Epidemiology is inherently interdisciplinary. Through Dr. Soskolne's networks and track record for collaborative research, his skills as an interdisciplinary researcher are manifest. His research work into occupational acid exposure has, for several decades, remained collaborative and inter-disciplinary, with his last jointly-published work demonstrating this rather well.

http://www.colinsoskolne.com/documents/IJOEH_Jan11_Soskolne.pdf

Dr. Soskolne developed a definition for the term "trans-disciplinary" as being "approaches that integrate the natural, social and health sciences in a humanities context, and in so doing transcend each of their traditional boundaries. Emergent concepts and methods are the hallmark of the trans-disciplinary effort." He is thus well-versed in multi-disciplinary initiatives. The future challenge lies in achieving trans-disciplinarity.

Dr. Soskolne's pioneering work as founding Academic Coordinator in the newly-established Office of Sustainability in the Provost's Office (2008 – 2010) included a focus on curriculum development for sustainability-training across all disciplines, working with student groups, as well as with most, if not all, faculties across the several campuses comprising the University of Alberta. This work required interdisciplinary collaboration campus-wide.

In 2007, Dr. Soskolne was elected President of the Canadian Society for Epidemiology and Biostatistics (CSEB). He was re-elected for a further two-year term in 2009. From 2011 – 2013, he remained on the CSEB Board as Immediate Past-President. Although the focus was on epidemiology and biostatistics, a broad range of application areas and interests had to be respected in a business management context. Dr. Soskolne talks about CSEB and its mandate here.

In April, 2013, Dr. Soskolne was elected to the position of Vice-President (North America) on the interim board of the Society for the Advancement of Science in Africa (SASA). This required extensive interdisciplinary collaboration. He resigned from this role in 2014 to devote his volunteer energies to the Joint Policy Committee of the Societies of Epidemiology (JPC-SE). He was Chair-Elect and then Chair (2014 – 2016), and subsequently Past-Chair (2016 – 2017), and then Chair of its Development Comittee (2017 – 2019). In several published articles and book chapters, Colin discusses aspects of the work of the Joint Policy Comittee whose name evolved from JPC-SE to International Joint Policy Committee of the Societies of Epidemiology (IJPC-SE) in 2015, and again to International Network for Epidemiology in Policy (INEP) in 2018. By early 2020, Colin will have withdrawn and fully retired from INEP with the completion of his lead role in INEP's Position Statement on Conflict-of-Interest and Disclosure.