HPH NOW, Oct 13, 2006, In Memoriam: Joseph Harrington

Joseph Harrington

Joseph Harrington, Professor of Environmental Health Engineering in the HSPH Department of Environmental Health and Gordon McKay Professor of Environmental Engineering in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, passed away on October 9. He was 69 years old. Dr. Harrington chaired what was then called the Department of Environmental Science and Physiology from 1982 to 1986. He served on the Harvard faculty for 42 years.

Starting in 1960, he participated in the groundbreaking Harvard Water Program, which helped guide the United States' water resource planning nationwide. For more than two decades, Dr. Harrington championed techniques in analytical approaches to natural resource development that offered flexibility in their application to world situations, and he traveled the globe to demonstrate their use. In the U.S., he served as a consultant for federal, state, and local governments, including the U.S. Public Health Service, the National Research Council Committee on Water Supply and Wastewater Disposal, and the EPA.

Dr. Harrington served as Director of the Physical Sciences and Engineering Program (now the Exposure, Epidemiology, and Risk Program), and was the founding Director of the Master of Science Program in Health Policy and Management. He also served as Acting Director of the Occupational Health Program, Acting Director of the Center for Population Studies, Acting Chairman of the Department of Population Sciences, and interim Chair of the Department of Population and International Health.

A service was held on Thursday, October 12, at Keefe Funeral Home, and a memorial service is scheduled for today, October 13, at Mt. Auburn Cemetery, 580 Mt. Auburn St., Cambridge, MA, at 11 a.m.