Franco Momoli

Dr. Momoli’s career began not in epidemiology, but in the animal sciences, where his fascination with human aging was sparked by Caleb Finch’s Longevity, Senescence, and the Genome. This early interest led him to graduate work on Alzheimer’s disease, conducting behavioural and cognitive testing on transgenic and knockout mouse models as part of his M.Sc. research at McGill University and the Douglas Hospital Research Institute.

He later transitioned into epidemiology and biostatistics, where he earned a Ph.D. at McGill University. Over the years, Dr. Momoli developed specialized expertise in semi-Bayesian models, quantitative bias modeling, and the application of advanced statistical methods to population health.

As a professor at the University of Ottawa, Dr. Momoli taught and mentored numerous graduate students, many of whom now hold influential roles in academia, public health, and research institutions. He was one of Canada’s principal scientists in the MOBI-Kids international study on non-ionizing radiation from cell phones and brain tumors in youth.

Prior to joining RSI, he spent a decade at the research institutes of The Ottawa Hospital and the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO), where he collaborated on a broad range of studies in adult and pediatric health. These included diagnostic accuracy studies, randomized controlled trials of medical and device interventions, scoping and systematic reviews of new therapeutic products, survey design, and secondary data analyses of hospital records, spanning many topics in clinical research. During this time, he also served on research ethics boards at both institutions, including as interim chair of the CHEO Research Ethics Board, and was a member of CHEO’s Policy Ethics Board—roles that deepened his perspective on ethical dimensions in clinical and epidemiological research.

As an educator and methods specialist, he often attempted to popularize modern design and analytical methods to improve the quality of evidence; he frequently joined journal clubs with trainees or physicians to discuss recently published research from a methodologic perspective, including clubs for radiologists, orthopedic surgeons, dermatologists, vascular surgeons, pediatric medical residents, and intensive care physicians.

During his time with the research institutes, Dr. Momoli was a longstanding member of the CHEO SPARK Group (Sleep-disordered Breathing in Populations of At-Risk Kids), Ottawa Brain Tumor Group, Ottawa Hospital Upper Extremity Orthopaedics Research Group, Ottawa Hospital Delirium in Palliative Settings Research Group, Ottawa Hospital Urology Research Group, Ottawa Hospital Stroke Research Group, and Ottawa Hospital Vascular Surgery Research Group. He was a member of various research teams, including Evaluation to Action (Aboriginal Child Health), 5P (Predicting Persistent Post-Concussive Problems in Paediatrics), SUNDIPS (Studies to Understand Delirium in Palliative Care Settings), MOBI-Kids Consortium (Brain Tumor Etiology in Youth), and the DDEPICT/DDACA (Determination of Death) Investigators Group.

He is an author of several book chapters on environmental health and toxicology, including Patty’s Industrial Hygiene and Toxicology, the Encyclopedia of Environmental Health, and the International Encyclopedia of Public Health. He has published over 100 articles across the breadth of epidemiologic clinical research, as well as epidemiologic and toxicologic human health risk assessments of chemicals.