The Faculty of Health has bid farewell and best wishes to Mazyar Fallah, who departed York University at the end of 2020 to serve as dean of the University of Guelph’s College of Biological Sciences.
As our associate dean of research and innovation for the last five years—out of a 16-year career at York—Fallah was highly effective at facilitating community research partnerships and increasing the amount of external funding for faculty research endeavours. He also prioritized enhancing students’ experiences; accelerating research commercialization and entrepreneurship opportunities for professors and students; and advancing equity, diversity and inclusion in our operations.
The faculty is grateful to Michael Rotondi, associate professor from the School of Kinesiology and Health Science, for stepping in as interim associate dean of research from Feb. 1 to June 30. Rotondi specializes in using biostatistics research techniques to better understand Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, hypertension and other prevalent medical conditions.
Starting on July 1, the future of research and innovation at the faculty will be in the hands of Chris Ardern, a 15-year professor of the School of Kinesiology and Health Science. Ardern’s research on the epidemiology of physical activity and obesity has been published in more than 90 peer-reviewed papers and dozens of book chapters, reports, conference presentations and lectures. His research endeavours have been supported by organizations such as the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Heart and Stroke Foundation, the Ontario Brain Institute and the Public Health Agency of Canada. From 2011-2016 he served as a Faculty of Health affiliated Research Scientist at Southlake Regional Health Centre where he helped build relationships between faculty and clinicians.
Ardern’s top objective is to further build on the faculty’s already significant research momentum. Indeed, in 2020-21, faculty members submitted more than 200 grant applications to NSERC, SSHRC, CIHR and other research funding bodies, which is an almost 30% increase from 2018-19. Almost 47% of this year’s applications were successful (which is about double the success rate across Canada), resulting in $3.5 million for research projects. Since 2018, Faculty of Health researchers have been awarded $21M in total funding for projects involving almost 75% of the faculty’s 152 research professors. Currently, there are more than 350 externally funded research projects under way in the faculty.
Going forward, Ardern would like to further expand community-engaged, solutions-focused research with stakeholder partners. In that vein, he’s excited about the University’s recent memorandum of understanding with Mackenzie Health, in which the two entities will cooperate on student education, professional development, research, innovation and improving the health outcomes of York Region residents.
“The MOU with Mackenzie Health is a big opportunity for the faculty,” Ardern says. “Working with clinical and industry partners, developing and potentially commercializing some of our research findings, and testing them in a real-world setting—that is a real growth area for all of our units.”
Ardern commends the faculty’s COVID-19 research contributions examining diverse public health factors such as the stewardship of wildlife markets, a common source of zoonotic diseases; the pandemic’s impact on Indigenous people living in Ontario cities; and virtual mental health support for refugees, among others. With all research, he’s committed to maintaining and strengthening the faculty’s commitment to community engagement and knowledge mobilization.
“Bringing in new industry and community partners, enhancing research clusters to support existing faculty research, and growing opportunities for collaboration in ways that consider and promote social justice and innovation will be my main focus,” Ardern says.