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Honorary Degree Recipient
Dr. Bonnie Henry, MD, MPH

November 6, 2020

Dr. Bonnie Henry was appointed provincial health officer for British Columbia in 2018. As BC’s
most senior public health official, Henry is responsible for monitoring the health of all British
Columbians and undertaking measures for disease prevention and control and health protection.
Most recently, Henry has led the province’s response on the COVID-19 pandemic and drug
overdose emergency.

Henry’s experience in public health, preventive medicine and global pandemics has extended
throughout her career. Prior to her current role, Dr. Henry was the deputy provincial health officer
for three years. She also served as the interim provincial executive medical director of the BC
Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC) from December 2013 until August 2014.
She was the medical director of Communicable Disease Prevention and Control and Public Health
Emergency Management with the BCCDC and medical director for the provincial emerging and
vector-borne diseases program, as well as a provincial program for surveillance and control of
healthcare-associated infections from 2005 to 2014.
Henry joined Toronto Public Health in 2001 as associate medical officer of health, where she was
responsible for the Emergency Services Unit and the Communicable Disease Liaison Unit. In
2003, she was the operational lead in the response to the SARS outbreak in Toronto. She was a
member of the executive team of the Ontario SARS Scientific Advisory Committee.

Henry is a specialist in public health and preventive medicine and is board certified in preventive
medicine in the United States. She graduated from Dalhousie Medical School and completed a
Masters in Public Health in San Diego, as well as residency training in preventive medicine at
University of California, San Diego and in community medicine at University of Toronto.
She has worked internationally, including with the WHO/UNICEF polio eradication program
in Pakistan and with the World Health Organization to control the Ebola outbreak in Uganda.

Henry is associate professor at the University of British Columbia’s Faculty of Medicine. She is the
past chair of Immunize Canada and a member of the Canadian National Advisory Committee on
Immunization and the National Infection Control Guidelines Steering Committee. She chaired
the Canadian Public Health Measures Task Group and was a member of the Infection Control
Expert Group and the Canadian Pandemic Coordinating Committee responding to the 2009 H1N1
influenza pandemic.
She has been involved with planning, surveillance and response to mass gatherings in Canada
and internationally, including with the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.
She is also the author of Soap and Water and Common Sense, a guide to staying healthy in a
microbe-filled world.

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