Dr. Christina Zarowsky, University of Montreal
Dr. Christina Zarowsky is Full Professor (and from January 2014 to December 2020 was Director), Department of Social and Preventive Medicine at the School of Public Health, Université de Montréal; researcher in Global Health at the Centre de recherche en santé publique de l’Université de Montréal et du CIUSS du Centre-sud de Montréal (CReSP), and Extraordinary Professor at the School of Public Health of the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. Her training is multidisciplinary – BSc (Biology – U Toronto), MD (McMaster), MPH (International Health – Harvard), PhD (Anthropology – McGill) and her career in rural and cross-cultural clinical medicine, academic public health in Canada and South Africa, and research management/funding has sought to put into practice a critical social theory and feminist perspective and a commitment to cross-disciplinary and cross-sectoral work aimed at transforming research, teaching and partnership paradigms for health and social equity within and between countries – increasingly in a planetary health and One Health perspective. As Director of a diverse department (epidemiology, health promotion, global health, biostatistics, bioethics, and a large complement of public health professional Clinical Professors) which incubated UdeM’s flagship MPH programme, she has been at the interface of teaching, research, policy and practice, and of Anglo-American and Franco- European traditions in public health. Prior to joining U Montréal in 2014, she was Professor of Public Health and founding Director of the Centre for Research in HIV and AIDS at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa, where she launched a programme of research and post-graduate training on vulnerability, resilience, migration, diabetes and HIV and health systems in complex contexts of inequality. From 2000-2009 she was Senior Scientific Advisor for health and leader of the health systems and Research for Health Equity suite of programmes at Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC). She is vice-chair of the Canadian Coalition for Global Health Research and on several editorial and advisory boards and is regularly invited to join global expert consultations, notably on global health, research capacity strengthening, chronic disease, HIV and migration, and implementation research. In the IMCHA programme she was the Canadian co-PI on the MoCHeLaSS project (Mother-Child Health, Lacor- South Sudan): “Learning how to implement integrated, community-focused reproductive and child health PHC in conflict affected settings” of Gulu, Uganda and Torit, South Sudan.
Christina participated in Panel 2: The Coronavirus Pandemic.