Martin Schechter (epidemiologist)

Schechter received his Order of British Columbia in 1994 alongside BC's first Nobel Prize laureate Michael Smith and noted Indigenous artist Bill Reid.

[2] When Schechter first began his work on AIDS research in 1983, there were no reported cases yet in British Columbia and embracing the necessity of an appropriate and humane response to HIV infection was not a popular activity at that time.

Under Schechter's leadership as National Director from 1992 to 2014, the Network grew to become a nationwide collaboration of researchers, people living with HIV/AIDS and facilities to investigate treatments, preventions and vaccines for HIV/AIDS.

Schechter was the principal investigator and co-authored a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine about the controversial North American Opiate Medication Initiative (NAOMI).

[6] Schechter was also involved as a lead investigator in the follow-up to NAOMI, the Study to Assess Longer-term Opioid Medication Effectiveness (SALOME) funded by Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

[12] Along with Patricia Spittal and Kukpi Wayne Christian (Splatsin Secwepemc Nation), Schechter has served as principal investigator of the Cedar Project, funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

Cedar studies have highlighted the ongoing impacts of settler colonialism on Indigenous families and communities, including the foster care system, sexual abuse, extreme poverty, and racism.

Cedar research has provided critical quantitative and qualitative evidence of these intergenerational colonial harms among young, street-involved Indigenous people who cope by using criminalized drugs.