Welcoming Ivy Lam as Academic Lead in Climate, Health & Sustainable Care

The Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy is pleased to share that Ivy Lam, Assistant Professor (Status) has accepted the position of Academic Lead, Climate, Health & Sustainable Care (AL-CHSC) at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy. 

The AL-CHSC role aligns with the Faculty's Academic Plan commitment to support sustainability in health care, with an emphasis on the professional pharmacy workforce and the impact of pharmaceuticals.  

In this new role, Assistant Professor Lam will guide and advance the Faculty’s efforts to embed environmental sustainability across its curriculums, research, and operations. She will work closely with leadership, faculty, staff, as well as partners across the University of Toronto and beyond, to support climate-conscious pharmacy education and practice. Assistant Professor Lam will also represent the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy as an Associate Director of the University of Toronto’s Collaborative Centre for Climate, Health, and Sustainable Care.  

“I think we're really starting to see the impacts of climate change much more clearly than we did, especially in Canada” said Lam. “This is not just an environmental issue, it's a human health issue, so we have to act as healthcare professionals.” 

“This is not just an environmental issue, it's a human health issue, so we have to act as healthcare professionals.” 

An 0T8 Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy graduate, Assistant Professor Lam brings more than a decade of experience in both hospital and community pharmacy and a deep commitment to sustainability in health care. As Pharmacy Innovation Lead with the CASCADES initiative led by Professor Fiona Miller, Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, Ivy has reviewed and authored several playbooks, articles and helped design organizational and provincial courses and toolkits. She is currently a fellow in the Climate Health Organizing Fellows Program at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. 

As a co-lead in sustainable procurement at the Canadian Association of Pharmacy for the Environment and as part of the Environmental Sustainability Advisory Committee at Unity Health Toronto, she is directly involved in initiatives that bridge the gap between healthcare and ecological preservation.  

She has already contributed to our new three-year PharmD curriculum as co-lead for the sustainability theme and is now exploring opportunities to extend this work through faculty engagement and encouraging student involvement in national initiatives. 

Climate change is no longer a future concern—it is a present and growing health issue. From supporting patients during extreme heat events to reducing the environmental impact of medications through deprescribing and appropriate prescribing, pharmacists have a key role to play in shaping the future of sustainability. Assistant Professor Lam’s leadership will help empower the next generation of pharmacists with the knowledge, tools and mindset to help meet this challenge.