The 20th
Whittenberger Symposium
A pioneering expert in a multidisciplinary approach to environmental health, Dr. Whittenberger was the founder and Director of the HSPH-NIEHS Center for Environmental Health and Chair of the Department of Physiology at Harvard School of Public Health for 32 years.
Wednesday, December 9, 2020
4:15 PM-6:00 PM EST, Virtual Lecture
Click to Watch the 2020 Recording
Disruptive Epidemiology:
Unleashing the Power of Prevention
Bruce Lanphear, MD, MPH
Professor, Faculty of Health Sciences, Simon Fraser University
Investigator, BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute,
UBC Adjunct Professor, Department of Epidemiology
Geisel School of Medicine
4:15 p.m. Introduction: Douglas Dockery, ScD
John L. Loeb and Frances Lehman Loeb Research Professor of Environmental Epidemiology; Deputy Center Director, HSPH-NIEHS Center for Environmental Health
4:30 p.m. 20th James L. Whittenberger Lecture
Bruce Lanphear, MD, MPH: Disruptive Epidemiology: Unleashing the Power of Prevention
On December 9, 2020, at 4:15 PM the Department of Environmental Health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health will hold its 20th Whittenberger Symposium. This year’s lecture, which will be held virtually, will be delivered by Professor Bruce Lanphear (MD, MPH). Professor Lanphear is a Professor at the Faculty of Health Sciences, Simon Fraser University, and an Investigator at BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute. Professor Lanphear also serves as UBC Adjunct Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the Geisel School of Medicine. The program for this year’s Symposium and a list of previous presenters can be found below.
About the Speaker
Over the past 25 years, Professor Lanphear’s research has helped to quantify the impact of lead and other toxic chemicals on human health with the ultimate goal to prevent death, disease, and disability. Lanphear, who has become increasingly vexed by our failure to control the pandemic of chronic disease from widespread exposure to pollutants, toxic chemicals, and excess consumption, produces videos showing how our health is inextricably linked with the environment to galvanize efforts to prevent disease.
About the Whittenberger Symposium
Dr. James L. Whittenberger served the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) for 36 years until his retirement in 1982. A visionary researcher and scholar, dedicated teacher, and administrator, Dr. Whittenberger came to HSPH in 1946. He became Professor of Physiology in 1951 and was named the first James Stevens Simmons Professor of Public Health seven years later. A pioneering expert in a multidisciplinary approach to environmental health, Dr. Whittenberger was the founder and Director of the HSPH-NIEHS Center for Environmental Health and Chair of the Department of Physiology at Harvard School of Public Health for 32 years. He served as the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs from 1966 to 1972 and then as Associate Dean of the Faculty of Public Health until 1978.
Following his retirement from HSPH, he became the Director of the Southern Occupational Health Center, University of California, Irvine. He also was Professor in Residence in the Department of Community and Environmental Medicine, College of Medicine at UC Irvine, and in the Division of Environmental Sciences, School of Public Health at UCLA. The James L. Whittenberger lecture was named in his honor in 1983.
Family, friends, and colleagues mourned his passing on March 17, 2007. The James L. Whittenberger Lecture and Symposium are sponsored by the Department of Environmental Health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
