Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health welcomes Mary B. Rice as new director of the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment
Press contact: Anna Miller, amiller@hsph.harvard.edu.
Rice to lead Center with solutions-oriented research that informs actions and policies to protect planetary and human health and advance health equity.
Boston, MA—Mary B. Rice was announced as the Mark and Catherine Winkler Associate Professor of Environmental Respiratory Health and director of the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (Harvard Chan C-CHANGE), effective October 1, 2024. The announcement was made on September 18 in a letter from Andrea Baccarelli, dean of the faculty at Harvard Chan School. Rice, a pulmonary and critical care physician at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School (HMS), has spent her career treating patients with chronic lung disease whose health is most at risk from air pollution from burning fossil fuels. Her research focuses on the impact of environmental exposures, especially air pollution and climate change, on the respiratory health of children and adults.
Building on the Center’s 28 year history of transforming evidence into action, Rice plans to promote solutions-oriented research, including patient- and community-level interventions, that advances health equity and protects communities around the world from climate risks like air pollution, wildfire smoke, and extreme heat. She will engage faculty and students at Harvard Chan School and HMS in research that informs policymakers, the health care community, and individuals on how to protect health in a changing climate.
“It’s no longer enough to identify the health impacts of climate change—we need to find solutions,” said Rice. “There are still so many questions about what patients can do, what cities can do, and what our government, health care systems, and world leaders can do to avoid or lessen the health effects of fossil fuel combustion and climate change. I look forward to harnessing the research, education, and policy translation potential of Harvard Chan C-CHANGE and the broader scientific and medical community to find solutions.”
As a physician and environmental health researcher, Rice has been at the forefront of national policy discussions on air pollution, climate change, and health. She has testified before Congress as an expert witness on the health effects of air pollution and the benefits of air quality and carbon regulations. She currently serves on the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology Policy Committee and previously chaired the American Thoracic Society (ATS)’s Environmental Health Policy Committee. She is the chair-elect of the Environmental, Occupational and Population Health Assembly of the ATS. In 2020, ATS awarded her the Jo Rae Wright Award for Outstanding Science.
“I am thrilled to pass the baton to Dr. Rice as the new leader of Harvard Chan C-CHANGE,” said Dr. Kari Nadeau, chair of the Department of Environmental Health at Harvard Chan School and interim director of Harvard Chan C-CHANGE. “Her experience as a clinician, researcher, and expert in environmental exposures—especially the impact she’s made in public health by presenting her research in ways that are actionable to policymakers and the public alike—makes her the ideal person to lead this work.”
“I look forward to supporting Dr. Rice and the team so they can build from the Center’s auspicious past and continue its critical mission to build a healthy, just, and sustainable world,” Nadeau added.
Rice is the principal investigator of a National Institutes of Health-funded clinical trial of home air purification for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and she leads the environmental health research program of the American Lung Association Lung Health Cohort.
“Over the past decade, Dr. Rice has built a renowned research program in respiratory environmental health at BIDMC while chairing our hospital-wide sustainability program and providing excellent pulmonary care to BIDMC patients in the community of Chelsea,” said Mark L. Zeidel, chair of the Department of Medicine at BIDMC and Herrman L. Blumgart Professor of Medicine at HMS. “I am thrilled that Dr. Rice will lead Harvard Chan C-CHANGE while maintaining her role as a clinician leader and mentor at BIDMC. She has a proven track record of engaging our community of physicians and scientists to help solve the climate crisis for our patients.”
From their study showing how coal impacts health at every stage of its life cycle, to research on pollutants in gas stoves and the benefits of clean energy, Harvard Chan C-CHANGE has put health and equity at the center of climate actions. Recently, the Center has helped frontline health clinics build climate resilience with toolkits, a heat alert system, and action plans to protect patients during climate-related extreme weather, and it is leading efforts to introduce climate-related curricula into medical and public health education to ensure a more climate-ready health care workforce.
About Harvard Chan C-CHANGE
The Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health (Harvard Chan C-CHANGE) increases public awareness of the health impacts of climate change and uses science to make it personal, actionable, and urgent. The Center leverages Harvard’s cutting-edge research to inform policies, technologies, and products that reduce air pollution and other causes of climate change. By making climate change personal, highlighting solutions, and emphasizing the important role we all play in driving change, Harvard Chan C-CHANGE puts health outcomes at the center of climate actions. To learn more visit https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/c-change/
About Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center is a leading academic medical center, where extraordinary care is supported by high-quality education and research. BIDMC is a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School, and consistently ranks as a national leader among independent hospitals in National Institutes of Health funding. BIDMC is the official hospital of the Boston Red Sox.
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center is a part of Beth Israel Lahey Health, a health care system that brings together academic medical centers and teaching hospitals, community and specialty hospitals, more than 4,700 physicians and 39,000 employees in a shared mission to expand access to great care and advance the science and practice of medicine through groundbreaking research and education. For more information: bidmc.org
