Francesca Dominici
Primary Faculty

Francesca Dominici

Clarence James Gamble Professor of Biostatistics, Population, and Data Science

Biostatistics

fdominic@hsph.harvard.edu

Other Positions

Faculty Affiliate in the Department of Environmental Health

Environmental Health

Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Co-Director of the Data Science Initiative

Provost Staff

OPR


Overview

Dr. Francesca Dominici is a data scientist whose pioneering scientific contributions have advanced public health research around the globe. Her life’s work has focused broadly on developing and advancing methods for the analysis of large, heterogeneous data sets to identify and understand the health impacts of environmental threats and inform policy.

Dr. Dominici received her B.S. in Statistics from University La Sapienza in Rome, Italy and her Ph.D. in Statistics from the University of Padua in Italy. She did her postdoctoral training with Scott L. Zeger and Jonathan M. Samet at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. In 1999, she was appointed Assistant Professor at the Bloomberg School of Public Health and in 2007 she was promoted to Full Professor with tenure. Dr. Dominici was recruited to the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health as a tenured Professor of Biostatistics in 2009. She was appointed Associate Dean of Information Technology in 2011 and Senior Associate Dean for Research in 2013. She is currently the Director of the Harvard Data Science Initiative. Dr. Dominici was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2018.

Dr. Dominici is also the founder and the lead PI for the National Studies on Air Pollution and Health Group (NSAPH), which is a group of faculty, research scientists, post-doctoral fellows, graduate students, and college students studying data science methodologies in the context of climate change, environmental impacts on health outcomes, and regulatory policy. The group has over 100 members and includes 25 Principal Investigators & Faculty over 12 institutions.

Dr. Dominici is also one of the lead PIs for the BUSPH-HSPH Climate Change and Health Research Coordinating Center, CAFÉ. The CAFÉ is a three-year cooperative agreement with the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a critical component of the NIH Climate Change and Health Initiative to manage and support ongoing climate change and health research and capacity building efforts.


Bibliography

Long-Term Exposure to Low-Level PM2.5 and Mortality: Investigation of Heterogeneity by Harmonizing Analyses in Large Cohort Studies in Canada, United States, and Europe.

Chen J, Braun D, Christidis T, Cork M, Rodopoulou S, Samoli E, Stafoggia M, Wolf K, Wu X, Yuchi W, Andersen ZJ, Atkinson R, Bauwelinck M, de Hoogh K, Janssen NAH, Katsouyanni K, Klompmaker JO, Kristoffersen DT, Lim YH, Oftedal B, Strak M, Vienneau D, Zhang J, Burnett RT, Hoek G, Dominici F, Brauer M, Brunekreef B.

Environ Health Perspect. 2023 Dec. 131(12):127003. PMID: 38039140


News

Experts debrief on COP28 climate and health takeaways

Members of the Harvard community who attended COP28—the two-week international climate summit held in late 2023 in Dubai—gathered January 30 to discuss key takeaways, lessons learned, and next steps in the climate and health arena.

Shining a light on the human toll of climate change

Experts from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health are bringing an important message to the United Nations’ annual climate conference this year: that the continued burning of fossil fuels poses a massive health threat.