Barbara Neis

Professor Barbara Neis is a John Lewis Paton Distinguished University Professor, Department of Sociology, Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador. She is a member of the Order of Canada (C.M.), a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (F.R.S.C.), corecipient of the Vanier Institute of the Family’s Mirabelli-Glossop Award for Distinguished Contribution, member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Council of Canadian Academies and a former Fellow of the Trudeau Foundation. She co-founded and co-directed Memorial’s SafetyNet Centre for Occupational Health and Safety Research over much of the period from 2001 to 2019. She is a former member of the Ocean Frontier Institute research management committee and co-leads the work package on aquaculture OHS within Module M. Over her career, a central focus of Professor Neis’ research has been the relationship between work, community and larger-scale societal and environmental change with a particular focus on rural and remote, resource dependent coastal communities. She has extensive experience in designing, securing funding for and completing major interdisciplinary programs of research using a community-engaged, partnered framework. Many of her research programs have focused on diverse aspects of marine and coastal communities ranging from sustainability, through governance, to local knowledge and science, health and safety, gender and fisheries and work-related mobility.