Who We Are
Partners
Murray Lee
murray (at) habitatcorp.com
Murray Lee, MD, MPH, has made a career out of studying how ‘place’ affects health. He obtained a B.Sc. from McGill University, trained in medicine at the University of Calgary, and completed his residency training at Queen’s University in 1996. Dr. Lee has subsequently practiced clinical medicine from the Arctic shores of Nunavut to the high desert of New Mexico and many points in between, with a special focus on rural and remote medicine in northern Alberta and aboriginal populations in northern Canada. Combining his professional background with a life-long interest in geography and urban planning, Dr. Lee completed a Master’s Degree in Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley, with a special emphasis on the impact of the built environment on community health and human health behaviors. Dr. Lee is currently a Clinical Asssistant Professor at the department of Community Health Sciences and is a Master Teacher at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Calgary.
Marla Orenstein
marla (at) habitatcorp.com
Marla Orenstein consults on population health issues for business, government and academia, with particular attention to lifestyle and environmental risk factors for chronic disease and injury. She is a founding partner of Habitat Health Impact Consulting, and has led HIAs, helped develop HIA practice standards, and has provided mentoring and assistance to external agencies to help them complete their own HIAs. Her recent work has focused on resource development, including in areas such as Alaska and the Alberta oil sands. She has also worked with government to help develop HIA processes for public policy and has offered HIA training in Brazil, Mexico, and Canada. Ms. Orenstein has a B.A. from McGill University and an M.Sc. in Epidemiology from the University of Edinburgh. She is a member of the International Association of Impact Assessment, a member of the Advisory Group for the International HIA Conference, and in 2010/2011 helped found the Society of Practitioners of Health Impact Assessment (SOPHIA).
Core Personnel
Ame-Lia Tamburrini
ame-lia (at) habitatcorp.com
Ame-Lia has worked on numerous Health Impact Assessments (HIA) for resource development industries, and she currently leads HIAs, provides HIA training, and produces HIA-related publications. She has helped companies and governments understand the health implications of different resource development projects, including on-shore and off-shore oil and gas projects, exploration activities and leasing plans; mining, and sustainable energy projects. She has both led HIA projects as well as been the lead research consultant. Almost all of her work has consisted of working with environmental and social consultancy teams to create an integrated approach to complicated health issues. Her background includes work in both academic and non-governmental organizations. She has been involved in a broad range of projects that assess community well-being, often among marginalized or disadvantaged populations, including seniors, people in low socio-economic brackets, and under-served communities. Key strengths include expertise in leading research processes, designing research, gathering and summarizing evidence, conducting interviews, and analyzing and interpreting data. Ms. Tamburrini holds a B.Sc. in Kinesiology from the University of Waterloo and a M.Sc. in Epidemiology from the University of Calgary.
Sinead Deery
sinead (at) habitatcorp.com
Sinead’s background spans diverse areas that include economics, philosophy and sociology. Her work in economics has principally concentrated on the broad economic and social implications of policy on society with particular focus on the dynamics of the pharmaceutical industry, and her most recent work examined the effects of generic pharmaceutical policy on citizens and business owners in Ontario. Sinead has written and researched topics concerning the development of international health strategies aimed to improve accessibility of pharmaceuticals worldwide. Sinead holds a B.A.H. in Economics and Philosophy from Queen’s University in Kingston and has recently completed her M.A. in Economics at the University of Calgary.
Affiliates
Intrinsik Environmental Sciences
http://www.intrinsikscience.com/
Intrinsik Environmental Sciences Inc. is a recognized leader in the field of human health risk assessment, ecological risk assessment and environmental toxicology. Intrinsik's areas of expertise include multi-media exposure modeling, probabilistic risk analysis, landscape scale risk assessment, toxicity evaluations and development of toxicological benchmarks. Together, Habitat and Intrinsik provide a strong team able to tackle the full range of scientific issues related to human health. Our partnership also brings expertise in public consultation and risk communication to ensure that meaningful community involvement and understanding can develop.
Steve Pedersen
info (at) habitatcorp.com
Steve Pedersen’s work is grounded in the concepts of health inequity and prevention. Mr. Pedersen has served as the Executive Director of the Alberta Public Health Association since 2007, and has worked in a variety of community and other settings utilizing population and public health approaches to First Nations Health, homelessness, violence prevention, health inequities, food security, and other determinants of health. Mr. Pedersen completed his BSc in Health Information Science from the University of Victoria and a Masters in Public Health (MPH) from Yale University and is currently studying in the Kainai Studies program at Red Crow College on the Blood Reserve in southern Alberta.
Josie Auger
josie (at) habitatcorp.com
Josie Auger is an educator and health researcher, and a member of the Bigstone Cree Nation. Ms. Auger has taught Indigenous Studies, Canadian History, and Native Health issues for the Faculty of Native Studies at the University of Alberta and Maskwachees Cultural College. She has conducted research and written reports for the University of Alberta, various levels of government and Aboriginal communities on diverse health issues such as diabetes, respiratory diseases, injuries, birth weight, mental heath, and sexually transmitted infections and HIV. Other health-related topics of interest include developing health policy using the determinants of health from a cultural perspective within aboriginal communities. Currently, Ms. Auger is ating as Director of the Nechi Institute in Edmonton. Apart from Western academics, Josie has been also in the "Indian School", a virtual reality where the concrete reality of the physical world meets the abstract spiritual dimension.
Max Richardson
max (at) habitatcorp.com
Max Richardson brings to Habitat a professional interest in the intersection of land use, transportation, and health. His diverse background includes working as a fire ecologist in remote deserts of the U.S. and tropical forests of Costa Rica, as a laboratory researcher studying diabetes, and as a health policy analyst in Washington, DC. Max is currently the Health Impact Assessment Project Manager with the California Department of Public Health, assessing the health impacts of cap and trade regulations being proposed under California’s Global Warming Solutions Act passed in 2006. The HIA is assessing the distribution of economic impacts, air quality changes, and consumer costs, linking these broad health determinants to a wide range of health and social outcomes. Max holds a dual Master’s degree in City & Regional Planning and Public Health from the University of California, Berkeley.
Erica Myles
erica (at) habitatcorp.com
Erica Myles is a health scientist with ten years of experience managing and coordinating projects. Ms. Myles holds a B. Sc. in Biology from Bishop’s University and a M.Sc. in Environmental and Community Health from Griffith University, Australia. Erica has a sound understanding the assessment of human health within the environmental regulatory process. She has authored health assessments for mining, pipeline and oil sands projects in Alberta, B.C and Nunavut. She has worked extensively with federal, provincial, municipal and Aboriginal governments in risk management related to environmental hazards and public health. Ms. Myles has particular expertise in risk communication and consultation with Aboriginal communities. She has supplemented her skills in risk communication with formal training in public participation and community engagement through the International Association of Public Participation.
Shaesta Mitha
Shaesta Mitha’s work is focused on connecting the fields of urban planning and public health. She holds a Bachelor of Environmental Studies (BES) in Urban Planning with a specialization in Land Development from the University of Waterloo. Shaesta has both municipal planning and private sector experience. She worked as a Land Use Planner for a private land development consulting firm for two years where she researched and analyzed land use options, assisted in community consultations, prepared planning justification reports, and prepared and monitored various development applications for clients. Currently, she is completing a Master’s in Public Health specializing in Health Promotion at the University of Alberta. Her research involves community health and the built environment, developing healthy public policy, capacity building, and community development.
Larissa Vakhmistrova
Larissa is a Program Management Specialist with over 15 years' experience delivering health and education programs for international health promotion agencies in Central Asia. She has worked with several U.S. government programs (USAID, US Centers for Disease Control) in Central Asia, coordinating implementing partner and host government inputs into public health activities in five Central Asian Republics: Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. Ms. Vakhmistrova's latest activity was to oversee the project that supported the Kazakhstan's Ministry of Health in strengthening its National TB Control Programs and in improving human and systems capacities for TB treatment, prevention, and control. She is skilled in managing relationships between government bodies, contractors and mass media.