Core Team

The Evict Radon National Study is a volunteer-led non-profit organization that combines grassroots science engagement and citizen science-based research in a way perhaps never seen before in Canada for preventing cancers. The Evict Radon National Study is led by Dr. Aaron Goodarzi of the University of Calgary, and involves researchers and scientific partners from: BC Cancer Agency (BC), Simon Fraser University (BC), University of Calgary (AB), University of Saskatchewan (SK), University of Ottawa (ON), Université Laval (QC), Dalhousie University (NS), Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (ON), the National Research Council (of Canada), and Health Canada.

All of our volunteer efforts and funding are designed to encourage as many Canadians to test their home for radon through our National Evict Radon research study. Everything we do strictly adheres to national research ethics standards, as well as best practices for controlled studies that will pass academic peer-review and, ultimately, very close scrutiny from the public and experts. Achieving a radon risk-free future for Canada is very possible and, if successful, prevent literally thousands of new, mostly high lethality lung cancers each year.

Dr. Goodarzi is the Canada Research Chair for Radiation Exposure Disease. He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Calgary in 2005 and trained as a post-doctoral scholar at the Genome Damage and Stability Centre at the University of Sussex (UK) until 2010. In 2011, he opened his own laboratory at the University of Calgary’s School of Medicine. In 2015, he was named one of Calgary’s Top 40 Under 40; in 2016, he was made a University of Calgary “Peak Scholar” for innovation in radon gas and lung cancer knowledge engagement; in 2018, he was selected as a TEDx speaker and, in 2019, received one of the School of Medicine’s Education Awards for innovation in graduate training.

Dr. Goodarzi is the Chair of the Board and research lead of Evict Radon, a Canadian non-profit organization whose goal is to solve Canada’s substantial and worsening radon-gas exposure problem through interdisciplinary research for the benefit of all Canadians.

Aaron Goodarzi, PhD

Scientific Director

Dr. Pearson is one of the senior scientists and in the Goodarzi laboratory and is the research operations manager for the Evict Radon National Study project. His work focuses on the biology of alpha particle exposure, as well as the study of the real-time indoor air dynamics of radon within the residential built environment. Dustin’s work is currently supported by the Canadian Cancer Society. In this project, Dr. Pearson serves as the primary manager for all radon databases, masterminding the security, annotation and analysis of our complex datasets relating to radon exposures, participant demographics, building metrics and more.

Dustin Pearson, PhD

Research Operations Manager

Ms. Salgia is the Research Infrastructure Manager for Charbonneau Cancer Institute and handles the Financial Operations for Evict Radon, a Canadian non-profit organization. She has a Masters in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Southern Illinois University, US. Shilpa has been a key member of the Goodarzi research lab from 2011-2021 and continues to support the Evict Radon team on the financial side.

Shilpa Salgia, MSc

Financial Director