Graduate Dean's Convocation Medal awarded to PhD alumnus researching associations of chemical effects on child neurodevelopment
This story utilizes elements from the Faculty of Grad Studies award announcement.
By: Geron Malbas
Faculty of Health Sciences (FHS) Doctor of Philosophy alumnus Joshua Alampi has been awarded the 2026 Dean鈥檚 Convocation Medal, an annual award recognizing graduate students who achieve the highest level of academic excellence in their graduate program.
Dr. Alampi鈥檚 thesis, , examines how prenatal exposure to environmental chemicals affects child neurodevelopment and behaviours.
During his time with FHS, he published numerous first-author peer-reviewed studies, including a study on folic acid and how it may weaken the link between blood-lead levels in pregnant women and autistic-like behaviours in their children.
Dr. Alampi also received multiple awards, including the 2022 Best Environmental Epidemiology Paper Award from the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology, and the 2020 NSERC Canadian Graduate Scholarship Master's Award.
Having also completed his Bachelor of Science with FHS, Dr. Alampi has set his eyes further on contributing to research that advances our understanding of lung health, particularly the effects of environmental hazards like air pollution and wildfire smoke.
His work in graduate school required patience and persistence, as his work involved regular iteration, refinement, and revision. This incremental progress was essential for creating high quality work, and was a great learning opportunity him. Dr. Alampi also highlights that the most important contributor to success in the FHS PhD program was the support from his team.
鈥淲orking with a team with such diverse expertise has been such a highlight of my PhD experience, specifically with Icahn School of Medicine鈥檚 Dr. Youssef Oulhote, Carleton University鈥檚 Dr. Amanda Macfarlane, and FHS professors Drs. Lawrence McCandless and Bruce Lanphear,鈥� he explains. 鈥淚 invested time in learning about new topics and epidemiological methods - particularly advanced causal inference methods - that were not immediately useful to my research. I was often able to apply this new knowledge in unexpected ways throughout my graduate studies and current work.鈥�
From 911吃瓜 Convocation:
Dr. Josh Alampi graduates with a PhD in Health Sciences from the Faculty of Health Sciences. His PhD investigated the relationship between exposure to chemicals during pregnancy and childhood behaviours, applying innovative statistical methods to uncover important details that might otherwise be missed with more conventional approaches. For his work, he received the 2022 Best Environmental Epidemiology Paper Award from the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology and the National Institute of Environmental Health Science鈥檚 Paper of the Month. He is currently a biostatistician and data analyst at Legacy for Airway Health, a Vancouver-based organization that performs cutting-edge research on lung health and translates it into clinical practice.