HPH NOW, Sept 29, 2006, Adami Named Chair of Department of Epidemiolog

Hans-Olov Adami

Meir Stampfer, HSPH Professor of Nutrition and Epidemiology, plans to step down from the position of chair of the Department of Epidemiology on January 31, 2007. He will be succeeded as chair by Hans-Olov Adami, Professor of Cancer Epidemiology in the Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden.

In an email message to the HSPH community, Dean Barry Bloom recounted that Meir Stampfer had served as chair of the Department of Epidemiology for seven years. During that time, the department recruited outstanding new junior faculty, adapted to the School's new financial model and developed a growing reserve account, and continued to be in the forefront of scientific advances.

Dean Bloom continued, "Meir has personally remained a leader in his field and the top-cited investigator in clinical medicine of the past decade. While he was chair, he organized two symposia on controversial areas of epidemiology that were garnering public attention-the relation of obesity to mortality, and the role of postmenopausal hormones in cardiovascular disease-and several interesting and topical Cutter Lectures, including those by Jeff Koplan, Jeff Sachs, Malcolm Pike, Richard Peto, Leslie Bernstein, and Nancy Mueller. He also served on the U.S. dietary guidelines committee."

Hans-Olov Adami has a longstanding relationship with the HSPH Department of Epidemiology, where he has been an adjunct professor since 1992. From 1994 to 2001, he served as a member of the editorial advisory board of the New England Journal of Medicine. He has worked in close collaboration with HSPH Professor Dimitrios Trichopoulos over many years. In 1992, Adami gave the Department of Epidemiology's Cutter Lecture, and in 2000 he was the Harvard Center for Cancer Prevention's Distinguished Visiting Lecturer. From 1997 to 2005, he chaired the Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the Karolinska Institute.

Said Dean Bloom, "Dr. Adami's research findings in the areas of prostate cancer, hormones and cancer, the effect of early life and in utero exposures on adult cancer are just representative of his diverse interests and accomplishments in the field of cancer epidemiology." Adami will be visiting the School frequently this fall and will assume the chairmanship on February 1, 2007.