Donna Mergler

Donna Mergler is a Canadian physiologist and currently professor emerita in the department of biological sciences at the University of Quebec in Montreal, Canada. Her research focuses on environmental health, specifically the effects of neuro-toxins on workplace and environment. She has also brought in lasting and real solutions to environmental degradation, while also focusing on gender and social equity.

In 2006, after she retired, she received the title of professor emerita in the department of biological sciences from University of Quebec.

Career and research

In 1990, she became a part of research center Cinbiose. She also headed the Canadian Institute for Health Research Team on Gender, Environment and Health, with the goal to develop quantitative and qualitative methods to integrate sex and gender into environmental and occupational health research. She researched the effect of mercury on the ecosystem of the Amazon with the project CARUSO and was the team leader of health studies within the Collaborative Mercury Research Network (COMERN).

In 2000, she researched reducing toxic chemicals in Latin America and the Caribbean, within a project called COPEH-TLAC. She was also a member of the collaboration between the World Health Organization and the Pan-American Health Organization: WHO-PAHO.

More research on neurotoxins has been done by Mergler when she researched what effect manganese had on the nervous system of populations across Canada, Mexico and Brazil.

Awards and prizes

In 1990, she won the Muriel DuckWorth Award for Women's Studies. In 1994, she won the Women of Merit in science and technology prize, by YWCA. In 1995, she won the Acfas Michel-Jurdant prize for her research towards protecting the environment, by ACFAS. In 2001, she received the Silver Award for Environmental Health, given out by the Canadian Minister of the Environment and Canadian Geographic magazine. In 2019, she was put on the City of Montreal's list of '21 exceptional women from Montreal', focusing on women in social science, science and culture. In 2023, she won the Scientists of the Year Radio-Canada prize with Myriam Fillion, Aline Philibert and Judy da Silva for documenting the effects of mercury poisoning in the water of Grassy Narrows First Nation.