Steven Hoffman

Dr. Steven J. Hoffman is co-leading Canada's rapid health research response to COVID-19 as the Scientific Director of the CIHR’s Institute of Population & Public Health and is coordinating a global social science research response as Chair of the International Funders Forum for Social Science Research on Infectious Diseases. His own research combines international law and epidemiology to address transnational health threats, particularly pandemics and antimicrobial resistance. He is currently leading several rapid studies to inform governments’ responses to the current COVID-19 pandemic and has given more than 200 interviews in the media in the first three months of the outbreak. Steven Hoffman is a member of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation’s COVID-19 Impact Committee.

Dr. Steven J. Hoffman is the Dahdaleh Distinguished Chair in Global Governance & Legal Epidemiology and a Professor of Global Health, Law, and Political Science at York University, the Director of the Global Strategy Lab, the Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre on Global Governance of Antimicrobial Resistance, and the Scientific Director of the CIHR Institute of Population & Public Health at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. He holds courtesy appointments as a Professor of Clinical Epidemiology & Biostatistics (Part-Time) at McMaster University and as an Adjunct Professor of Global Health & Population at Harvard University. He is an international lawyer licensed in both Ontario and New York who specializes in global health law, global governance and institutional design. His research leverages various methodological approaches to craft global strategies that better address transnational health threats and social inequalities. Past studies have focused on access to medicines, antimicrobial resistance, health misinformation, pandemics and tobacco control.

Steven Hoffman previously worked as a Project Manager for the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, and as a Fellow in the Executive Office of United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in New York City, where he offered strategic and technical input on a range of global health issues. He also previously worked for a Toronto law firm specializing in cross-border intellectual property litigation, health product regulation, and government relations. Hoffman recently advised the World Health Organization on development of a global strategy for health systems research and was lead author on the background paper that provided the strategy's conceptual underpinnings. For three years he convened an academic advisory committee on science reporting for Canada's only national weekly current affairs magazine. He was previously an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Ottawa (2014-2017) and a Visiting Professor at the University of Oxford (2018-2019).

He holds a Bachelor of Health Sciences from McMaster University, an MA in Political Science and a Juris Doctor from the University of Toronto, a PhD in Health Policy from Harvard University, and a doctorate in law from Sciences Po Paris.