Who we are

David Waltner-Toews

Editor for Art and Culture
University of Guelph , Guelph , Canada

Born a Toews in Winnipeg , May 29, 1948 . Degrees: Goshen College - BA 1971; University of Saskatchewan (Doctor of Veterinary Medicine, 1978); University of Guelph (PhD - epidemiology, 1985). Left Winnipeg as a Canadian Centennial Project in 1967, heading East, which lead him, over eighteen months overland across Europe & Central Asia to India; worked with Mennonite Central Committee; continued overland through southeast Asia; worked in a sawmill in Vancouver to pay to go to university. Married Kathy Waltner in 1971, hyphenated name, became the father of two children, studied vet medicine, worked as a country vet in northern Alberta & southern Ontario . After PhD (1985-87) we worked in Indonesia for two years. A professor at the University of Guelph , he specializes in diseases people get from animals (including foodborne diseases), ecosystem health, international development, complexity and post-normal science. Much of his research is on integrating socio-economic, cultural, environmental and health concerns using community-based systems approaches. He is a member of the Writers' Union of Canada, Pen Canada , The League of Canadian Poets, the College of Veterinarians of Ontario , the Canadian Public Health Association, the International Society for Veterinary Epidemiology and Economics, the Canadian Society for International Health, and the International Society for Ecosystem Health.