Who we are

Margot Parkes

President, (Founding Board Member), International Association for Ecology & Health
Review Editor, EcoHealth Journal

Margot Parkes is a Canada Research Chair in Health, Ecosystems and Society, with a cross-appointment in the Health Sciences Programs of the University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC), and the Northern Medical Program of University of British Columbia (UBC), Canada. Her field-building roles in ecohealth include serving as founding board member and executive of the International Association for Ecology & Health, as a co-founder of the Canadian Community of Practice in Ecosystem Approaches to Health (www.CoPEH-Canada.org) and a founding Managing Editor of the journal EcoHealth (2003-2007).

Margot's interest in ecohealth was founded during her training and work as a medical doctor in New Zealand and subsequently in public health, human ecology, and the emerging field of ecohealth, or ecosystem approaches to health. Margot's research focuses on impacts of ecosystem change on social determinants of health especially in the context of watersheds, and the design of education, research and governance options to address the converging objectives of health, social equity and ecosystem sustainability. Her research interest in water-related determinants of health began with a focus on watershed governance and public health in rural river catchments in New Zealand and has developed through work in Europe, Hawaii, Ecuador and Canada.

Her move to UNBC in 2009 was fuelled by her combined interests in community, environmental and indigenous health, as well as the vision of UNBC as a research-intensive university with a strong community-orientation and commitment to interdisciplinary research. The intersectoral, interdisciplinary and boundary-crossing nature of ecohealth work, has also fuelled specific research interest in the collaborative and multi-stakeholder processes required to address complex issues at the interface of health and sustainability. Margot has authored articles in a range of health, environment and development journals, and contributed to books published by Oxford University Press, Island Press and UBC Press.

For more information, see http://www.unbc.ca/parkes/home.html