Audrey Laporte appointed as new director of IHPME for 5-year term

After an extensive search, Professor Adalsteinn Brown announced the official appointment Professor Audrey Laporte as the new Director of IHPME on January 24, 2020.

“I look forward to working closely in partnership with Audrey as the new Director of IHPME to propel the Institute forward, and to work towards achieving the School’s strategic goals, and enhancing its international footprint,” said Brown, Dean of the Dalla Lana School of Public Health.

Professor Laporte has been a faculty member of the Institute since 2001, recently serving as the Program Director for the Health Systems Research Program and as the Institute’s Interim Director since June of 2019.

This past month, Laporte was also elected by her peers at the International Health Economics Association (iHEA) as their new President-elect, a tremendous opportunity that will help to raise the profile of the Institute on the world stage.

“One of the highlights of my time at IHPME has been the opportunity to conduct research with truly exceptional colleagues and students,” said Laporte. “I’m looking forward to continuing to work with such a multidisciplinary and innovative group of researchers as Director, and to help propel the Institute forward as we make our mark globally.”

Professor Laporte is an internationally recognized scholar with expertise in dynamic microeconomic theory, applied labour economics and econometrics. Some of her recent work has examined the long-term impacts of deprivation and disadvantage in childhood and adolescence on health, as well as the development of theory and econometric modelling of addictive behaviours, such as smoking and the use of e-cigarettes, and assessing the effectiveness of public policy.

At IHPME, she helped to create the economics stream as one of the emphases available to Masters and PhD students in the Health Systems Research program, while she is also currently the Director of the Canadian Centre for Health Economics (CCHE), an organization that strives to be a focal point for health economics research in Canada.

“I have seen the commitment of our faculty, students and stakeholder partners to give so generously of their time and expertise, all in order to maintain excellence in our programs,” said Laporte.