Frank A.P.C. Gobas
Distinguished Professor, School of Resource & Environmental Management
Simon Fraser University, Canada
Dr. Gobas (M.Sc. in Environmental Chemistry and Toxicology from the University of Amsterdam, Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry from the University of Toronto, Post-Doctoral research at the Great Lakes Institute at the University Windsor), is a full and distinguished professor in the School of Resource & Environmental Management and an associate member of the Department of Biological Sciences at Simon Fraser University. He is an environmental toxicologist with expertise in chemistry, chemical engineering, biology and policy analysis. Dr. Gobas' research is focused on the environmental behaviour, effects and risks of pollutants. His research investigates how pollutants are taken up by wildlife and humans; how pollutants behave in food-webs and ecosystems; how pollutants cause health effects and exert risks to the environment; how commercial chemicals are best managed; and how contaminated environmental systems can be remediated. His research includes the effect of pollutants in aquatic and terrestrial food-webs, identifying pollution sources, wetland treatment of waste waters, development of water quality guidelines and risk assessment. He has published more than 220 scientific publications and technical reports and has given approximately 350 presentations at scientific and regulatory meetings. He has graduated approximately 100 Masters and Ph.D. students as senior supervisor.
His food-chain bioaccumulation models have been adopted by Environment Canada for bioaccumulation categorization; by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) for water quality guideline development and pesticide registration (AGRO 2014); and included in environmental simulation software packages (e.g. USEPA’s EpiSuite). Dr. Gobas has worked with government agencies and industry in Canada, the US, the EU and Japan and with international organizations on regulatory issues related to the fate and exposure of environmental contaminants in wildlife and human populations. He has also been involved in several contaminant fate and exposure studies on Super Fund sites in the US. Dr. Gobas has been a member of the United Nation’s Joint Group of Experts on the Scientific Aspects of Marine Environmental Protection (GESAMP); a Member of the Aquatic Life Criteria Panel of the US-EPA Science Advisory Board, a Member of the Science Advisory Board for Contaminated Sites in British Columbia and a long-term advisor to the San Francisco Bay Estuary Institute.