W. Thomas Boyce MD

University of British Columbia
Professor of Pediatrics and Psychiatry

Sunny Hill Health Centre
BC Leadership Chair in Child Development in the Human Early Learning Partnership


Former Member, National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, Harvard University

Dr. W. Thomas Boyce is a Professor of Pediatrics at the University of British Columbia, and is the Sunny Hill Health Centre BC Leadership Chair in Child Development in the Human Early Learning Partnership and the Centre for Community Child Health Research. He is also a Fellow of the Experience-Based Brain and Biological Development Programme, Canadian Institute for Advanced Research and a member of the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child. A social epidemiologist and developmental-behavioral pediatrician, Dr. Boyce’s research addresses the interplay among neurobiological and psychosocial processes leading to socially partitioned differences in childhood disease. Studying the interactive influences of socioeconomic adversities and neurobiological responses, his work has demonstrated how psychological stress and neurobiological reactivity to aversive social contexts operate conjointly to produce disorders of both physical and mental health in childhood populations. A central goal of his work is the development of a new synthesis between biomedical and social epidemiologic accounts of human pathogenesis and an articulation of the public health implications of this synthetic view.