Larry Barzelai, MD, CAPE Board Member
Dr. Barzelai is a family physician, with a certification in family practice geriatrics. He is presently the chair of the BC branch of CAPE. The birth of his grandchildren has changed him from an armchair environmentalist to an active one
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Melissa Lem, MD, CCFP, FCFP, CAPE Board Member
Dr. Melissa Lem is a Vancouver family physician who also works in rural and northern communities within Canada. As a board member of CAPE and Director of Parks Prescriptions for the BC Parks Foundation, she has been involved in advocacy and policy work on issues including climate change, forest fires, fracking and LNG, and the nature-health connection. She was the resident medical expert on CBC TV's Steven and Chris for 5 seasons and continues to educate diverse audiences on air. Her writing has been published by national media including the CBC, Vancouver Sun, Toronto Star, Montreal Gazette, Narwhal and National Observer.
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Warren Bell, BA, MDCM, CCFP, FCFP (LM), CAPE Board Member
Family doctor for over 40 years in Salmon Arm, BC, and past founding president of CAPE 25 years ago. Engaged in advocacy work from the municipal to the international level. His integrative practice includes insight-oriented psychotherapy.
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Amy Anne Lubik, PhD
Amy Anne Lubik is first term city councilor in Port Moody BC, where she has been a vocal advocate for climate change resilience, poverty reduction, and health equity. Shortly after being elected she became the vice-chair of the Climate Action Committee, chair of the Environmental Protection Committee, Co-chair of the Tri-Cities Healthy Community Partnership Table, helped found the Tri-Cities Food Security Working Group and served on the age-friendly planning steering committee and the affordable housing task force. She is also an active member of the Climate Caucus, a nationwide organization of local elected officials and environmental campaigners seeking to change federal and provincial policies.
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Eleanor Boyle, PhD
Eleanor Boyle is an author and speaker. A former journalist and college psychology instructor, Eleanor has degrees in psychology (BA), neuroscience (PhD), and more recently food policy (MSc). Eleanor wrote the book High Steaks: Why and How to Eat Less Meat (New Society Publishers), and will soon publish Mobilize Food! Wartime Inspiration for Environmental Victory Today.
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Andrea MacNeill, MD MSc, FRCSC
Dr. Andrea MacNeill is a surgical oncologist at Vancouver General Hospital and BC Cancer, and a clinical associate professor at the University of British Columbia where she specializes in sarcoma and peritoneal malignancies. She holds a Master’s Degree in Environmental Change and Management and has published a number of studies investigating the environmental impacts of healthcare activities. She co-authored the 2019 Lancet Countdown policy brief for Canada showing that Canada has the third highest health sector emissions in the world. She is the international working group lead for sustainable healthcare for CODA, a global health community mobilizing around climate and health issues. She is committed to designing health systems for optimal planetary health and educating health professionals to be agents of change.
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Rashmi Chadha, MBChB, MScCH, CCFP (AM), FASAM, ABAM, MRCGP (Dist.), DRCOG, DCH
Dr. Rashmi Chadha grew up in the undulating hills of Wiltshire (UK) and after qualifying as a physician, worked in rural Devon as a GP for many years. A fellowship in addiction medicine in Toronto and subsequent move to Vancouver led to her current work as an addictions physician at Vancouver General Hospital. Her passion always has, and always will be, this earth we all inhabit.
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Jennie McCaffrey, Principal Consultant and Owner of Engaging Change Consulting
Jennie is an educator focused on facilitating connections to nature through a place-based lens, and inspiring behaviour change for the health of our planet and ourselves. Jennie is an experienced project manager, and specializes in collaborating with non-profit organizations, provincial and federal government, school districts and industry groups that aim to change behaviours and empower people to protect the environment. Most recently Jennie worked with the BC Parks Foundation to launch the Healthy By Nature initiative and installed BC’s first Story Trail in Tsútswecw Provincial Park.
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Kai Chan, Professor, PhD, CHANS Lab (Connecting Human and Natural Systems), Coordinating Lead Author, IPBES Global Assessment
Kai Chan is a sustainability scientist whose work straddles social and natural systems with a focus on values and transformative change. He is a professor at the University of British Columbia, a member of the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists (2017), a Coordinating Lead Author of the IPBES Global Assessment, a Lead Editor for the new journal People and Nature, a member of Canada’s Clean16 for 2020, and co-founder of CoSphere (a Community of Small-Planet Heroes).
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David A. Pollack, MD, Professor Emeritus for Public Policy, Department of Psychiatry and Division of Management, Oregon Health and Science University
David Pollack, M.D., is Professor Emeritus for Public Policy in the departments of Psychiatry, Family Medicine, and the Division of Management at Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU). His activities include teaching, writing, and consulting on policy, systems, and health care leadership issues for local, state, and national organizations.
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Trevor Hancock, MD, Hon FFPH
Dr. Hancock is public health physician and recently retired from his position as a Professor and Senior Scholar at the School of Public Health and Social Policy, University of Victioria. In the 1980s he helped create the global healthy cities movement, and has been an internationally recognised leader in this area for more than 30 years. In recent years he has focused on the concept of a 'One Planet' community/region as a way to integrate the concepts of healthy and sustainable communities, and in retirement has started a new NGO, Conversations for a One Planet Region, to explore and popularise these ideas locally.
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William Rees, PhD, FRSC
William Rees is a population ecologist, ecological economist, Professor Emeritus and former Director of the University of British Columbia’s School of Community and Regional Planning. He is a founding member and former President of the Canadian Society for Ecological Economics; a founding Director of the One Earth Initiative; a Fellow of the Post-Carbon Institute and a Director of The Real Green New Deal Project. Prof Rees’ research focuses on the biophysical requirements for sustainability and the policy implications of global ecological trends. He is perhaps best known as the originator and co-developer with his graduate students, of ‘ecological footprint analysis’ (EFA) of which carbon footprint assessment is a subset.
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Austin Heffernan, B.MSc., MD Candidate 2023, Vancouver Fraser Medical Program

Austin is currently a second year medical student at the University of British Columbia Vancouver Fraser Medical Program. His interest in climate action began when he was in high school where he first learned the impact of climate change on human health, this motivated him to take steps to reduce his carbon footprint. This lead him to become an executive member of UBC EnviroMed and an active member of CAPE BC, where he has planned impactful events, climate rallies, education campaigns, and more.
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Tim Takaro, BS Biology, MD/MPH, MSc
Dr. Takaro is a physician-scientist trained in occupational and environmental medicine, public health and toxicology, at Yale, the University of North Carolina and University of Washington. His research is primarily directed toward the links between human exposures and disease, and determining public health based preventive solutions to such risks. His work includes use of biological and other markers for medical surveillance, exposure assessment, and disease susceptibility with a focus on immunologic lung disease, human health and war, clinical occupational and environmental health and population resiliency in the health effects of climate change. Current research on human health and climate change focus on water quality in BC communities and the interaction of cumulative exposures related to resource extraction and climate change.
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Ojistoh Horn, MD
Ojistoh Kahnawahere Horn is a Mohawk physician working in Akwesasne, a community of 25,000 people straddling the American-Canadian and Ontario-Quebec borders. As a traditional minded woman, mother, family physician, and student of history and politics, she will describe how the relationship of her people to the land changed due to environmental pollution and resulted in poor health outcomes. She will describe how the current pandemic is forcing more people in her community to reengage with the Earth. The Climate Emergency is about recognizing that for the most part, the human relationship with the Earth is unbalanced, unhealthy, and not sustainable. We should support our patients to engage with the natural world. To spend time outside. By supporting our cognitive selves with a stronger emotional, physical, and spiritual connection to the Earth, we can engender more creative advocates to speak for the Earth, who is trying desperately to speak for herself.
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Joe Vipond, MD, Interim President of CAPE
Joe Vipond has worked as an emergency physician for nineteen years, currently at the Rockyview General Hospital. He has been active on the climate crisis since learning of its repercussions 15 years ago . His first advocacy campaign was as a spokesperson for the Alberta Coal Phase Out movement, and more recently, the Canadian Coal Phase Out network, and with these has had an impact on approximately 66 MT of greenhouse gas emissions, or 9% of Canada's total GHGs. He is a board member and Interim President of the national charity Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment. He is also the co-founder and co-chair of the local non-profit the Calgary Climate Hub. Joe grew up in Calgary and continues to live there with his wife and two daughters.
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Lilah Williamson, Sustainabiliteens and Climate Strike Canada Lead
Lilah Williamson is a 16 year old high school student and climate activist. She has always been passionate about the environment, but the impending catastrophic effects of unmitigated climate change motivated her to act. In January 2019 she organized one of the first global climate strikes in Vancouver with a team of young people, later called the Sustainabiliteens. Lilah now leads Sustainabiliteens and Climate Strike Canada and believes in the power of youth voices and people coming together to stop the climate crisis.
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Colin Sue-Chue-Lam, MD
Colin Sue-Chue-Lam is a resident physician and doctoral student in clinical epidemiology at the University of Toronto. He is active with the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment - Ontario Chapter, where he helps organize the divestment subcommittee. He is also the Strategy Director of Emerging Leaders for Environmental Sustainability in Healthcare, a multidisciplinary student group dedicated to education and advocacy at the intersection of health, healthcare, and sustainability to foster the development of health sector leaders in sustainability.
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Olivia Sinclare, Sustainabiliteens Youth Organizer
Olivia Sinclare is a 17 year old high school student and climate organizer with Sustainabiliteens. Interested in the environment from a young age, she was spurred into action by the urgent climate emergency. Olivia first joined Sustainabiliteens in October of 2019, and now leads the group with her fellow youth activists. She is passionate about how we can implement regular climate action within the school environment, empower youth to make change, and educate each other.
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Maya Gislason, BA, MA, PhD, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Health Sciences, Simon Fraser University
Maya Gislason is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University (SFU) and faculty lead in teaching and research on the Social Inequalities in Health. With degrees in Women’s Studies and Sociology, Gislason is building Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) informed evidence generating tools for research on sustainability with a particular focus on rural, remote, northern, island and Indigenous communities in Canada. Serving as a Sex and Gender Champion on tri-agency funded research, EDI advisor to SFU, and member of the Sex and Gender Champions Community of Practice in Canada, Gislason is actively engaged in the dynamic space of GBA+ research and policy formation.
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