Derek Christie is a recognised expert in urban health, with a strong interest for the complex interactions between health, transportation and the urban environment. He has three career threads, covering research activities, science communication and civil society organisations.

His trans-disciplinary research experience ranges from tobacco control to urban walking, with incursions into autonomous vehicles and ballast flight on railways. He thus obtained a solid grounding in mixed methods, associating qualitative and quantitative approaches. He is now working mainly on Health Impact Assessment, transport mode choice, and the importance of daily walking for public health.

His parallel career as a science writer include writing for Horizons/Horizonte, the magazine of the Swiss National Science Foundation, and being appointed head editor of Campus, the magazine of the University of Geneva. As a founding member of the Communication in Science network, he contributed to the launch of website energie-environnement.ch which received the Roberval Prize for scientific communication in 2009. He has also worked with WHO (Department of Public Health and Environment) and UNAIDS, as an international conference organiser and scientific report writer.

His civil society activity hinges around the Association for transport and environment (VCS-ATE-ATA), of which he has been a committee member (of the Geneva section) since 1996 as well as a member of working groups on public transport and active mobility. He was chairman of the Geneva section of the ATE for five years (1998-2003) and a member of the Central Committee at the national level for several years. He now represents the ATE and its overarching organisation (Coordination transports et déplacements) in two official committees in Geneva: CODEP (Transportation) and the environmental commission at Geneva-Airport (CCLNTA).

Publications