SPH student receives SSHRC Doctoral Award
David Elniski, enrolled in the Doctor of Philosophy in Public Heath in the School of Public Health, has received a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Doctoral Award. Under the supervision of Dr. Alexander Crizzle, Dave is researching the relationships between trucking industry safety practices and long-haul truck drivers’ health, safety, and wellness.
The University of Saskatchewan’s School of Public Health is proud to share that one of our Public Health PhD students, Dave Elniski, has received a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Doctoral Award, the first ever recipient in the PhD program in Public Health. Under the supervision of Dr. Alexander Crizzle, Dave will be working on the relationships between trucking industry safety practices and long-haul truck drivers’ health, safety, and wellness.
Dave Elniski (he/they) was born in Edmonton, AB in 1991 and grew up in Lethbridge where he graduated from the University of Lethbridge in 2013 with a BSc in Biological Sciences and a minor in Women and Gender Studies. After a brief stint as a health care aide, he joined the Canadian Armed Forces reserves as an artillery soldier and got his Class 1 license, starting a career as a long-haul trucker.
Dave’s trucking career took him throughout Western Canada and the US hauling primarily flatbed loads. He moved into fleet safety management, starting as a casual driver trainer and ending up as the company’s safety manager after transitioning out of a driving position. He was then hired by the Alberta Motor Transport Association (AMTA) as a safety and compliance advisor where he continues to work on both internal and external projects like developing training, assisting companies and individuals with regulatory questions and those related to management best practices, and writing and presenting on health and safety-related topics.
Alongside his career in trucking and safety management, Dave earned the Certified Transportation Safety Professional (CTSP) designation through the AMTA and Canadian Registered Safety Professional (CRSP) designation through the Board of CRSPs. He also completed a Master of Arts in Women and Gender Studies in 2024 where he conducted research on social factors that impact safety performance at Alberta-based trucking companies (and was a Master’s-level SSHRC recipient). His current PhD work under the supervision of Dr. Alexander Crizzle continues this work, now with a greater focus on long haul truck driver health, safety, and wellness outcomes through a Public Health lens.
Dave has maintained his position as an active army reserves soldier throughout this time and has transitioned from artillery into truck driving, an activity he maintains out of a sense of public duty and desire to serve should the need arise.
In his personal life, Dave now lives and works primarily in rural Nova Scotia with his wife Katy and twin children Mack and Susan since moving there in 2022. Mack and Susan were born in 2017 when Dave was still mostly long-haul trucking and doing work in safety management. They had a premature start to life, and being closer to his family has been a significant motivator in exploring other aspects of the trucking industry.
Dave received a SSHRC Doctoral Award in 2025 for his ongoing PhD work. At the time of this article’s writing, he has completed all coursework requirements and is moving to the development of his formal thesis proposal. While his academic pursuits are separate from his employment, Dave has a genuine interest in better understanding and then improving Canada’s trucking industry for the sake of those who depend on it for their livelihoods and those who share the roads with its drivers, so his academic and professional pursuits are naturally aligned. He drove over 700,000km in tractor-trailers without incident, and has seen first-hand many of the issues that cause negative health outcomes and frustration. These experiences and a sense of public service - along with the encouragement of Katy, his parents Bruce Elniski and Joanne Lavkulich, and his academic mentors including Drs. Alexander Crizzle, Glenda Bonifacio, Michael Belzer, Pierre Thiffault, and Robbin Derry to merge curiosity with academics and hands-on experience - have resulted in a congruence between his professional and academic careers.
Dave has contributed to the industry and the academy that studies it in numerous ways, including a peer-reviewed publication in the Elsevier journal Safety Science that resulted from his MA work, his 2025 book publication Pro-Tech & Pro-Active through AMTA on safety technology in fleet safety management, and regular conference presentations throughout Canada and, in 2023, Washington, DC for a Transportation Research Board convention. This is in addition to many industry articles, an earlier book Psychosocial Hazard Control in Alberta’s Trucking Industry through the AMTA, and the completion of projects he has led that have resulted in outputs such as the www.driverpathways.com, a website that provides driver-focused descriptions of different types of professional driving jobs within trucking and busing. Dave hopes to continue both research and research dissemination activities throughout his future career, and is extremely proud to be a PhD student at the University of Saskatchewan’s School of Public Health, an opportunity will enable him to make targeted, evidence-backed recommendations for regulators, companies, individuals, and industry associations all for the purpose of making Canada’s trucking industry fairer, safer, healthier, and more sustainable.