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Colin David Butler is a co-founder of the non-governmental organization BODHI (Benevolent Organisation for Development, Health and Insight), which has autonomous branches in the United States and Australia. Butler was a professor of public health at the University of Canberra from November 2012 until July 2016. [1] In 2018 he was appointed as an honorary professor at the National Centre for Epidemiology & Population Health at Australian National University,. [2] He is a former senior research fellow in global health at the School of Health and Social Development at Deakin University.
Butler studies the intersection of sustainability, globalization, and health. His main research interest lies in trying to find ways to advance sustainable global health. [1]
Butler obtained a Bachelor of Medical Sciences (Hons) degree in 1984 and a Bachelor of Medicine degree in 1987, both from the University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia.[ citation needed ]
In 1985, prior to his final year of medical school, he spent ten months outside of Australia, mostly studying health issues in low-income countries. This included time in Nigeria with the health arms of two Christian missions, as well as the University of Ilorin, and in Nepal with the Britain Nepal Medical Trust. After graduating, he worked for several years in rural general practice in Tasmania. His longstanding interest in global health led him to pursue a Diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (DTM&H), which he received from the Royal College of Physicians in 1990. In 1997, he obtained a Master of Science degree in epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. [1] While there, his main mentor was Professor Tony McMichael.
In 2002, Butler completed a multidisciplinary PhD at the Australian National University, entitled "Inequality and sustainability". [3] His thesis argued that the unequal distribution of global political and economic influence facilitates "environmental brinkmanship," whereby the wealthy and powerful risk global environmental change of a degree that threatens the fabric of civilization. [2] These ideas are components of what has recently been called "planetary health." [4]
While studying for his PhD, Butler was awarded the 2001 Borrie Prize by the Australian Population Association for "the best student paper on a population-related topic". [5] Butler's winning essay traced the decline of Malthusian thinking within demography.
In 1989, Butler co-founded BODHI with the late Susan Woldenberg. These organizations, one in the US and one in Australia, work in the field of international health, primary health care, and education. BODHI identifies itself as the third or fourth oldest Buddhist influenced development NGO[s] based in the West. [6]
Butler contributed to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, which was requested by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan in 2001, both in the conceptual framework ("Ecosystems and Human Well-Being") and the scenarios working groups.
In 2009, the French Environmental Health Association named Butler one of "a hundred doctors for the planet." [1]
In 2010, Butler was awarded an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship, which "supports research in areas of critical national importance by giving outstanding researchers incentives to conduct their research in Australia. [7] The aim of Future Fellowships is "to attract and retain the best and brightest mid-career researchers." [8] Butler's grant project, which he completed in 2015, was entitled "Health and Sustainability: Australia in a Global Context." [7]
In 2014, Butler co-founded an international research network based at the University of Canberra called Health-Earth. The network has six major research themes: poverty, climate change, infectious disease, ecosystem disruptions, security, and transformation. [9]
Also in 2014, he also became the first Australian contributor to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to be arrested for civil disobedience, [10] in opposition to Australian government policies concerning climate change.
In 2018 he received the Tony McMichael Public Health Ecology and Environment Award, from the Public Health Association of Australia.
Butler has published over 150 articles and book chapters and the following 2 edited books:
For a selected bibliography of Butler's other writings, see the External Links section.
James Cook University (JCU) is a public university in North Queensland, Australia. The second oldest university in Queensland, JCU is a teaching and research institution. The university's main campuses are located in the tropical cities of Cairns and Townsville, and one in the city state of Singapore. JCU also has study centres in Mount Isa, Mackay, Thursday Island and Rockhampton. A Brisbane campus, operated by Russo Higher Education, delivers undergraduate and postgraduate courses to international and domestic students. The university's main fields of research include environmental sciences, biological sciences, mathematical sciences, earth sciences, agricultural and veterinary sciences, technology and medical and health sciences.
The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies and institutes.
The University of Tasmania (UTAS) is a public research university, primarily located in Tasmania, Australia. Founded in 1890, it is Australia's fourth oldest university. Christ College, one of the university's residential colleges, first proposed in 1840 in Lieutenant-Governor Sir John Franklin's Legislative Council, was modeled on the Oxford and Cambridge colleges, and was founded in 1846, making it the oldest tertiary institution in the country. The university is a sandstone university, a member of the international Association of Commonwealth Universities, and the Association of Southeast Asian Institutions of Higher Learning.
The University of the Sunshine Coast (USC) is a public university based on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia. After opening with 524 students in 1996 as the Sunshine Coast University College, it was later renamed the University of the Sunshine Coast in 1999.
Brian Paul Schmidt is the Vice-Chancellor of the Australian National University (ANU). He was previously a Distinguished Professor, Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow and astrophysicist at the University's Mount Stromlo Observatory and Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics. He is known for his research in using supernovae as cosmological probes. He currently holds an Australia Research Council Federation Fellowship and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2012. Schmidt shared both the 2006 Shaw Prize in Astronomy and the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics with Saul Perlmutter and Adam Riess for providing evidence that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, making him the only Montana-born Nobel laureate.
Ross Gregory Garnaut is an Australian economist, currently serving as a vice-chancellor's fellow and professorial fellow of economics at the University of Melbourne. He is the author of numerous publications in scholarly journals on international economics, public finance and economic development, particularly in relation to East Asia and the Southwest Pacific.
K. Srinath Reddy is the president of the Public Health Foundation of India and formerly headed the Department of Cardiology at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).
Graham Douglas Farquhar, is an Australian biophysicist, Distinguished Professor at Australian National University, and leader of the Farquhar Lab. In 2018 Farquhar was named Senior Australian of the Year.
David Lindenmayer,, is an Australian scientist and academic. His research focuses on the adoption of nature conservation practices in agricultural production areas, developing ways to improve integration of native forest harvesting and biodiversity conservation, new approaches to enhance biodiversity conservation in plantations, and improved fire management practices in Australia. He specialises in large-scale, long-term research monitoring programs in south-eastern Australia, primarily in forests, reserves, national parks, plantations, and on farm land.
Professor Anthony John McMichael AO FTSE MBBS PhD was an Australian epidemiologist who retired from the Australian National University in 2012.
Terry Hughes is a professor of marine biology at James Cook University in Queensland, Australia. He is well known for research on the global coral bleaching event caused by climate change. Nature dubbed him "Reef sentinel" in 2016 for the global role he plays in applying multi-disciplinary science to securing reef sustainability. He is an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow and Director of the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies. His research interests encompass coral reef ecology, macroecology and evolution, as well as social-ecological interactions. His recent work has focused on marine ecology, macroecology, climate change, identifying safe planetary boundaries for human development, and on transformative governance of the sea in Australia, Chile, China, the Galapagos Islands, Gulf of Maine and the Coral Triangle. His career citations in Google Scholar exceed 57,000.
Marilyn Ball is a professor at the College of Medicine, Biology and Environment at the Australian National University (ANU), and leader of the Ball (Marilyn) Lab for Ecophysiology of Salinity and Freezing Tolerance.
Chennupati Jagadish, an Indian-Australian physicist and academic, is a Distinguished Professor of Physics at the Australian National University Research School of Physics and Engineering. He is head of the Semiconductor Optoelectronics and Nanotechnology Group which he established in 1990. He is also the Convener of the Australian Nanotechnology Network and Director of Australian National Fabrication Facility ACT Node.
Diana Harrison Wall is the Founding Director of the School of Global Environmental Sustainability, a Distinguished Biology Professor, and Senior Research Scientist at the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory at Colorado State University. She is an environmental scientist and a soil ecologist and her research has focussed on the Antarctic McMurdo Dry Valleys. Wall investigates ecosystem processes, soil biodiversity and ecosystem services and she is interested in how these are impacted by global change. The Wall Valley was named after her in recognition of her research in the McMurdo Dry Valleys. Wall is a globally recognised leader and speaker on life in Antarctica and climate change.
Jan Maree Strugnell is an Australian evolutionary molecular biologist. She is a professor and director in the Centre for Sustainable Tropical Fisheries and Aquaculture at James Cook University, Townsville, Australia. Strugnell's work has investigated population and species level molecular evolution in Antarctic and deep sea species in the context of past geological and climatic change. Strugnell's work also uses genetic tools to help solve bottlenecks in aquaculture and fisheries industries.
David Albert Cooper was an Australian HIV/AIDS researcher, immunologist, professor at the University of New South Wales, and the director of the Kirby Institute. He and Professor Ron Penny diagnosed the first case of HIV in Australia.
Lian Pin Koh is a Singaporean conservation scientist. He is the Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple Professor of Conservation, Vice Dean of Research at the Faculty of Science, Director of the Centre for Nature-based Climate Solutions, and Director of the Tropical Marine Science Institute at the National University of Singapore.
Opha Pauline Dube or Pauline Dube is a Botswanan environmental scientist and Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental Science at the University of Botswana. She co-authored the IPCC's Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C. She is one of fifteen scientists creating the 2023 Global Sustainable Development Report for the United Nations.
Emily Banks is a Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health at the Australian National University. She is also a visiting professor at The University of Oxford. Banks was influential in the establishment of three large-scale long-term cohort studies in two countries: the Million Women Study in the UK, UK Biobank and the 45 and Up Study in Australia. Several of her papers have been highly influential in national and international public health policy and practice. The 2003 Million Women Study paper on hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and breast cancer was the most frequently cited paper on breast cancer worldwide in 2003–2005 and led to immediate changes in HRT prescribing policy and practice. She led the scientific elements of the 2006 World Health Organization paper on female genital mutilation (FGM) and obstetric outcome, which influenced the UN resolution on the elimination of FGM. Her 2015 paper on smoking and mortality has been used to support Australian tobacco control legislation.
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