Professor Geoff Fernie is the Creaghan Family Chair in Prevention and Healthcare Technologies, Department of Surgery, University of Toronto and at the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute. He is a bioengineer who applies engineering to solve problems in medicine and healthcare. During his tenure as Director of the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute from 2003 to 2018, he grew the research institute to be the top rehabilitation research centre in the world.

Dr. Fernie’s passion is the search for practical solutions to common problems of daily living for an aging population, people with disabilities and their caregivers. His emphasis is on preventing accidents, injuries and illnesses

Dr. Fernie has a track record of taking inventions from the laboratory to market and has helped to launch several companies. He has over 150 peer-reviewed journal papers/ book chapters and has been awarded nearly 50 patents.

Dr. Fernie is a member of the Order of Canada.