October 21, 2010
Kathryn O’Hara is an Associate Professor at Carleton University in Ottawa. She joined the School of Journalism and Communication in 2001 and became the first person to hold the School’s CTV Chair in Science Broadcast Journalism.
Kathryn’s journalism experience includes over 25 years work in radio and television as a host, reporter, producer, and researcher mainly in public broadcasting.
She was a consumer columnist first with CTV’s CFCF TV in Montreal, then with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s national Midday. She co-anchored CBC’s Newsday in Ottawa in the ‘80’s and was host of Later the Same Day, CBC Radio Toronto’s “drive-home” current affairs program for six years in the 1990’s.
Kathryn has a M.Sc. in Science Communication from The Queen’s University of Belfast and Dublin City University.
She was appointed a member of the science and technology advisory boards for both Health Canada (two terms) and Environment Canada. She was on the steering committee for the National Cancer Institute of Canada’s Prevention Research Initiative and continued as a member of its Media and Policy Research Network. She is chair of the communications panel for riskcom.ca, a new project of the McLaughlin Centre for Population Health Risk Assessment at the University of Ottawa.
She also serves on the board of directors of the open access journal openmedicine.ca and is the new president of the Canadian Science Writers’ Association.