Profile

Thematic Session: Health and the Environment
Saturday Nov. 17, 9h00-10h30

Dr. Soskolne was born and raised in Johannesburg , South Africa. He spent the first 31 years of his life there before moving, in 1978, to North America to study for his Ph.D. Presently, he is Professor of Epidemiology in the Department of Public Health Sciences at the University of Alberta where he has been based since 1985. In 1999, he completed a sabbatical year as Visiting Scientist with the World Health Organization's European Centre for Environment and Health in Rome, Italy. He is continuing with his joint work from Rome on the role that public health might have in the face of reports about collapsing life support systems. His sabbatical year resulted in his jointly-produced WHO Discussion Document entitled: "Global Ecological Integrity and 'Sustainable Development': Cornerstones of Public Health".

Dr. Soskolne obtained his Ph.D. in Epidemiology from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia in 1982. He won the Society for Epidemiologic Research (SER) annual student prize in 1983 for his Ph.D. thesis. Directly post-Ph.D., he was Director of the Epidemiology Research Unit of the Ontario Cancer Treatment and Research Foundation in the Department of Preventive Medicine and Biostatistics at the University of Toronto. He moved to the University of Alberta in 1985, where he established and directed its epidemiology program and, from 1994, he built the graduate training program for the Department of Public Health Sciences. His major research contribution out of Alberta has been a follow-up study to that conducted for his Ph.D. These two pieces of work formed the basis for the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), in 1991, designating "occupational exposures to strong-inorganic-acid mists containing sulfuric acid" as a definitive human (Group 1) carcinogen, one of only 75 carcinogens-carcinogenic mixtures so recognized, and one of only two so designated in the absence of animal data.

Between 1984 and 1996, Dr. Soskolne spearheaded efforts to bring the question of professional ethics into focus for epidemiologists worldwide. He has authored and/or co-authored and/or edited and/or co-edited over 300 published papers, chapters, books, proceedings, and, in 1997-1998, he served as a senior editor for the International Labour Office's Encyclopedia of Occupational Health and Safety.

Dr. Soskolne hosted the 1996 annual conference of the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology (ISEE) in Edmonton. In 1997, he hosted that of the Society for Epidemiologic Research. In recognition of Dr. Soskolne's contributions to the ISEE he was, in 1998, honoured with a distinguished service award by the ISEE, as well as the Edmonton Ambassador Award.

In 2002, Dr. Soskolne became a member of the Council of Fellows of the Collegium Ramazzini. The Collegium includes a select group of Fellows, not to exceed 180 throughout the world, each of clear personal distinction and integrity, distinguished by their contributions to occupational and environmental health science and policy.