This month, we chat with Hui Hu, Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Associate Epidemiologist in the Channing Division of Network Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
- What research are you currently working on?
My team are working on several projects focusing on health impacts of the external exposome. In these projects, we are integrating and harmonizing multi-source environmental data to examine the external exposome’s impacts on a variety of health outcomes, such as hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, maternal cardiovascular health after delivery, and COVID-19 severity. We are also working with the NIH’s RECOVER (Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery) Initiative to understand post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 (PASC) and environmental factors contributing to the risk of PASC.
2. What impact(s) do you hope this work will make?
The exposome is an emerging field with many challenges and opportunities. I hope that my work will address some of these challenges to better understand health impacts of environmental exposures.
3. When you were first starting out, what inspired you to embark on this path of research? Do you have any tips for young investigators?
As I grew up, I witnessed many environmental and health issues accompanying the fast growth of China. I primarily focused on health effects of air pollution in my early research and received substantial training in data science. Inspired by the emerging pioneer work on the exposome in the field, my interest grew and converged into the area of exposome research to disentangle complex and multifactorial environmental determinants of health. My tips to young investigators: discover what your passions are, and persistence matters!
4. How has our Center helped further your research? How do you engage with our Center?
As a new faculty recently joined the Harvard community, I am impressed by the cutting-edge talks, numerous opportunities for career development, and great environment for collaboration offered by the Harvard NIEHS Center. I will continue to leverage these excellent resources to further my research.
5. Outside of the academic space, what do you like to do for fun?
I love hiking and spend most of my weekends on outdoor activities with my wife and our 4-year-old daughter.
6. If you could live one day as any animal (other than human), which would it be and why?
I would like to be a bird to enjoy the stunning views of our planet.