Dr. Ross Andersen

Dr. Ross Andersen grew up in Montreal and completed his B. Ed and his M.A. in the Physical Education Department at McGill University.  He went on to work on his Ph.D. in exercise Physiology at Temple University and completed his Post-Doctoral Training at the University Of Pennsylvania School Of Medicine.   He then joined the faculty at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore where he served for 12 years.  In 2007, Ross returned to McGill University as the Tier 1 Canada Research Chair of Physical Activity and Health.  He teaches several courses at McGill including: Physical Activity and Health (Undergraduate), Bioenergetics (Graduate) and Research Methods (graduate).   Currently, there are several Masters’, Ph.D. and Post-Doctoral fellows working in the Andersen Lab.  In 2008, Dr. Andersen began building a new state-of-art health promotion center in the old Gymnastic’s Gym (Room 101 Currie).  This new lab has incredible facilities for teaching and training students on how to help sedentary individuals and many patient populations adopt more active lifestyles.  Much of the focus in this new lab is to help overweight and obese adults and children develop exercise programs.  His work is often featured in the media and he tries to conduct work that helps influence health policy in Canada and around the world.  Dr. Andersen had published over a hundred research papers as well as three textbooks.  In his leisure time, he remains an avid alpine skier, cyclist and is passionate about fly-fishing.