies
John Garcia
Interim School Director
Research interests: population-based chronic disease prevention, health of Nunavummiut, knowledge exchange, capacity building, implementation, practice-based evidence, public health policy and systems, qualitative and mixed methods, realistic evaluation
Kelly Grindrod
Assistant Professor
Research interests: pharmacy practice and therapeutics, eHealth technologies
Peter Hall
Associate Professor
Research interests: dietary behavior, social neuroscience, diabetes, aging, health disparities.
David Hammond
Associate Professor
Research interests: population health, tobacco control, nutrition policy, risk communication, harm reduction, global health, policy evaluation
Rhona Hanning
Professor
Research interests: human nutrition and chronic disease, evidence-based practice, body composition.
Rose Harrison
Principal, Harrison Health Collaborative Inc
Health informatics may not be a term you’re familiar with – but if you’ve visited a hospital or clinic lately you have likely seen it in action. People like Rose Harrison are using information technology to better manage the health care you receive.
George A. Heckman
Associate Professor (Schlegel Research Chair in Geriatric Medicine)
Research interests: chronic disease management in frail seniors - focus on cardiovascular disease and long term care.
John Hirdes
Professor
Research interests: gerontology, mental health, health informatics, assessment, health policy, international comparisons, performance measurement, health care funding
Laurie Hoffman-Goetz
Professor
Research interests: In Public Health: health literacy, risk communication, consumer health informatics, mass media and health education
In Biohealth: physical activity and cancer prevention, exercise immunology, behavioural immunology, lymphocyte apoptosis
In Biohealth: physical activity and cancer prevention, exercise immunology, behavioural immunology, lymphocyte apoptosis
Sue Horton
Professor and CIGI Chair in Global Health Economics
Research interests: economics of public health, economics of nutrition, development economics, poverty
Janice Husted
Associate Professor
Research interests: prognosis of rheumatic conditions specifically psoriatic arthritis; and mental health
Linda Jessup
Continuing Lecturer; Associate Director, Undergraduate Studies
Research interests: impact of normative and alternate developmental transitions and pathways on healthy lifespan development
Heather Keller
Professor
Research interests: nutrition, aging, dementia, nutrition care process, screening, food quality, food access, mealtime experience
Sharon Kirkpatrick
Assistant Professor
Research interests: Food access and food security among marginalized populations, dietary assessment, measurement error in diet, food environments, food and nutrition policy, dietary guidance.
Judy Kruger
Senior Scientist, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
What does the University of Waterloo and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta have in common? Well-respected international reputations and Dr. Judy Kruger.
Brian Laird
Assistant Professor
The underlying objective of Dr. Laird’s research is to improve the characterization of human exposures from environmental contamination. Dr. Laird is particularly interested in the development of novel risk assessment tools that: (i) quantify the health risks from dietary contaminants, (ii) develop optimal intervention strategies where necessary, and (iii) improve the link between external dose and target organ concentration using the concepts of bioaccessibility and bioavailability.
Jane Law
Associate Professor
Research interests: health geomatics; healthy communities; disease mapping; measurement error, data uncertainty, and missing data adjustment in public health research; Bayesian spatial modelling and analysis in health research; determinants of health outcomes; health and crime; diet and health outcomes.
Scott Leatherdale
Associate Professor & Cancer Care Ontario Research Chair
Research interests: health behaviour surveillance (physical activity, obesity, alcohol and drug use, tobacco use, eating behaviour, sedentary behaviour); built environment and behaviour; impact of policies / programs on behaviour; co-morbid health behaviours; internet gambling and problem gambling; knowledge translation and exchange systems; cancer epidemiology; social epidemiology
Joon Lee
Assistant Professor
Research interests: health informatics, decision making in health care, applied machine learning, data mining, biomedical signal processing, time series analysis, biostatistics, random variables and stochastic processes, signals and systems
Shannon E. Majowicz
Assistant Professor
Research interests: infectious diseases, particularly foodborne and enteric diseases, surveillance and burden of illness methods, epidemiology and epidemiologic methods, public health practice, systems approaches to food-related health outcomes, knowledge synthesis methods, knowledge brokering
Stephen R. Manske
Research Associate Professor / Scientist
Research interests: tobacco control, physical activity, healthy eating; schools, community, health systems; knowledge synthesis (best practices), knowledge exchange (e.g., knowledge brokers, communities of practice), evaluation & planning systems.
Colleen J. Maxwell
Professor
Research interests: pharmacoepidemiology, aging, dementia, depression, frailty, assisted living
Stephen McColl
Associate Professor Emeritus
Research interests: environmental health, occupational health, risk assessment and management, health policy.
Ian McKillop
Associate Professor
Research interests: design and use of health information systems; costing and performance measurement of health services; data standards, security and privacy of health information.
Samantha Meyer
Assistant Professor
My research interests are wide-ranging but central to all projects is the application of social theory to social health research. Principally, I am interested in the application of social theories of trust in investigations of the nature and extent of patient trust in healthcare and the potential policy and practice implications. I also conduct research in the areas of bariatric surgery, equity in access to healthcare services, food scares and trust in food.
John G. Mielke
Assistant Professor
Research interests: neurobiological embedding of adversity (e.g., poor nutrition, psychosocial stress)
Neuroplasticity during learning and following injury (e.g., ischaemia)
Anita Margaret Myers
Professor
Research interests: health program evaluation, gerontology. Current projects include: evaluating licensing policies and procedures, assessing medically at risk drivers, and examining naturalistic driving behavior (using in-vehicle devices and GPS) in healthy drivers and those with neurological disorders (such as Parkinson's).
Chris Perlman
Assistant Professor
Research interests: evaluation of health and human services, health policy, quality and performance measurement, mental health systems and services.
Phuc-Nhi Phuong
Public Health Planner, Region of Waterloo Public Health
If you asked Phuc-Nhi Phuong (Health Studies ’04, Master of Public Health ’08) to create a job description based on her university experience, her current position as a Public Health Planner for the Region of Waterloo would be it!
Barbara Riley
Research Associate Professor
Research interests: politics of prevention, dissemination, public health system, chronic disease and prevention, knowledge translation, research-policy interface, population interventions.
Carlos Rojas-Fernandez
Assistant Professor
Research interests: geriatric pharmacotherapy, appropriate medication use, psychopharmacology, falls medication adherence, pain management, long term care setting, dementia, depression.
Gaby Sabados
Midwife, St. Jacobs Midwives
As a midwife, Gaby Sabados (Health Studies '99) requires a diverse set of skills. A strong clinical background is necessary in order to provide the best evidence-based care for clients, but she also requires the communication skills and the capacity to build relationships in order to become a trusted partner in care.
Elham Satvat
Assistant Professor
Research interests: behavioural neuroscience; neuroscience laboratory; psychopharmacology; brain in health and disease; development, aging and health; psychosocial perspectives on lifespan and psychology of aging.
Patrick Seliske
Epidemiologist
For Patrick Seliske (Health Studies '78), the decision to attend Waterloo was simple – it was the Canadian leader in health studies and health promotion. Now working as an Epidemiologist for the Child and Family Health Division (CFHD) of Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health (WDGPH), he also credits the program for providing him with the unique opportunity to study epidemiology.
Paul Stolee
Associate Professor
Research interests: geriatric health services, rehabilitation, long-term care, home care, health information systems and databases, health outcome measurement, optometric practice, and the integration and use of knowledge and information in practice. Current major research focus on better use of information systems in the rehabilitation of older persons.
Suzanne Tyas
Associate Professor
Research interests: epidemiology of aging and epidemiologic methods. More specifically, the spectrum of cognition in aging, encompassing cognitive impairment, cognitive reserve and healthy aging.
Patricia Ellen Wainwright
Professor Emerita
Research interests: brain and behavioural development (drugs and nutrition).
Doris Winfield
Physician
Dr. Doris Winfield (MD, Health Studies '89) didn’t always know what she wanted to do with her career, but with the support of friends and professors who she met in Health Studies she found her fit by pursuing a career as a physician.
Diane Williams
Lecturer
Cellular and molecular biology of the inner ear, age-related hearing loss and prevention, neuroprotection, biocomplexity, systems approaches to studying health and disease.
Astha Ramaiya
Health promotion advocate
Astha (BSc '07) graduated from Waterloo’s Health Studies program, and her passion for health promotion and social justice led her to internship placements in Nepal and work in Tanzania.
Lana Vanderlee and Andrew Mitchell
Co-creators of BABU (Bringing About Better Understanding)
When AHS graduates and current PhD students Lana Vanderlee and Andrew Mitchell went to Nepal as volunteers, it didn’t take long for them to discover a serious problem.
Rohit Ramchandani
Public Health Advisor- ColaLife
Through his work with ColaLife, health studies graduate Rohit Ramchandani tackles the world's second-largest killer of children young children.
The problem is huge, the solution simple, and Rohit and his team are closing the gap.