Dr. Wayne Corneil
Adjunct Professor, Telfer School of Management
Ottawa University
Dr. Corneil at the University of Ottawa is an Adjunct Professor in the Telfer School of Management, an Adjunct Professor in the Interdisciplinary School of Health, an Associate Scientist in the Institute of Population Health and a Teaching and Research Fellow in Community Medicine and Epidemiology. He teaches at the post graduate level on Crisis Leadership, Organizational Continuity and Resilience.
Dr. Corneil provides consulting including the facilitation of courses and training sessions to public and private sector organizations on mental health in the workplace, creating psychologically safe workplaces, resilience, psychosocial preparation for retirement, and crisis leadership.
He conducts research and program evaluation on psychosocial interventions and training programs in individual and organizational resilience. More recently he has been working with federally regulated organizations on the implementation of the Canada Labour Code regulations for the Prevention of Workplace Harassment and Violence.
He is currently providing consulting on the social epidemiological aspects of the Covid-19 pandemic to federal government departments and agencies as well as the World Health Organization.
He was an adjunct faculty member at the Canadian School of the Public Service from 1996 to 2014 where he developed and facilitated several executive leadership programs for senior government officials. He is also a facilitator the Telfer Executive Leadership program and from 2004 to 2019 for the executive leadership programs at the Institute on Governance.
He was a principal investigator in several major research projects on executive health, leadership during crises, psychosocial aspects of disasters and terrorism and on emergency management for high-risk populations including those with disabilities. His current research is on the relationship between PSTD and cardiovascular disease.
As an expert consultant on emergency and crisis management he has provided services to numerous government organizations at the federal, provincial and municipal level – including public safety, public health, police and intelligence services, corrections, hospitals, fire and EMS. He has worked with a variety of NGO’s and private sector organizations to assist in their organizational readiness for crises and emergencies and service continuity capacities.
Prior to his retirement from the Public Service of Canada in 2004, he spent 32 years in a variety of senior positions in Health Canada at the regional, national and international levels with responsibilities for Occupational Safety & Health, Quarantine and Emergency Health Services. Some career highlights:
– He is credited with the creation of the Employee Assistance Program for federal departments & agencies.
– He set up and coordinated the traumatic stress response for the Federal Government of Canada including such events as the Gander and Swiss Air crashes.
– He lead the federal response to several major health outbreaks, including West Nile virus, H1N1, H5N1, Zika, pneumonic plague, SARS, MERS, and Ebola
– He has conducted research on executive health since 1995 and has taught on occupational health in Canada, the U.K., France, the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, and the U.S.
– He is the author of several books, book chapters, and over 100 articles in professional and scientific journals, including two chapters in the International Encyclopaedia of Occupational Health & Safety.
– He has received awards and honours from the Government of Canada, the National Safety Council, the Employee Assistance Society of North America, the National Institute of Occupational Health & Safety, the American Psychological Association and the Canadian Traumatic Stress Network.
For twenty years up to 2009, he had a private clinical practice for emergency response personnel, healthcare practitioners, executives and senior officials specializing post-traumatic stress disorders and work related stress. He retains current registration as a psychotherapist in the province of Ontario.
Wayne Corneil has a doctorate in Epidemiology and Occupational Health Psychology from the School of Hygiene & Public Health of the Johns Hopkins University, and professional degrees in psychotherapy (University of Alberta), social work (Carleton University), criminology (St. Patrick’s College) and adult education (OISE, University of Toronto).
