Dr. Renée F. LyonsDr. Renée Lyons is Director and Professor of the Atlantic Health Promotion Research Centre (AHPRC) at Dalhousie University with appointments in the School of Health and Human Performance and the Department of Psychology. She holds a Canada Research Chair in Health Promotion. She recently completed a two-year term as the Special Advisor to the President of the CIHR. She is currently principal investigator for health research projects totaling over $13M - all involving national and international collaborative partnerships with a special focus on health issues in Atlantic Canada. She has been a world leader in research on the social psychology of health and illness that has resulted in ground -breaking theoretical development, tools for issue clarification, and processes to re-orient health services and policy to improve the quality of life of people with chronic health problems. She has conducted research on a number of health problems, including cancer, multiple sclerosis and spinal injury, but has maintained a special focus on stroke since the early eighties. She has advanced the field of stress and coping, by using her work on chronic illness to develop the theory of communal coping. She has assumed leadership roles within the International Society for Relationship Research, CIHR, Networks Of Centres of Excellence, Industry Canada's University Advisory Group, and Health Canada's Science Advisory Council. The July, 2002, edition of Canadian Living Magazine featured Dr. Lyons as one of 10 Medical Megastars in Canada, acknowledging the important role that health promotion research (and the research of AHPRC) plays in the health of Canadians.
