Commercial Determinants of Health:
Moving from Harmful to Healthy
November 18th and 19th, 2024
Sutton Place Hotel, 845 Burrard Street, Vancouver
All sessions are in person. Register now.
Featured Speakers
PHABC is thrilled to feature the following speakers for our 2024 Conference, “Commercial Determinants of Health: Moving from Harmful to Healthy.”
Please see the speakers’ biographies below, which highlight their education, experience, and passions for environmental and public health.
Monika Kosinska
Lead on Economic and Commercial Determinants, World Health Organization
Monika Kosinska is global cross-cutting lead on Economic and Commercial Determinants for the World Health Organization. Previously she was Program Manager, Governance for Health for the WHO Regional Office for Europe which included leadership of the WHO European Healthy Cities Network, encompassing 1500 municipalities in the WHO European Region.
Before joining the WHO she held senior positions in Brussels-based civil society, including as Secretary General of the European Public Health Alliance (2008-2014); Chair of the EU Health Policy Forum (2008-2014), Chair of the Action for Global Health Network (2008-2010) and Chair of the Civil Society Contact Group (2010-2014), which is the largest umbrella network of civil society globally.
She was appointed to the High-Level Group on Administrative Burdens in 2012 advising the
European Commission on public health impacts of revisions to EU law, and appointed public health representative in the Expert group to advise the European Commission on EU-US trade talks during the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) in 2013.
Previously she worked in the private sector internationally, as well as for the UK Department of Health and UK National Health Service. She started her career in local government, working for the metropolitan municipality of Liverpool in the United Kingdom.
Emma Rawson-Te Patu
Director, ManuKahu Associates, Indigenous Consultants
President, World Federation of Public Health Associations
From the Indigenous tribal groups of Ngāti Ranginui, Ngai te Rangi, Raukawa and Ngāti Haua, in Āotearoa/ New Zealand (Māori), Emma Rawson-Te Patu is Director of ManuKahu Associates, Indigenous Consultants.
Emma is President of the World Federation of Public Health Associations, the first Indigenous woman to hold this role. Emma also holds the Policy and Advocacy portfolio in the Indigenous Working Group of the WFPHA.
She is a Researcher/ Trainer, experienced facilitator and proud health promoter. Emma has a Master of Philosophy with Honors (First Class) focussing on Institutional racism in Public Health. Emma has recently been a consultant to the New Zealand Human Rights Commission and other contract work globally.
Emma’s passion is developing training and frameworks for dismantling institutional racism, supporting culturally responsive, human rights based public health approaches and socially/culturally conscious business strategy and organisational development.
Emma is working on developing a global Indigenous public health institute in conjunction with broader Indigenous networks working in the global health space.
Dr. Bonnie Henry
Provincial Health Officer, Ministry of Health, Province of British Columbia
Dr. Bonnie Henry was appointed as British Columbia’s Provincial Health Officer in 2018. As BC’s most senior public health official, Dr. Henry is responsible for monitoring the health of all British Columbians and undertaking measures for disease prevention and control and health protection. Most recently Dr. Henry has led the province’s response on the COVID-19 pandemic and drug overdose emergency.
Dr. Henry’s experience in public health, preventive medicine and global pandemics has extended throughout her career. She served in a number of senior roles at the BC Centre for Disease Control and Toronto Public Health, including as the operational lead in the response to the SARS outbreak in Toronto.
She has worked internationally with the WHO/UNICEF polio eradication program in Pakistan and with the WHO to control the Ebola outbreak in Uganda and has been actively involved in mass gathering health planning in Canada and internationally.
Nicholas Freudenberg, MPH, DrPH
Professor, City University of New York School of Public Health
Nicholas Freudenberg is a Distinguished Professor of Public Health at the City University of New York School of Public Health. His research focuses on the impact of corporate practices on global health and the environment, as well as food and social policies that shape urban health inequalities.
He is the Co-founder of the CUNY Urban Food Policy Institute and has authored several books, including At What Cost: Modern Capitalism and the Future of Health and Lethal but Legal: Corporations, Consumption, and Protecting Public Health. He is a member of the Editorial Board for the World Health Organization’s Global Report on the Commercial Determinants of Health, due out in late 2025 or early 2026.
For over 40 years, Freudenberg has led efforts to develop and evaluate policies and programs designed to improve health equity in underserved communities.
Julia Gellman
Provincial Manager, Community Garden Roots
Julia Gellman (she/her) lives in Victoria, B.C. on the homelands of the Lekwungen people, now known as the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations.
Julia has a background in sustainability education, civic engagement, and community-based leadership. Julia’s first job in the field, over a decade ago, was leading school garden workshops in Montreal. Since then, her work has focused on social and ecological engagement for diverse audiences and stakeholders in nonprofits, neighbourhoods, and schools.
Outside of work, Julia is a mother, music-lover, and outdoor explorer.
Drew Harris
Lead Support and Development Organizer, Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition
Drew Harris, a proud member of the Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en Nations and the Laksilyu (small frog) clan, serves as the Lead Support and Development Organizer at the Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition (SWCC).
Drew is deeply committed to conserving and protecting her community’s laxyip (territory) from the environmental destruction caused by harmful industries like the PRGT pipeline, and the impacts of climate change. Through bioremediation, they aim to restore the land using natural methods, ensuring the ecological balance and long-term health of their people and environment.
Her work goes beyond environmental protection—Drew advocates for the cultural and physical well-being of the Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en people by connecting land conservation to overall community health.
She focuses on youth empowerment, cultural revitalization, and sustainable land stewardship, aiming to heal not just the land but also the intergenerational impacts of colonization and industrial harm.
By preserving the natural environment, Drew helps safeguard the future health and resilience of her people, emphasizing the vital link between a healthy land and a thriving community.
Sandra A. Martin Harris
Indigenous Community Developer
Indigenous Focusing Complex Trauma Practitioner
PhD Candidate, University of Northern British Columbia
Hadïh, I am from the Wet’suwet’en Nation of the Laksilyu, Little Frog Clan and a member of the Witset First Nation with maternal family connections to Hagwilget First Nation. I live as a guest, on the ancestral and unceded Gitxsan laxyip, in Hagwilget First Nation.
I am an Indigenous Community Developer and an Indigenous Focusing Complex Trauma (IFOT) Practitioner. As a facilitator I share body centered and land-based ways to find a pathway and grow through complex trauma/toxic stress. As a facilitator I offer various holistic wellness centered training or workshops. I am also a Master Level Reiki Helper.
I spent 16 months as a Trauma Informed Cultural Support Worker at the Indian Residential School Survivors Society working with elders, MMIWG2S+ including men and boys, and continue to offer crisis response.
I am a mother and grandmother, am learning more of my Wet’suwet’en language and culture each day and grateful for the many persons that helped me on my life journey. I am blessed to hold the Wet’suwet’en name, We’es Tes. I am currently a PhD candidate at UNBC in natural resources and environmental sciences researching Wet’suwet’en land-based embodiment practices.
All My Relations
Sandra
Dan Huang-Taylor
Executive Director, Food Banks BC
Dan Huang-Taylor is the Executive Director of Food Banks BC, a provincial association of food banks comprising 108 members representing communities throughout the province. Joining in the summer of 2020, Dan has led the organization through significant growth, with expansion in both the scale and scope of the organization, establishing Food Banks BC as one of the province’s leading voices for hunger relief and food security.
Dan has spent the last 15 years in the non-profit sector. Before Food Banks BC, he held senior leadership positions with Open Door Group and The YMCA of Greater Vancouver. Dan is a former BC Poverty Reduction Coalition board member and sits on the Vancouver Foundation’s Systems Change Advisory Committee.
Stephen Huddart
Professor, Gustavson School of Business, University of Victoria
Director, Regenerative Economy Program, 2024 Victoria Forum
Stephen Huddart serves as an adjunct professor at the Gustavson School of Business, University of Victoria.
During Stephen’s tenure at the McConnell Foundation he oversaw pioneering work on reconciliation with Indigenous peoples; co-founded the Transition Accelerator, whose goal is to decarbonize Canada’s industrial economy; and initiated work on aligning the foundation’s investment portfolio with its granting program, in pursuit of social, environmental and economic outcomes.
He is currently Director of the Regenerative Economy Program for the 2024 Victoria Forum: Building Trust for a Shared World, to be co-hosted by the University of Victoria and the Senate of Canada.
As the former President and CEO of The J.W. McConnell Family Foundation, a national private foundation whose head office is in Montreal, Stephen led the Foundation to play a leading role in developing and supporting social innovation and impact investing in Canada as a founding partner of Social Innovation Generation (SiG). McConnell’s newest initiatives include Innoweave, The McConnell Reconciliation Initiative, Cities for People, and RECODE.
Stephen’s career spans several fields and includes leadership positions in the private, public and non-profit sectors. Prior to joining the Foundation, he worked as Executive Director of Troubadour Music Inc. and the non-profit Troubadour Institute. He co-founded and operated a community-based business in Vancouver, where the local chamber of commerce named him Business Person of the Year in recognition of his active support for a wide range of community groups.
Daniel Eisenkraft Klein, MSc, PhD
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Regulation, Therapeutics and Law, Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Daniel Eisenkraft Klein is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Program on Regulation, Therapeutics and Law at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
His program of work primarily focuses on the political economy and regulation of medicines, with a particular emphasis on the role of corporate political actors in opioid and psychedelic policy settings.
His previous work has been published in the American Journal of Public Health, Social Science and Medicine, International Journal of Drug Policy, and the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, amongst others.
Daniel previously served as a Policy Analyst for Health Canada. He graduated from McGill University and received his MSc and PhD from the University of Toronto, where he was a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Doctoral Fellow.
Lindsay McLaren, PhD
Professor, Department of Community Health Sciences, University of Calgary
Research Associate, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
Lindsay McLaren PhD is a Professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences at the University of Calgary where her scholarship and teaching focus on social determinants and political economy of health. She is also a Research Associate with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (National Office).
For her research in dental public health, Lindsay held a CIHR/PHAC Applied Public Health Chair award (2014-19) and received the 2019 CIHR-IPPH Trailblazer Award (mid-career category) which is a career achievement award that recognizes exceptional contributions in population and public health research.
Lindsay is past-president (2014-18) of the Alberta Public Heath Association and currently serves as Senior Editor for the Canadian Journal of Public Health. She also serves as Co-Editor in Chief for the Journal of Critical Public Health, which is a community non-profit journal formed following a mass editorial board resignation from corporate publishers.
Elena Petelos
Senior Lecturer, Evidence-Based Medicine and Evidence-Informed Policy, University of Crete and Maastricht University
President, EUPHA’s Global Health Section
Elena Petelos is a Senior Research Fellow in Public Health and a Senior Lecturer in Evidence-Based Medicine and Evidence-Informed Policy (University of Crete (Greece) and Maastricht University (The Netherlands)). With a background in medicine and biology, she specialised in molecular oncology, re-training mid-career in public health, and continuing with a Fellowship in Governance and Economics of Development Technology and Innovation at the United Nations University – Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology.
She is the President of EUPHA’s Global Health Section, also serving as Vice President for HTA, and as a Member of the Steering Committee for Law and Public Health Section and of the Infectious Disease Control Core Committee. She is the Acting Chair of EUPHA’s Gender Equality (SDG5) Working Group (WG). She serves as AdBoard Member at the European Forum for Primary Care, and as a Member of the Healthcare Professional’s Working Party at the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and of the Advisory Forum of the Health Emergency Preparedness and Response (HERA) of the European Commission. She serves in the European Network of Centres for Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacovigilance (ENCEPP) WG2 (Transparency and Independent Research), and is the Chair for Real-World Evidence (RWE) and Artificial Intelligence at HTAi. She is a member of the Royal Netherlands Society of International Law (KNVIR) and of the International Law Association (ILA).
Her research, policy and advocacy work focuses on international collaboration, including regulatory frameworks and legislative frameworks, to improve global health and towards achieving digital equity and UHC.
Amy Shawanda, PhD
Assistant Professor, Indigenous Health Scholar, Department of Family Medicine, McGill University
Amy Shawanda is Anishinaabe from Wikwemikong Unceded Territory, Manitoulin Island. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in Law and Justice and Indigenous studies and holds a master’s degree in Indigenous Relations from Laurentian University. She obtained her Indigenous studies doctoral degree at Trent University. Prof. Shawanda was the Provost Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Toronto in the Waakebiness Institute for Indigenous health, Dalla Lana School of Public Health.
Her scholarship is centered around Indigenous ways of Being, Doing, and Knowing. Prof. Shawanda is driven on passion to make a difference for Indigenous communities. She provides innovative approaches to bridging the gap between western medicine and traditional Indigenous health and wellness practices such as her Paawaawayin©️ workshop, policy work, and advocacy for the importance of honoring Indigenous knowledge and traditions. Her greatest reward is seeing positive change take root in the communities she serves.
Prof. Shawanda is a respected mentor and educator, inspiring the next generation of Indigenous healthcare professionals. She serves as a role model for Indigenous youth, proving that it’s possible to succeed in the world of medicine while staying true to one’s cultural identity. She is community driven, generationally inspired, and social justice oriented.
Prof. Shawanda is an interdisciplinary, distinctions-based, qualitative health researcher. Her work combines cultural competency in healthcare, health policy and advocacy, and cultural resilience and well-being. Currently, she is an Indigenous sleep researcher and an author to dream knowledge work: Dream methodologies and Dream citations. She collaborative partner on the Indigenous commercial determinants of health, mental health projects, family wellness, and Anishinaabe health ethos.