Timothy Caulfield
Professor of Health Law and Science Policy | Bestselling Author

Professor Timothy Caulfield is an unrivalled science communicator who debunks myths and misconceptions about innovation in the health sector. A four-time bestselling author and an award-winning documentary host and producer, he specializes in exposing misinformation and pseudoscience. For over 20 years, Caulfield was the Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy and is currently a professor in the Faculty of Law and the School of Public Health and the Research Director of the Health Law Institute at the University of Alberta.

Caulfield has been involved in a variety of interdisciplinary research endeavours that have led him to publish more than 400 academic articles. His research focuses on topics like health and science policy, health misinformation, and public representations of science. He has won numerous academic, science communication, and writing awards, and is a Member of the Order of Canada and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, and the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.

Caulfield also writes frequently for the popular press and is the author of four bestselling books: The Cure for Everything: Untangling the Twisted Messages about Health, Fitness, and Happiness; Is Gwyneth Paltrow Wrong About Everything?: When Celebrity Culture and Science Clash; Relax, Dammit!: A User’s Guide to the Age of Anxiety; and his most recent, The Certainty Illusion, a #1 national bestseller.

In addition, Caulfield is the co-founder of the science engagement initiative, #ScienceUpFirst. He has also written, hosted, and produced several documentaries, including the award-winning television show, A User’s Guide to Cheating Death, which aired in over 60 countries and streamed on Netflix in North America.

Dr. Hawley arrived in Canada in 1990 from England via New Zealand and set up the Pain and Symptom Management/Palliative Care Program for the BC Cancer Agency’s Vancouver Centre in 1997. She was the Provincial Medical Leader until 2024.

Dr. Hawley has research interests in the management of bowel care, management of severe cancer pain, methadone for analgesia, medicinal use of cannabis. She was the designer of the “Bow Tie Model of 21st Century Palliative Care”, emphasizing the importance of recognizing the dual reality of the possibility of survivorship as well as dying at any point in serious illness, aiming to promote acceptance of palliative care interventions earlier in the course of illness.

Dr. Hawley has just completed a multi-centre Canadian clinical trial of medical cannabis for cancer-related symptoms. She was the proud recipient of the 2023 Bruera award from the Canadian Society of Palliative Medicine for clinical excellence and overall contributions to palliative medicine.