Leadership transition in Department of Environmental Health

To the Harvard Chan School community,

I am delighted to announce that Francine Laden, professor of environmental epidemiology, will become interim chair of the Department of Environmental Health effective July 1. Kari Nadeau, who has led the department since 2023, begins her new role as dean of the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health on July 1.

Francine has served as associate chair of the department since 2015. Her research focuses on the associations of geographic-based exposures such as ambient air pollution, green space, temperature, and neighborhood-level socioeconomic status with chronic diseases, including but not limited to cardiovascular disease, cancer, and reproductive outcomes. She laid the groundwork for studying these exposures in the Harvard prospective cohort studies, including the Nurses’ Health Studies, and has published numerous important papers in the field.

Francine also is associate professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a faculty affiliate in the Department of Epidemiology. She has received awards for both her research and mentoring.

Please join me in congratulating Francine on her new role and thanking Kari for her leadership of the department.

We also are happy that we will not be losing Kari entirely as she’ll begin as an adjunct faculty member on July 1.

Best,

Andrea

Andrea Baccarelli, MD, PhD
Dean of the Faculty