Dr. John O’Neil is the Professor and Dean in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University since September 2007. Previously, he was Director of the Manitoba First Nations Centre for Aboriginal Health Research and Professor and Head of the Department of Community Health Sciences in the University of Manitoba’s faculty of medicine. Dr. O’Neil received his PhD in medical anthropology from the University of California (San Francisco/Berkley) in 1983. He currently serves as Vice-Chair of the Board of Directors of the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research, a Trustee on the Board of Trustees for the Providence Health Care Research Institute. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the National Collaborating Centre on Aboriginal Health at the Public Health Agency of Canada. He was the Advisory Board’s founding chair for the CIHR Institute for Aboriginal People’s Health (2000 to 2006). He was awarded a Senior Investigator award (2000-2006) from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research in recognition of his outstanding research contributions in community-based participatory approaches to health systems research with indigenous communities. He is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.