(Email sent on Oct. 5, 2021)
Dear Members of the Harvard Chan School Community:
I am delighted to announce that Tamarra James-Todd has been promoted to Mark and Catherine Winkler Associate Professor of Environmental Reproductive Epidemiology in the Department of Environmental Health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Dr. James-Todd’s research centers on the impact of environmental chemicals and metals on maternal cardiometabolic health during pregnancy, the postpartum period, and in the decades following the perinatal period. The three key areas of her focus are: 1) pregnancy as a sensitive window of environmental exposures and its significance as a risk factor for later-life maternal cardiovascular disease; 2) environmental health disparities specific to maternal health and the racial/ethnic and sociocultural differences in exposure patterns and associated health outcomes in vulnerable maternal populations; and 3) perinatal health as an indicator for maternal later-life cardiometabolic health. She has led novel studies, which have shifted the way the field thinks of the lifecourse framework by focusing attention on the pregnancy period as a sensitive period. Dr. James-Todd was one of the first researchers to identify exposure to a class of endocrine disrupting chemicals, phthalates, as a risk factor for diabetes and metabolic syndrome among women. Her work continues to examine the associations between phthalates and gestational diabetes, and the impact of these chemical exposures beyond the period of pregnancy and through the metabolic reset window of the postpartum period.
Dr. James-Todd earned a BS in molecular biology from Vanderbilt University, an MPH in international health from Boston University, and a PhD in epidemiology from Columbia University. She has held postdoctoral research fellowships in cancer epidemiology, diabetes epidemiology, and women’s health at both the Harvard Chan School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She has also been an instructor at Harvard Medical School. Dr. James-Todd became a member of the Harvard Chan School’s faculty in 2015 when she was appointed Mark and Catherine Winkler Assistant Professor of Environmental Reproductive and Perinatal Epidemiology.
In her spare time, Dr. James-Todd enjoys reading, listening to interesting podcasts, and hiking in the great outdoors with her husband, two children, and beagle.
On behalf of the School and the faculty, I congratulate Dr. James-Todd on her promotion and look forward to her continued success at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Best wishes,
Jane J. Kim, PhD
Dean for Academic Affairs
K.T. Li Professor of Health Economics
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health