Tim Takaro

Professor of Health Sciences, Faculty of Health Sciences, Simon Fraser University

Dr. Takaro is a Professor and physician-scientist in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University. Trained in occupational and environmental medicine, public health and toxicology, at Yale, the University of North Carolina and University of Washington, Dr. Takaro’s research is primarily about the links between human exposures and disease, and determining effective public health based preventive solutions to such risks. He helps direct the exposure assessment component of the Canadian Healthy Infant Longitudinal Development (CHILD) birth cohort. His current research on human health and climate change focuses on water quality and quantity, extreme weather events and gastro-intestinal illness and the role of aero-allergens in the development of asthma and allergy in children. He has been senior supervisor for for 26 Masters and PhD students including occupational medicine research over the past ten years. Planetary change poses complex problems for public health never more apparent than during the SARS coV2/COVID-19 pandemic. These challenges demand an interdisciplinary approach both in research and action. To address this Takaro leads the Planetary Health Research group at SFU and along with researchers across all eight of SFU’s Faculties co-leads the Climate Futures Initiative at SFU. This initiative promotes interdisciplinary research to understand the biophysical and socio-economic impacts of climate change and assess mitigation and adaptation strategies to limit climate change risks.