Miriam Stewart
MN (1976)
Professor, University of Alberta
Dr. Miriam Stewart is Professor in the Faculty of Nursing and School of Public Health at the University of Alberta. She is a former Health Senior Investigator and former Health Senior Scholar, Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research and a former Medical Research Council of Canada and National Health Research Development Program (MRC/NHRDP) Scholar.
Director of Health Promotion Research Centres
Dr. Stewart was the inaugural Director and Chair of the Centre for Health Promotion Studies University of Alberta (1997- April 2001); Director of the Atlantic Health Promotion Research Centre (1992-1997); and, co- principal investigator and co-creator of the Maritime Centre of Excellence on Women's Health (1996-2000). The two health promotion research centres facilitated over 100 studies during her directorship.
Strategic research initiatives
Following an international review, Dr. Stewart was appointed as the inaugural Scientific Director of the National Research Institute devoted to the study of gender at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. In this capacity, she launched numerous strategic research initiatives, built research capacity, fostered innovative knowledge translation strategies, and attracted over 89 million dollars in partnerships internal and external to the Canadian Institutes of Health Research as lead or partner Institute.
Research focus
Dr. Stewart's research programs emphasize social determinants of health and relevance to policies and programs for vulnerable populations (e.g. Aboriginal peoples, low income, homeless, family caregivers, disabled, immigrants, and refugees). In the research programs and research centres, she has focused on building research capacity; mobilizing interdisciplinary and multi-site research teams; creating research infrastructures; and, establishing partnerships with public, practice and policy domains. She has published extensively and given hundreds of research-relevant presentations at national and international scholarly conferences/symposia.
Recognized for excellence
Dr. Stewart has been recognized with numerous awards – among them are the following: Kaplan Award for Excellence in Research; Elected to the Royal Society of Canada and to the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences; inducted into the McMaster University Alumni Gallery included in Who’s Who in Canada and Who's Who in America; and received a Canadian Nurses Association Centennial Award.