Michael J. Widener

Professor and Chair of the Department of Geography and Planning

Michael J. Widener is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Geography and Planning at the University of Toronto - St. George, where he holds the Canada Research Chair in Transportation and Health. Professor Widener also holds a cross-appointment in the Division of Epidemiology at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health. 

Professor Widener is a health geographer whose research focuses on how public health affects, and is affected by, movement, transportation systems, and urban planning. He runs several SSHRC, CIHR, and foundation funded projects that explore how time pressure, transportation options, and divisions of household labour impact access to food, dietary behaviours, and food insecurity. Additional studies are focused on the links between housing, migration, and health, and on how advanced geospatial technologies (like GPS) can be used to provide useful insights for public health policy. In the classroom, Professor Widener teaches courses on geographic information science, mapping health data, and spatial statistics at the undergraduate and graduate levels.

Outside of UofT, Professor Widener is co-Editor in Chief of the journal Health & Place, serves as a member of CIHR’s College of Reviewers, co-leads the Social and Health Factors Cluster of the Network of European Communication & Transportation Activity Researchers and sits on the editorial boards of Geographical Analysis, Information Geography, and Discover Social Science and Health.