Scientific Advisory Committee
Dr. Barbara Silverstein, Chair
Dr. Barbara Silverstein is research director with the Safety and Health Assessment and Research for Prevention Program (SHARP) at the Washington State Department of Labor & Industries in Seattle. With research expertise in musculoskeletal disorders, she has worked on ergonomic-related issues at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the University of Michigan Center for Ergonomics and the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health.
Dr. Les Boden
Dr. Les Boden is a professor and associate chair of environmental health in the School of Public Health at Boston University. Dr. Boden, an economist, has served on several national committees in the U.S. for the Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Energy and National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.
Dr. Walter Eichendorf
Dr. Walter Eichendorf is the Deputy Director General of the German Social Accident Insurance (Deutsche Gesetzliche Unfallversicherung or DGUV). He has been involved with such international research projects as the European Year for Safety and Health at Work (1991-1993) and Germany’s Federation for Safety and Health Basi (1996-1998). Dr. Eichendorf is vice-president of the research division of the International Social Security Association (ISSA).
Prof. John W. Frank
Prof. John Frank is director of the Scottish Collaboration for Public Health Research and Policy. Prof. Frank also holds a chair in Public Health Research and Policy at the University of Edinburgh. He has been professor at the University of Toronto, the founding director of research at the Institute for Work & Health, and inaugural scientific director of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research - Institute of Population and Public Health.
Dr. Jody Heymann
Dr. Jody Heymann holds a Canada Research Chair in Global Health and Social Policy. She is founding director of the Institute for Health and Social Policy at McGill University and the Project on Global Working Families at Harvard University. She has served in an advisory capacity for the United States Senate and the World Health Organization, and has written for UNESCO and the International Labor Organization, among other global bodies. Dr. Heymann has more than a 120 publications, including Forgotten Families: Ending the Growing Crisis Confronting Children and Working Parents in the Global Economy (Oxford University Press, 2006).
Dr. Jeffrey Katz
Dr. Jeffrey Katz is a rheumatologist at the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, an associate professor of medicine and orthopedic surgery at Harvard Medical School and an associate professor of epidemiology at Harvard School of Public Health. His research interests include osteoarthritis, total joint replacement, arthroscopy, and degenerative clinical conditions such as spinal stenosis, carpal tunnel syndrome and upper-extremity problems. Dr. Katz collaborated with IWH scientists to develop the DASH, a patient-based outcome measure for upper-extremity problems.
Dr. Niklas Krause
Dr. Niklas Krause is an epidemiologist and associate professor of medicine with the division of occupational and environmental medicine at the University of California at San Francisco. His research focuses on the epidemiology and prevention of work-related musculoskeletal and cardiovascular diseases and disability. In 2006, Dr. Krause was co-recipient of the International Ergonomics Association (IEA)/Liberty Mutual Prize in Occupational Safety and Ergonomics for an effectiveness study of a workstation intervention on pain and musculoskeletal disorders among call centre employees.
Dr. Graham Lowe
Dr. Graham Lowe is the president of the Graham Lowe Group Inc., a workplace consulting and research firm in Kelowna, British Columbia. Distinguished for his research on workplace and labour market issues, he is the author of the acclaimed book, The Quality of Work: A People-Centered Agenda (Oxford University Press, 2000). Dr. Lowe is a professor emeritus at the University of Alberta and a research associate at Canadian Policy Research Networks (CPRN).
Prof. Emily A. Spieler
Prof. Emily Spieler is dean and Edwin Hadley Professor of Law at the Northeastern University School of Law in Boston. A leading authority on employment law and social insurance systems, she served as commissioner of West Virginia’s Workers’ Compensation Fund, and as the state’s first deputy attorney general for civil rights. In her legal practice, Prof. Spieler specialized in legal problems of workers.
Dr. Eira Viikari-Juntura
Dr. Eira Viikari-Juntara is a research professor at the Centre of Expertise of Health and Work Ability at the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health. Dr. Viikari-Juntara leads the centre's Musculoskeletal Disorders Team, as well as its Musculoskeletal Centre, a virtual centre whose goals include improving research in musculoskeletal diseases and managing research networks in Finland and internationally.
Prof. Margaret Whitehead
Margaret Whitehead holds the W.H. Duncan Chair of Public Health in the Faculty of Medicine, University of Liverpool, U.K., where she is also the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre for Policy Research on the Social Determinants of Health. She has worked extensively on social inequalities in health and in health care, serving on various task forces and networks in the U.K., the European Union and for the WHO.
