From 2002 to 2008, Dr. Cairney held a Canada Research Chair in Psychiatry at the University of Toronto.  He was the inaugural holder of the McMaster Family Medicine Research Chair in Child Health at McMaster and the founding Director of the Infant and Child Health (INCH) lab at McMaster University (www.inchlab.ca). Dr. Cairney was President (elect) of the Canadian Academy of Psychiatry from 2009 to 2015. He is currently the President (elect) for the North American Society for Pediatric Exercise Medicine (NASPEM).

Active in publishing (200 peer-reviewed publications; 4 books), Dr. Cairney sits on the Editorial Boards for the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health and BMC Pediatrics. Over the past 5 years, he is held in excess of $5 million dollars in research funding. He is Editor-in- Chief of Current Developmental Disorders Reports (Springer Publishing). Dr. Cairney has also done extensive consulting work for the Ministries of Child and Youth Services, Health and Education in the province of Ontario in the area of child health and development.