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Diane Finegood
SYSTEMS THINKING
Diane joined the SFU Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue in 2017. She was seconded from her home, Department of Biomedical Physiology and Kinesiology, to teach the Semester in Dialogue. At that time, Diane was returning to SFU after a five year leave of absence to serve as the President and CEO of the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research (renamed ).
Diane is an internationally recognized scholar with work in a range of disciplines including pathogenesis diabetes, application of mathematical modeling to physiological systems, cross sector partnership, knowledge mobilization, and systems thinking. They have also held a variety of other leadership positions including as the inaugural Scientific Director of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, (2000-2008), Executive Director of the (2018-2023) and The CAPTURE Project (2009-2011), and as Principal Investigator on many research grants since 1984.
Diane鈥檚 current passion is for the application of systems thinking and dialogue to address complex problems across a broad range of topics, with a particular focus on health systems and public health. Twenty years of thinking and learning about approaches that embrace complexity led to her build the Complex Systems Frameworks Collection. Her aim is to make the many interrelated ideas of multiple systems thinkers as accessible as possible by bringing them to life through the engaging illustrations of .
Since landing in the Centre as faculty and a Fellow, Diane has had the privilege to teach the Semester in Dialogue five times including a partial and full Semester online following the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since SFU terminated the Semester in Dialogue program after the Fall 2023 semester, Diane has begun a stepped retirement from their faculty position but will continue as a Fellow of the Centre.
About Diane's Fellowship
During their time as a Fellow in the Centre, Diane has facilitated many dialogues and produced a series of What We Heard reports including:
- Finegood, DT. Change the Conversation: Insights from Conversations on Diabetes and Stigma, Diabetes Canada, 2025. See also vodcast , T2D Network, 2025.
- Finegood, DT and L Johnston. . Public Health Agency of Canda. Government of Canada, 2023.
- Finegood, DT and L Johnston. . Public Health Agency of Canda. Government of Canada, 2022.
- DT Finegood and Jebb, SA, A Diez Roux, H Rutter, J Clarkson, J Frank, N Roos, C Bonell, S Michie, P Hawe. UK Academy of Medical Sciences and Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, 2021.
Select Honours & Awards
- SFU Awards for Excellence in Teaching, Community Engaged or Experiential Education Award (2022)
Recent Academic Publications
- Finegood, DT and Yakimov C. Why systems thinking is needed to center trust in health policy and systems: Comment on 鈥淧lacing trust at the heart of health policy and systems.鈥� Int J Health Policy Manag. 13: 8706, 2024.
- Taylor, E, R Schwartz, J Trowbridge, E Di Ruggiero, T Sullivan, G Marchildon, M Dobrow, D Finegood, A Price. Strategy design for New Public Governance and horizontal initiatives. Canadian Public Administration 64 (4): 657-681, 2021.
- Finegood DT. Can we build an evidence base on the impact of systems thinking for wicked problems? Comment on "What can policy-makers get out of systems thinking? Policy partners' experiences of a systems-focused research collaboration in preventive health. International Journal of Health Policy and Management. 10(6): 351-353., 2021