Patricia Larkin
Dr. Larkin serves as an Associate Expert at Risk Sciences International, specializing in policy, regulatory analysis, and population health risk assessment. Her work with RSI has included life cycle assessments of metals, as well as a review of Alberta’s Water Cytotoxicity Testing Program. She contributes rigorous, equity-sensitive approaches to risk analysis, and brings a nuanced understanding of the intersections between policy, science, and public values.
Her ability to lead structured expert elicitations, facilitate stakeholder engagement, and translate complex research into decision-relevant guidance makes her a key contributor to RSI’s work at the science–policy interface.
Pre-RSI
Dr. Patricia Larkin brings over 25 years of interdisciplinary leadership and applied research experience in population health risk management, with a focus on the structural and intermediary determinants of health. Her work spans multiple sectors—energy, environment, climate change, water, and agriculture—and is grounded in the premise that policy and regulatory decisions made outside the health sector can have profound impacts on human health outcomes and health equity.
Her academic and professional work includes substantial expertise in carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS), climate change adaptation, and hydraulic fracturing. She has managed large-scale research initiatives, including the nationally recognized @Risk project, which explored divergences in expert and public perceptions of risk, and how to reconcile them in policymaking. She also served as Senior Research Associate with the Positive Energy program at the University of Ottawa’s Institute for Science, Society and Policy, where she led studies on innovation in Canadian energy regulatory decision-making and public trust in CCUS policy.
Her work has supported institutions such as Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, the International Institute for Sustainable Development, and the Community of Federal Regulators, and she was an active member of the Mississippi Rideau Source Protection Committee for nearly 15 years.
Publications associated with Patricia Larkin
Principles of risk decision-making.
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Outside RSI
Dr. Larkin is a widely published scholar with notable contributions to journals such as the International Journal of Risk Assessment and Management, The Extractive Industries and Society, and Land Use Policy. She is also the author or co-author of influential applied reports, including on risk-based regulatory delivery, health impacts of climate change, and socio-environmental risks in agriculture.
She chairs the Applied Risk Management Specialty Group of the Society for Risk Analysis and is a frequent presenter at its annual meetings, as well as at international forums hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy, the International Energy Agency, and Carbon Management Canada.
Dr. Larkin’s ongoing research continues to inform how risk management frameworks can improve regulatory performance, build public confidence, and protect vulnerable populations in an era of rapid environmental and technological change.
