Michel AlaryM.D., Ph.D., FCAHS

Michel Alary obtained his M.D. from Université de Sherbrooke in 1974. After eight years of general practice, he redirected his career towards public health. He completed a Ph.D. in epidemiology at Laval University, Quebec, in 1991. After a post-doctoral fellowship with Professor Peter Piot (the co-discoverer of the Ebola virus, and the founding executive director of UNAIDS from 1995 to 2008, and recipient of the Gairdner Global Health Award in 2015) in Antwerp, Belgium, he became professor of epidemiology at Laval University in 1992, and is also involved with the Institut national de santé publique du Québec. Most of his academic career has been devoted to epidemiologic and prevention research on HIV and other sexually transmitted and blood-borne infections among the most vulnerable populations, particularly female sex workers and their male sexual partners in West Africa and India, as well as intravenous drug users and men who have sex with men in Canada.

Michel Alary has obtained funding for 93 research projects for a total of over $75 million, including 64 projects as principal investigator (approximately $50 million). He has published 236 peer-reviewed scientific articles, and over 650 conference abstracts. He has been an invited speaker on 106 occasions. He has produced major reports for the World Bank and UNAIDS on the HIV epidemiologic situation and response towards this epidemic in the most vulnerable populations for all of sub-Saharan Africa. He received the Mark Wainberg Lecturer Award from the Canadian Association for HIV Research in recognition of his outstanding contributions and advocacy in advancing HIV/AIDS research in Canada, and internationally. He also received the Diamond Award for clinical research from the CHU de Québec in 2014 for the excellence of his public health research work in India. He received the 2015 Researcher Emeritus Award from the Quebec network on population health research. In September 2016, he was nominated as a fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. He is currently the Director of the Population Health and Optimal Health Practices Research axis in the Centre de recherche du CHU de Québec – Université Laval, which includes over 90 researchers, 200 graduate students, and 175 staff members.

Finally, Michel Alary has been the principle supervisor of over 40 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, in addition to having acted as co-director or evaluator of an additional 15 graduate students. Almost all these students completed their Master’s or Ph.D. thesis on topics related to global health and approximately 80% of them were from low- and middle-income countries. Most of his research projects also include knowledge transfer components towards communities, clinicians, public health practitioners, and decision-makers.