Mélissa Généreux

Dr. Généreux is the CIHR lead, holds a doctorate in medicine, a master’s degree in public health and a specialization in community medicine from the University of Montreal. After having been appointed as Director of Public Health for six years in the Estrie region, she now acts as a medical adviser both at the regional and provincial level in Quebec. She has developed an expertise in the field of disaster management and psychosocial recovery through her strong involvement during the Lac-Mégantic rail tragedy in 2013 that destroyed a large part of the downtown area, both as a researcher and as a decision-maker, as well as through her support brought to public health authorities as a consultant during the 2016 Fort McMurray fires in Alberta and the 2017 and 2019 spring floods in Quebec. As a member of the WHO Health Emergency and Disaster Risk Management Framework Research Network (TPRN), she has developed a strong international network and has contributed to several knowledge creation and transition activities in the field of disaster risk reduction (e.g. WHO expert meeting, workshops, conferences, scientific papers, reports, book chapters). She is currently leading two studies, one on the sociosanitary consequences during and after the 2019 spring floods in Quebec, and another on the psychological and behavioral response to the COVID-19 pandemic.