York University’s excellence in health science was acknowledged Sept. 14 when Faculty of Health Dean Paul McDonald and Psychology Professor Joel Katz were inducted as fellows of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences (CAHS).
McDonald and Katz are the eighth and ninth inductees from York University’s Faculty of Health.
“It is quite a prestigious achievement for York to have two new fellows inducted in a single year,” said McDonald. “Having an increasing number of fellows in CAHS is a clear indication of York’s credibility and excellence in health science.
McDonald has made outstanding contributions in Canada and globally to the inter-disciplinary fields of health studies and public health. His passion is to improve population health, knowledge translation and health system capacity. His research interests are wide-ranging and interdisciplinary, including planning, implementing and evaluating population-level interventions for public health, tobacco control, and primary prevention of chronic disease.
He is the author of more than 50 peer-reviewed publications and 200 proceedings, abstracts, monographs, chapters and technical reports. He has also contributed research to a 20+ country study of tobacco control policies informing the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and to the Romanow Royal Commission on the Future of Health Care in Canada. McDonald has taught courses at the graduate and undergraduate levels in his areas of expertise, and has supervised more than 25 graduate students.
Katz is a professor of psychology at York University, and is the Canada Research Chair in Health Psychology. He is also the director of the Pain Research Unite at Toronto General Hospital. His research focuses on risk and protective factors for chronic pain in children and adults.
Katz’s contributions to the field of pain research and related fields include more than 230 peer-reviewed journal articles and chapters, 215 addresses and presentations, and close to 300 abstracts/conference proceedings. Katz has also held major national funding for more than 25 years for this work.
He has received several awards for research excellence, including the Canadian Psychological Association’s Donald O. Hebb Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychology as a Science, and the Canadian Pain Society 2016 Outstanding Pain Mentorship Award.
York University’s former Dean of the Faculty of Health, Harvey Skinner, was also present during the Sept. 14 event.
The Canadian Academy of Health Sciences is the sister organization to the Royal Society of Canada (RSC), and is approximately one-third the size of the RSC. York University’s Faculty of Health also has three fellows inducted into the RSC.