Frank A.P.C. Gobas
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) is a full 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 and effects 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; how commercial chemicals are best managed; and how contaminated environmental systems can be remediated. His research includes the effect of pollutants in Southern Resident Killer whales, monitoring for pollution sources in the Salish Sea, engineered wetland treatment of waste waters, and the development of water quality guidelines. He has published more than 200 scientific publications and technical reports and has given 300 invited presentations at scientific and regulatory meetings. He has graduated 75 Masters and Ph.D. students as senior supervisor. He has been awarded approximately 6.7 million dollars in research funding to his research group at SFU.
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.