Chris Furgal

Dr. Chris Furgal is an Associate Professor in the Indigenous Environmental Studies program at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario. He is cross-appointed to the Departments of Indigenous Studies and Environmental Resource Studies and Sciences. He holds a B.Sc. (Ecology and Evolution) from the University of Western Ontario, an M.Sc. (Biology) and PhD (Environmental Studies/Planning) from the University of Waterloo. He was a CIHR Postdoctoral fellow in Environmental Health at Laval University Research Hospital, Public Health Research Unit from 1998-2003. He has previously held positions at Laval University cross-appointed between the departments of Community Health and Political Science.

Dr. Furgal’s current research focuses on environmental health risk assessment, management, and communication with Aboriginal communities throughout the Arctic. Outside of his teaching and research Dr. Furgal is highly involved in the North, as:

Co-founder and Co-Director of the Nasivvik: Centre for Inuit Health and Changing Environments, one of nine Aboriginal health research and training centres funded by CIHR-IAPH, administered at Laval and Trent Universities;
Research Management Committee Member of ArcticNet, a network of the Networks of Centres of Excellence Program; member of the Nunavik Nutrition and Health Committee (advisory committee to the public health director in Nunavik – Arctic Quebec); National Advisory Committee Member of the Canadian High Arctic Research Station; Assessment Integration Advisory Committee Member of the Arctic Resilience Study; and Observer and member of the Inuit Climate Change Coordination Committee.

Dr. Furgal has been a lead author of several national and international science assessments on Arctic environmental health issues including the human dimensions of climate change and environmental contaminants. He was a lead author with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment, and subsequently a co-recipient with the other authors of the 2007 Nobel Prize for raising awareness of global climate change. In addition, he has been a lead author on the Arctic Climate Impacts Assessment and the most recent Canadian assessments on Climate Change in the North published by Natural Resources Canada and Health Canada.

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