Celeste Johnston is a James McGill Professor in the School of Nursing at McGill University. She is past-secretary of the Special Interest Group for Pain in Children of the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP 2000-2005) and past-president of the Canadian Pain Society (CPS). During her term as president of the CPS from 2000-2003, Celeste formed the Canadian Pain Coalition. She currently is a member on the Social Projects Committee of the Coalition.

Celeste was one of six inaugural Mayday Foundation Fellows for Pain and Society in 2004, the only Canadian to be named in that first cohort, where she was trained in communicating issues related to pain. She was among the first nurses to be elected to be a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences in 2005. Celeste’s research, funded mostly by CIHR, is focused on pain in infants and children and changing health care professionals’ practices related to pain management.

During her tenure as president of the CPS, Celeste got to know several patients and was inspired by the courage, strength, and optimism that they showed in spite of serious pain conditions. She is completely committed to seeing goals of public awareness about the prevalence and burden of pain as well as empowering patients to change that picture of prevalence and burden of pain in Canada.