Earl Nowgesic RN, PhD, BScN, MHSc

Earl Nowgesic, RN, BScN, MHSc, PhD is Ojibwe (Anishinaabe) from Gull Bay First Nation (Kiashke Zaaging Anishinaabek). Earl is the Assistant Scientific Director of the Institute of Aboriginal Peoples’ Health (IAPH) at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). He is a Status-only Assistant Professor in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and an Adjunct Lecturer in the Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing, University of Toronto (U of T).

He has been the Interim Associate Director and Interim Director of the U of T Waakebiness-Bryce Institute for Indigenous Health and the Director of the First Nations Centre of the National Aboriginal Health Organization. He was the inaugural Associate Director of the CIHR-IAPH, and the first Epidemiologist for the Assembly of First Nations. With the Canadian government, Earl has held positions as a federal field epidemiologist and the National HIV/AIDS Program Specialist-First Nations and Inuit. Earl’s career is founded on his work as a registered nurse in Ontario.

Earl has been an Assistant Professor of Public Health at U of T and an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Human and Social Development at the University of Victoria in British Columbia. He has held competitive grants, including the CIHR Fellowship in Health Services and Population Health HIV/AIDS Priority Announcement. He has published papers in the areas of HIV, tuberculosis, nursing, public health, and research capacity and infrastructure.

Earl has sat on many national and international committees. He has been a member of: the Aboriginal Nurses Association of Canada (now known as the Canadian Indigenous Nurses Association) Board of Directors; the Canadian Nurses Association Aboriginal Health Nursing and Health Advisory Group; the CIHR HIV/AIDS Research Advisory Committee; the CIHR Institute Advisory Board on Health Promotion and Prevention; the National Aboriginal Council on HIV/AIDS (a national advisory body to Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada); and the National Collaborating Centre for Aboriginal Health Advisory Committee (supported by the Public Health Agency of Canada). Earl is a past President of the Canadian Society for Circumpolar Health and past Vice-President of the International Union for Circumpolar Health.

Earl holds a Doctor of Philosophy in Public Health Science (specializing in Social and Behavioural Health Sciences) and a Master of Health Science in Community Health and Epidemiology from U of T and a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of Ottawa. He has a certificate in Advanced Training in Qualitative Health Research Methodology from the U of T Centre for Critical Qualitative Health Research, and he is a graduate of the Field Epidemiology Training Program of Health Canada, Laboratory Centre for Disease Control.