Appointments and Promotions
Mary Travis Bassett, director of the François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights and François-Xavier Bagnoud Professor of the Practice of Health and Human Rights
Tianxi Cai, John Rock Professor of Population and Translational Data Sciences
Jessica Cohen, Bruce A. Beal, Robert L. Beal, and Alexander S. Beal Associate Professor of Global Health
Kevin Croke, assistant professor of global health
Francesca Dominici, Clarence James Gamble Professor of Biostatistics, Population, and Data Science
Curtis Huttenhower, professor of computational biology and bioinformatics
Michaela Kerrissey, assistant professor of management
Junwei Lu, assistant professor of biostatistics
Stefania Papatheodorou, lecturer on epidemiology
Shekhar Saxena, professor of the practice of global mental health
Mingyang Song, assistant professor of clinical epidemiology and nutrition
Marc Weisskopf, Cecil K. and Philip Drinker Professor of Environmental Epidemiology and Physiology
Patrick Whitney, professor in residence in the Department of Health Policy and Management
New Department Chairs Named
Three department chairs began their roles on January 1: Marcia Castro, Andelot Professor of Demography, in the Department of Global Health and Population; Robert Farese, professor of genetics and complex diseases, in the Department of Molecular Metabolism; and David R. Williams, Florence Sprague Norman and Laura Smart Norman Professor of Public Health, in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences. They join two other new chairs who began last summer: John Quackenbush, Henry Pickering Walcott Professor of Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, in the Department of Biostatistics, and Eric Rubin, Irene Heinz Given Professor of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, in the Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases.
Awards & Honors
Francesca Dominici, Clarence James Gamble Professor of Biostatistics, Population, and Data Science and co-director of the Harvard Data Science Initiative, and Xihong Lin, professor of biostatistics and statistics, were elected to the National Academy of Medicine in October. This is one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine, recognizing individuals who have demonstrated outstanding professional achievements and commitment to service. Dominici was cited for “developing and applying innovative statistical methods to understanding and reducing the impact of air pollution on population health.” Lin was cited for “ingenious research in statistical methods and applications in whole-genome sequencing association studies, gene-environment, integrative analysis, and complex observational studies.”
John McDonough, professor of the practice of public health, received the Award for Outstanding Public Engagement in Health Policy 2018 from the Health Politics and Policy Section of the American Political Science Association at their annual conference in Boston in September.
Bookshelf
Outbreak Culture: The Ebola Crisis and the Next Epidemic
Pardis Sabeti and Lara Salahi
Harvard University Press, 2018
288 pages
Award-winning genetic researcher Pardis Sabeti examines the 2013–2016 West Africa Ebola epidemic—the largest and deadliest to date. She and journalist Lara Salahi identify the factors that kept key information from reaching physicians and complicated the response to the crisis.
Howard Hiatt: How This Extraordinary Mentor Transformed Health with Science and Compassion
Mark Rosenberg, with a foreword by Michelle A. Williams
MIT Press, 2018
214 pages
This book tells the story of the seven-decade career of former Harvard Chan School Dean Howard Hiatt (1972 to 1984), a pioneer in public health, advocate for global health and health equity, and mentor to generations of health care leaders.
Photos: Kent Dayton, Sarah Sholes