Two DLSPH faculty named new Order of Canada appointees
January 15/2026
Professor Emeritus Chandrakant Shah and Professor Allison McGeer are among the list of 80 new Order of Canada appointees.
By Ishani Nath
On New Years Eve 2025, the Governor General of Canada announced the newest appointees to the Order of Canada, one of the highest honours in the country. The Dalla Lana School of Public Health is proud to share that among them are two of our faculty members, Professor Emeritus Chandrakant Shah and Professor Allison McGeer.
The Order of Canada was created in 1967 and celebrates trailblazers who have made a difference in Canada and beyond.
“Every appointment celebrates not only the talent, expertise and dedication of individuals, but also the countless lives they have touched through their work, vision and contributions,” Mary Simon, Governor General of Canada, said in a statement. “Their commitment extends beyond borders, inspiring progress in our communities, our country and around the world.”
The new Order of Canada appointees include beloved children’s entertainer Raffi Cavoukian, Olympians Ellie Black and Andre De Grasse, and leading health experts in areas including emergency medicine (Patrick George Croskerry), forensic nursing (Sheila Dawn Early) and pandemic response (D. Lorne J. Tyrrell).
Here, new Order of Canada appointees Shah and McGeer share highlights from their careers and advice for aspiring public health leaders.
Chandrakant Shah
Professor Emeritus Chandrakant Shah was named an Officer of the Order of Canada in recognition of his efforts to transform public health education and champion Indigenous health. “Whenever I see something that needs to be changed, and I am able to become that change agent, I take it in my hand — whether it’s regarding public health education, Indigenous health, unemployment and health, day surgery and all kinds of things,” he says.
Shah quite literally wrote the book on public health, authoring “Public Health and Preventive Health Care in Canada,” which is used in public health education across Canada and is in its sixth edition.
As a physician, researcher and public health advocate, Shah spent decades working in partnership with Indigenous communities around the world. He pushed for changes to Canada’s citizenship guide and test to include more information about Indigenous Peoples, culture and history. He brought Indigenous health experts to share their lived experience with U of T students through the Visiting Lectureship Program on Native Health, which ran from 1990 to 2001, and established the university’s Endowed Chair in Aboriginal Health and Wellbeing. Shah continues his legacy at DLSPH through the C. P. Shah Alumni Award of Excellence in Public Health, which has recognized leaders including Vivek Goel, Laura Rosella and Jane Philpott.
While the Order of Canada recognizes Shah’s leadership, he is quick to credit his many collaborators. “Public health is a collective effort,” he says. “I’m just one person who pushes for change, and people join me all the time.”
Advice for aspiring public health leaders: Shah’s message to future leaders is to keep these five Cs in mind: Compassion, commitment, courage, communication and connection. With these values, Shah says, “anyone can be a change agent.”
Allison McGeer
Professor Allison McGeer was named a Member of the Order of Canada for being one of Canada’s most trusted epidemiological policy advisors.
“My 30 years in infection and prevention and control was driven by interest in finding practical ways to protect patients and residents in healthcare institutions — a uniquely highly vulnerable population — from infection,” says McGeer. Her expertise and leadership were essential to the efforts made to combatting the outbreaks of infectious diseases including the SARS pandemic, MERS in Saudi Arabia, Ebola in West Africa, and COVID-19.
Reflecting on her career, McGeer is most proud of the evidence she and her teams gathered that led to changes in practice or recommendations, ranging from “the importance of taking an antibiotic history before prescribing for sepsis in the ED, to catch-up doses of pneumococcal conjugate vaccines in children, to using antivirals to manage influenza outbreaks in long-term care homes.”
McGeer emphasizes that this honour is not hers alone but is shared by the teams and colleagues who contributed to these achievements.
“Any honour like this reflects the work of an entire community of exceptional colleagues — for me, many of those colleagues are at the DLSPH, so that the honour belongs as much to the school as it does to me,” says McGeer. “I’m also always grateful when prevention is recognized as of substantial value, and I hope all my colleagues at the DLSPH see this as a recognition of their work.”
Advice for aspiring public health leaders: “Everyone in public health is interested in improving the health of populations. All of us have strengths and weaknesses. What is important is finding a path in which your work takes advantage of your strengths, and your colleagues compensate for your weaknesses,” says McGeer.