As a Professor in the Department of Biomedical Physiology & Kinesiology, Dr. Finegood leads the Chronic Disease Systems Modeling Lab (CDSM) which houses staff and students working to build maps, models, and solution-orientated frameworks to help address the problem of obesity. Dr. Finegood also serves as Executive Director of the CAPTURE Project (CAnadian Platform To increase Usage of Real-world Evidence) (
www.thecaptureproject.ca
). This strategic initiative, funded by the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer (
http://www.partnershipagainstcancer.ca/index.html
), will build a system to support the collection and use of practice and policy-relevant, “real world” evidence
In December 2008, Dr. Finegood completed her eight year tenure as Scientific Director of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Institute of Nutrition, Metabolism and Diabetes (INMD). During her appointment, she guided Canada’s health research agenda across INMD’s mandate and within its strategic priority on obesity and healthy body weight. Dr. Finegood’s efforts helped to grow Canada’s obesity research and knowledge transfer efforts through support for research, development of innovative research programs (including intervention research on natural experiments), development of key partnerships (with public and private sector organizations including the Public Health Agency of Canada, Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada and Kraft Foods) and innovative projects like Canada on the Move (
http://journal.cpha.ca/index.php/cjph/issue/view/252
) and the Building Trust workshop series.
She has received numerous honours and awards for both her academic and leadership contributions, including 2006 Canada’s Top 100 Women Award (Trailblazers & Trendsetters Category); 2005 Distinguished Nutrition Leadership Award from Danone Institute, Canada; 2005 George Bray Founder’s Award from NAASO, the Obesity Society; 2002 YWCA Women of Distinction Award in Science Research and Medicine, Vancouver; 1995 Young Scientist Award from the Canadian Diabetes Association and CON-RCO Distinguished Lecturer at the 1st National Obesity Summit.