College of Medicine

Research Area(s)

  • Water, Health, and Well-Being
  • Indigenous-Centered Research
  • Risk Assessment, Management, and Communication
  • Arts-Based Knowledge Translation and Mobilization

About

Dr. Bharadwaj is an interdisciplinary toxicologist and community engaged scholar. She has had the opportunity and privilege of working with Indigenous peoples for over 23 years, building respectful research relationships and co-creating solutions in water and health related research areas. She teaches graduate students and conduct primary research in areas of Environmental Health and Toxicology with focus in Human Health Risk Assessment, Management and Communication. She is a practicing toxicologist and apply human and environmental health risk expertise to conduct assessments of residential construction materials, contaminated environmental media and various scenarios of industrial emissions/contamination. She is a Saskatchewan Court of Queen’s Bench Certified Expert Toxicologist having served as an expert witness in a number of legal proceedings. She's held research funding from all three Canadian Tri-Council Funding Agencies, the Saskatchewan Health Research Foundation and various governmental agencies such as; Health Canada, National First Nations Environmental Contaminants Program and the First Nations Adapt Program.

On a personal note, Dr. Bharadwaj enjoys everything outdoors and she takes great pleasure in visits with her family in India and Ontario.

Student Thesis Projects

Volatile Organic Compounds in Indoor Air of Homes and Schools: What are the gaps, challenges and opportunities for Improved Indoor Air Equity? J. Shitta, MSc(c) (Community Health and Epidemiology)

Indigenous Water Governance: Towards First Nations Water Resource Governance in Canada. M. Ogbogboyibo, PhD(c) (Health Sciences)

Collaborative Water Governance: Fostering Participation, Relationships and Reconciliation with MISTAWASIS NÊHIYAWAK M. Mora, PhD (School of Environment and Sustainability 2022)

Exploring Community Involvement in Collaborative Water Resources Governance and Management for Lake Diefenbaker, Saskatchewan, Canada. J. Chilima, PhD (School of Environment and Sustainability 2022)

Grant Funding Titles

SSHRC Exchange Grant titled Sustaining River Navigability, Sustaining the Heart of the People- Work with Treaty 8 Nations

Global Water Futures Agent Based Modeling as a tool to Investigate Comprehensive Indigenous Health Impacts of Flooding- Work with Treaty 4 and 6 Nations

Riparian Right to Water - Work with Treaty Six First Nations

Risk Communication of Hazardous Algal Blooms (HABS)

Water Good to Drink: Work with Akaitcho Territory Government, NWT

Selected Publications

  • Rui Guo, Lalita Bharadwaj, Lee Wilson (2021) Adsorption Studies of Waterborne Trihalomethanes Using Modified Polysaccharide Adsorbents. Molecules 2021, 26, 1431. https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules26051431.
  • Chilima, J., Blakely, J., Diaz, H, Bharadwaj, L, (2021) Understanding water use conflicts to advance collaborative planning: Lessons Learned from Lake Diefenbaker, Canada. Water 2021, 13, 1756. https://doi.org/10.3390/ w13131756
  • Hamidreza, R., Baulch, H., Arshdeep, G., Bharadwaj, L., Bradford L., (2021), Monitoring, Managing, and Communicating Risk of Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) in Recreational Resources across Canada. Environmental Health Insights 2021 May 5;15:11786302211014401. doi:10.1177/11786302211014401. eCollection 2021.
  • T. Steelman, A. Bogdan, C. Mantyka-Pringle, L. @Bradford, M. Reed, S. Baines, J. Fresque-Baxter, T. Jardine, S. Shantz, R. Abu, K. Staples, E. Andrews, L. Bharadwaj, G. Strickert, P. Jones, K. Lindenschmidt, G. Poelzer, the Delta Dialogue Network (2020) Evaluating transdisciplinary research practices: insights from social network analysis Sustainability Science (2021) 16:631–645 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-020-00901-y.
  • Irvine, A., Schuster-Wallace, C., Dickson-Anderson, S., Bharadwaj, L., (2020) Transferrable Principles to Revolutionize Drinking Water Governance in First Nation Communities in Canada. Water Volume 12 Issue 11 https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/12/11/3091
  • McLeod, L., Bharadwaj, L., Daigle, J., Waldner, C., Bradford, LEA. (2020) A quantitative analysis of drinking water advisories in Saskatchewan Indigenous and rural communities 2012–2016. Canadian Water Resources Journal https://doi.org/10.1080/07011784.2020.1831404
  • Patrick, R.,@ Grant, K., Bharadwaj, L., (2019) Reclaiming Indigenous Planning as a Pathway to Local Water Security Water 2019, 11(5), 936; https://doi.org/10.3390/w11050936 
  • Timothy D. Jardine, Lorne E. Doig, Paul D. Jones, Lalita Bharadwaj, Meghan Carr, Brett Tendler, Karl-Erich Lindenschmidt b (2019) Vanadium and thallium exhibit biodilution in a northern river food web. Chemosphere 233 (2019) 381e386. 
  • Steelman, T. A., Andrews, E.,@ Baines, S., Bharadwaj, L., Bjornson, E.R.,# Bradford, L., Cardinal,K., Carriere, G., Fresque-Baxter, J, Jardine, T.D., MacColl, I., Macmillan, S., Marten, J., Orosz, Reed, M., Rose, I., Shmon, K., Shantz, S., Staples, K., Strickert, G., Voyageur, M., (2019). Identifying transformational space for transdisciplinarity: using art to access the hidden third. Sustainability Science Vol 14, pages 771-790. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11625-018-0644-4
  • Bharadwaj, L., (2019) Tenets of Community-Engaged Scholarship Applied to Delta Ways Remembered Engaged Scholar Journal, Volume 5, Number 3, Fall 2019, pp.1-76. https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/esj/2019-v5-n3-esj05436/1070853ar/