Dr. Sameera Hussain advances strategic policy and priorities at the Public Health Agency of Canada. She is currently Director for strategic policy and integration at PHAC’s Office of International Affairs for the Health Portfolio (Government of Canada). With over 10 years of experience leading, designing, advising, and implementing health systems policy, programs, and research in public, non-profit, and academic sectors, Dr. Hussain is a dynamic professional who is passionate about using knowledge translation to bridge the evidence to policy gap in health decision-making.
Dr. Hussain holds appointments as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Ottawa’s School of Epidemiology and Public Health, as an Editor at BMC’s Globalization and Health journal, and as an Advisory Board Member at the Institute of Indigenous Peoples’ Health within the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR). Leveraging her research and knowledge mobilization expertise, she catalyzes evidence-informed, meaningful decision-making underpinned by science and strategic foresight to improve the health and well-being of populations in Canada and globally in her senior policy roles in civil service.
She operates through a lens of intersectional feminism and decolonization using systems thinking and is committed to the mentorship of diverse, early-career women working in global health policy.
Dr. Hussain holds a PhD in global health policy with a special focus in the structural drivers of health inequities. She also has degrees in political science and development studies. She lives and works in Ottawa, Canada, the traditional and unceded territory of the Anishinabek Nation.
