People

David Christiani, MD, MPH, MS, is the Elkan Blout Professor of Environmental Genetics at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He earned his MD in 1976 from Tufts University and an MS and MPH from the Harvard School of Public Health. He did his post-graduate medical training at Boston City Hospital and the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

Professor Christiani’s major research interest lies in the interaction between human genes and the environment. In the emerging field of molecular epidemiology, he studies the impact of humans’ exposure to pollutants on health, as well as how genetic and acquired susceptibility to these diseases, along with environmental exposures, can lead to acute and chronic pulmonary and cardiovascular disease. He is also developing new methods for assessing health effects after exposure to pollutants and is very active in environmental and occupational health studies internationally.

Professor
Director, Harvard Healthy Buildings Program (ForHealth.org)
Director, Public Health for Business Leaders
Commissioner, The Lancet COVID-19 Commission
Chair, The Lancet COVID-19 Commission Task Force on Safe Work, Safe Schools, and Safe Travel
Harvard University Coronavirus Advisory Group
Harvard Presidential Committee on Sustainability (Co-Chair, 2050 Sub-Committee)
Deputy Director, Harvard Education and Research Center for Occupational Safety & Health

I hold a Bachelor’s in Global & Public Health Sciences and Demography from Cornell University, which provided me with a strong understanding of public health frameworks. During the COVID-19 pandemic, I interned at the CDC in Washington, DC, gaining critical insights into national health strategies. Concurrently, I worked as a frontline healthcare worker at a dermatology clinic in Massachusetts, directly engaging in patient care and understanding the healthcare system’s challenges during a crisis. These experiences led to my current role at the New England Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit at Boston Children’s Hospital. Here, I focus on pediatric environmental health, using advanced geospatial analysis to study environmental impacts on child health outcomes.

My interest in occupational health began in Fort McMurray, Canada, where I witnessed the effects of hazardous work environments. A pivotal experience was collaborating on a telehealth project for residential lead identification with industrial hygienists, which emphasized the importance of occupational health.

Now, I am preparing to start an academic program focused on occupational exposures. My goal is to become a Certified Industrial Hygienist (CIH), aiming to mitigate harmful exposures affecting frontline workers and communities. I aspire to work with a federal government agency, where I can integrate research with policy-making to enhance public health protection.

With four years as a flight surgeon in the Air Force, I gained invaluable experience in occupational medicine, working closely with pilots and aviators. This role fueled my passion for the field and inspired me to pursue it as a civilian, driven by an appreciation for the deep connection Americans have with their work.

Currently, I am engaged in an occupational and environmental medicine residency, where I dedicate one day a week to seeing patients for Worker’s Compensation, fitness for duty evaluations, and pre-placement physical exams. My future career goal is to influence health policy.

Gabriel Adam Carrillo, MD, JD is a surgically trained physician, attorney, and postdoctoral research fellow seeking dual board certification in the Occupational and Environmental Medicine Residency at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Cambridge Health Alliance. His career spans medicine, law, and military service, with a focus on improving healthcare access and strengthening public health systems through telehealth expansion. He trained in general surgery at Duke University Hospital, where he also earned his MD and JD with advanced work in FDA law, health policy at Duke Margolis Policy Institute, and obtained a masters in clinical informatics. His research and legal scholarship centers on expanding access to digital health and surgical recovery in underserved communities, developing AI-driven clinical decision support tools, and building policy frameworks that bridge healthcare, technology, and law. As a former combat medic and U.S. Naval officer in the medical corp, Dr. Carrillo is dedicated to service, mentorship, and advancing innovative solutions to some of the most pressing challenges in modern public health.

I began my career journey at UC Berkeley, engaging in freshwater research both at the university and with a Department of Energy laboratory. From 2022 to 2024, I worked as an industrial hygienist for an environmental consulting firm in the Bay Area. This role fueled my passion for combining environmental science with public service, leading me to pursue a path in Occupational and Environmental Health Sciences (OEHS).

Currently, as a first-year trainee at the Harvard Chan ERC, I’m eager to delve deeper into occupational health research. My future goals include earning CIH and CSP certifications, and I’m enthusiastic about opportunities to make a positive impact on workplace health and safety.

I am a PhD student in the Department of Epidemiology, specializing in Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention. I became interested in occupational health while learning about its history and central role in labor union movements, which led me to focus on how workplace and environmental exposures contribute to cancer risk.

Before starting my PhD, I worked at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School, and I completed my MS in Global Health at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) in 2022. During my doctoral training, I aim to study environmental and occupational exposures related to cancer, particularly thoracic malignancies, in collaboration with my advisor, Dr. David Christiani. My long-term goal is to remain in academia as both a researcher and mentor in cancer epidemiology and occupational health.

I hold a BSPH in Environmental Health Science from the University of North Carolina and an MS in Epidemiology from Harvard Chan. Before my current PhD program in Population Health Sciences, I was an ORISE Fellow at NIOSH, where I became aware of the significant chemical exposures faced by workers and the potential for improvements in occupational health.

Presently, I conduct part-time research with NIOSH, focusing on risk assessment and occupational exposure limits, and I am involved with Swedish national occupational registries examining bladder cancer risk. My goal is to return to NIOSH after completing my PhD.

Before entering the program, I completed a preliminary year of residency in internal medicine and worked in private consulting within the health tech sector. Discovering occupational medicine online sparked my interest and led me to pursue it as a career.

Currently, I am a first-year OEM resident working toward an MPH. My future career plans include consulting, corporate medicine, and wellness.

I am passionate about occupational health, with a background that bridges environmental studies, philosophy, and public health research. I graduated from Brandeis University with a double major in Environmental Studies and Philosophy. As an undergraduate, I worked as a research assistant with the Healthy Buildings Program at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health. After graduation, I continued on this path as a research assistant for Dr. Jonathan Buonocore at the Boston University School of Public Health. Through my work with the Healthy Buildings Program, I became deeply interested in how people interact with the built environment in occupational settings and saw tangible opportunities to make indoor environments healthier.

I am currently taking environmental and occupational health courses as part of my degree program and remain involved with the Healthy Buildings Program, contributing to two projects focused on indoor air quality and its implications for occupational health. In the long term, I hope to work in a research role where my work directly informs efforts to improve occupational health.

I am a PhD student specializing in quantitative methods for modeling complex environments. I hold a BA in Statistical & Data Sciences from Smith College.

I became interested in occupational health because I see workplace exposure modeling as a uniquely powerful application of the data-driven methodologies I studied in my previous work. I am particularly excited about the insights made possible by new technologies that enable high-frequency environmental monitoring accessible to the broader public.

Currently, I am a member of the Healthy Buildings research lab, directed by Dr. Joe Allen. After earning my PhD, I hope to pursue an academic career in which I conduct research that informs environmental health policy and mentor the next generation of students.

I am passionate about occupational cancer epidemiology and improving the health of working populations. Before graduate school, I worked at Uber in consumer and merchant operations, then earned my Master of Public Health (MPH) degree in Industrial Hygiene from UC Berkeley. I first became interested in occupational health as an undergraduate at Vanderbilt University, when I learned about pesticide drift and realized that workers often face much higher exposures than the general population.

Currently, I am investigating the association between occupational noise and vibration exposure and cardiovascular diseases under the mentorship of Dr. David Christiani and Mi-Sun Lee. Looking ahead, I plan to pursue a PhD and ultimately lead research in occupational cancer epidemiology.

I served as a Flight Surgeon in the U.S. Navy, focusing on primary care for Sailors and Marines, with a special emphasis on aviation medicine. This role sparked my interest in Occupational Health, particularly in understanding how occupations impact health and vice versa.

Currently, I’m a first-year Occupational and Environmental Medicine resident at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, working on my MPH and gaining exposure to various aspects of the field. My future plans include exploring opportunities in the Public Health and Policy sector, as well as corporate medicine.

I earned my master’s degree in Environmental Health from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Before joining the PHS PhD program, I worked in pediatric environmental health at the Region 2 Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit at Mt. Sinai in NYC.

My interest in environmental health exposure was sparked in high school by the Flint water crisis, motivating me to address inequities and harmful exposures in the built environment.

I am currently engaged in exposure assessment courses and developing projects on environmental health exposures. My future goals include working in public health practice, focusing on community and pediatric health.

I earned my Bachelor of Arts in Global Health from DePauw University, where I completed two internships at the Indiana Department of Health. In the Tobacco Prevention and Cessation Division, I worked on the development and distribution of the Indiana Youth Tobacco Survey, and in the Chemistry Department, I assisted with laboratory testing of environmental samples such as water, soil, and paint. Through these experiences, I became increasingly aware of how environmental and occupational exposures can quietly but significantly influence health, often in ways that are less immediately recognized than infectious diseases. This realization sparked my interest in occupational health, particularly from an epidemiologic perspective.

I am currently building my background in occupational health through coursework, including the study of respiratory conditions that are more prevalent in certain workplace environments. My research experience includes a field investigation of the indirect mental and physical health effects of radiation dispersion following the Fukushima nuclear accident, and I am now beginning a project examining the relationship between vaping behaviors and quality of life.

Looking ahead, my goal is to combine research with efforts to advance health literacy in environmental and occupational health so that study findings are more accessible and meaningful to a broad audience.