James Talbot

Dr. James Talbot is a Canadian public health physician based in Alberta.

Talbot was educated at the University of Toronto and the University of Alberta.

Talbot was previously Chief Medical Officer of Health for the Province of Alberta,¹⁾ a Medical Officer of Health for the city of Edmonton, and Chief Medical Officer of Health for Nunavut. He was also Director of the Public Health Laboratory (ProvLab) for Northern Alberta.

He is an Adjunct Professor in the University of Alberta's School of Public Health.²⁾

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Talbot participated on the AHS COVID-19 Scientific Advisory Committee as a representative of the Alberta Health Services Office of the Chief Medical Officer of Health, Deena Hinshaw.

Talbot was a founding member of SIREVA, a project of the Pan American Health Organization,³⁾ and the Alberta Real Time Syndromic Surveillance Network (ARTSSN), an “early-warning system” for influenza.⁴⁾

He participated as a member of the Alberta Provincial Pediatric EnTeric Infection TEam (APPETITE), researching epidemiology, emerging organisms, and economics. The team was funded by Alberta Innovates and Alberta Children's Hospital Research Institute with in-kind support from Copan Diagnostics and Luminex.⁵⁾ He worked alongside Martin Lavoie, who went on to become Deputy Provincial Health Officer at the BC Ministry of Health under Bonnie Henry during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 1998, Talbot received the John Snow Award for Excellence in Sciences from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).⁶⁾