Faculty Fellow, Faculty of Health (and former Interim Associate Director 25-26)
Faculty Fellow

Dr. Penney is a population health scientist focused on the prevention of disease at the global level. She is an assistant professor of global food systems and policy research, an investigator with the Global Strategy Lab and a member of the Dahdaleh institute for Global Health Research at York University. She completed her postdoctoral training and PhD in preventive medicine and epidemiology at the MRC Epidemiology Unit, University of Cambridge, UK.
Working with national and international organizations and other researchers from around the globe, her research applies systems thinking and multiple methods to generate observational and evaluative evidence to understand the context and impact of globalization and food systems on human and planetary health. Her work seeks to support evidence-based global health policy development that can tackle some of our biggest global challenges including food insecurity, emergence of zoonoses, anti-microbial resistance and the related consequences of climate change.
In particular, she works with the WHO European NCD Prevention Office, Cambridge Global Food Security, an interdisciplinary research centre at the University of Cambridge, and the Global Food Security Programme in London, UK. Dr. Penney has also contributed to program evaluation review panels for the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) to support assessment of research quality and program impact.
Research keywords:
Population and planetary health; global food systems; systems thinking; disease prevention
You may also be interested in...
Hot off the Press — Global Governance for Pandemic Prevention and the Wildlife Trade
Dahdaleh associate director Mary E. Wiktorowicz, Dahdaleh graduate student scholar Raphael Aguiar, and their research team recently published an academic journal in The Lancet Planetary Health titled, "Global Governance for Pandemic Prevention and the Wildlife ...Read more about this Post
The Dahdaleh Institute to Cohost the Upcoming 2023 Radboud Conference on Earth System Governance
The Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research at York University are proud to be co-hosting partners of the 2023 Radboud Conference on Earth System Governance (ESG) – ESG research seeks to explore political solutions and ...Read more about this Post
Announcing the Winners of the 2024 Seed Grants in Critical Social Science Perspectives in Global Health Research
Following the fifth annual Critical Perspective for Global Health Research (CPGH) workshop in April, the CPGH Steering Committee is delighted to announce that the following York researchers have been awarded this year’s $7,000 seed grants ...Read more about this Post
