Education pioneer, author and NATO award winner joins College of Medicine faculty

Candace Gibson, Ph.D., a pioneer of Canadian e-learning, e-health and e-health informatics, has joined the College of Medicine faculty as a CMU professor of pathology. 

Gibson and her spouse, Dag Von Lubitz, Ph.D., M.D. (Sc), CMU adjunct research professor in the Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow College of Health Professions, along with their research and training team, recently won a NATO Innovation Challenge award for their proposal to use the metaverse (an interactive virtual reality space) to teach senior leaders readiness in the face of disaster–teaching them, in the words of the historic Marshal General of France Maurice de Saxe, “to know what they should be doing, rather than doing what they know!”

Gibson and Von Lubitz also co-edited a book published by Taylor & Francis, The Nature of Pandemics, available in November. The book addresses readiness and the management of the consequences, as well as rapid response to bio-disasters.

“The book was conceived between SARS and Ebola,” said Gibson. “It offers a unique, holistic view of the nature of pandemics as a phenomenon, and of the challenges involved in mounting an organized, concerted response to a worldwide lethal bio-event.”

Gibson is looking forward to working with students, faculty and staff at the College of Medicine. “Everyone has been so welcoming and helpful. The students are fantastic! They are so bright, hard-working and eager to get working with and helping patients.”

Gibson earned her Ph.D. in biochemistry from MIT and had a highly successful research career in neuroscience and later in health informatics. Prior to joining the College of Medicine, Gibson retired as the Vice Dean (A), Basic Medical Sciences, Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, Western University, London, Canada. She has authored more than 100 publications in experimental neuroscience, health informatics and health information management.