The Harvard MPH in Epidemiology benefits from one of the world’s most accomplished epidemiology faculty. Our renowned teaching faculty includes pioneers in online education and flexible teaching formats.
Faculty Spotlight
E. Francis Cook
Dr. Cook, faculty director for the Harvard MPH in Epidemiology, is a Professor of Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and at the Harvard Medical School. He is the Deputy-Chairman and former Acting Chair of the Department of Epidemiology with responsibilities for the teaching matters of that department. In the past six years he has taught or directed 40 offerings of nine different courses at HSPH. He developed and directs the Summer-Only Master of Science (SM) in Epidemiology and the Summer-Only Master of Public Health (MPH in Clinical Effectiveness) Degree Programs at HSPH. He also directs the Concentration in Clinical Effectiveness within the MPH Program, which is the largest of the MPH Concentrations. He is the academic advisor for approximately 190 students at HSPH. Dr. Cook is a Co-Director of the seven-week Summer Program in Clinical Effectiveness at HSPH, which each summer trains over 250 clinicians from the Harvard Hospitals and from other national and international sites with the quantitative skills that are needed for clinical research. He also helped develop and is a Co-Director for the Programa de Efectividad Clinica in Buenos Aires. He is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for the Center for Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders Heath Disparities Research at the University of Hawaii. He has won Citations for Excellence in Teaching from the Harvard School of Public Health on four occasions, the Alumni Award of Merit from the Harvard School of Public Health for his teaching and mentoring, the Teaching Award from the Center of Clinical Investigation at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and is a member of the Public Health Academy of Distinguished Teachers, a national recognition sponsored by the American Schools and Programs of Public Health and Pfizer.
Heather Baer
Dr. Heather Baer, ScD, is an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and an Associate Epidemiologist in the Division of General Internal Medicine and Primary Care at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She obtained her Doctor of Science in Epidemiology from HSPH in 2005.
Dr. Baer has been actively involved in the teaching and leadership of a number of courses. She is a Co-Director of the Integrated Course in Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics (ID207) and the Online Practice in Clinical Epidemiology (EPI218) course, which are part of the Certificate Program in Clinical Research Methods at HSPH. She is an Associate Director of the Introduction to Clinical Epidemiology (EPI208) course during the Summer Program in Clinical Effectiveness and the leader of the academic-year Master of Public Health in Clinical Effectiveness degree program at HSPH. In addition, she is a core faculty member for the Summer MPH Practicum in Clinical Effectiveness (ID320) and the MPH Seminar in Applied Research in Clinical Epidemiology (EPI242) during the academic year. As part of her role in these courses, Dr. Baer advises students on epidemiologic and clinical research projects for their MPH practicum. In 2013, Dr. Baer received an Award for Excellence in Teaching from HSPH. She also has taught online and on-site courses as part of the HMS-Portugal Program, the Global Clinical Scholars Research Training Program, and the Introduction to Clinical Research Training course.
Dr. Baer’s research focuses on the role of lifestyle factors in the etiology and prevention of cancer and other chronic diseases. She has conducted analyses in the Nurses’ Health Study and other cohorts to examine how factors such as obesity, diet, and physical activity affect risk of breast and ovarian cancer and overall mortality in women. Her most recent work also examines the impact of strategies for addressing lifestyle factors in the clinical setting. She currently is the Principal Investigator of a study funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, to evaluate whether new features in electronic health records can improve management of overweight and obesity in primary care.
Julie Buring
Dr. Julie Buring ScD is Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and Professor of Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH). She has won numerous awards for her teaching of the core introductory epidemiology courses at HSPH. She has taught in two Massive Open Online Courses (Health in Numbers: Quantitative Methods for Clinical and Public Health Research, and Fundamentals of Clinical Trials) through the Harvard/MIT EdX Program. She has developed global experience in teaching epidemiology in programs in Italy, Germany, and Japan and is part of the faculty of the Global Clinical Scholars Research Training Program at HMS. She has taught on-site and online courses as part of HSPH collaborations with the Cyprus International Institute f0r Environmental and Public Health as well as the King Abdulaziz University in Saudi Arabia.
The primary focus of her research is the epidemiology of chronic diseases, primarily cardiovascular disease and cancer, and especially among women. Dr. Buring has been involved in the design, conduct, analysis, and interpretation of a number of large-scale cohort studies and randomized clinical trials. She has served as the Principal Investigator of the Women’s Health Study, a randomized trial evaluating low dose aspirin and vitamin E in the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease and cancer, as well as its current post-treatment extended follow-up; co-Investigator of the Physicians’ Health Study II, evaluating the preventive roles of vitamin E, vitamin C, beta-carotene, and a multivitamin; and is co-Principal Investigator of VITAL, an ongoing trial of vitamin E and fish oil in the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease and cancer among over 25,000 men and women.
Dr. Buring is a member of the Board of Scientific Counselors of the National Cancer Institute, and also serves as the Chair of the Institutional Review Board of Harvard Medical School.
Brian Healy
Dr. Brian Healy, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School (HMS), he is the primary biostatistician for the Partners MS Center at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and he is a member of the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Biostatistics Center. He obtained his PhD in Biostatistics from HSPH in 2007. Dr. Healy has taught many courses related to biostatistics at HMS and HSPH. He is the Director of the Harvard Catalyst Certificate in Applied Biostatistics, which is a 35-week, primarily on-line course that introduces medical researchers to most commonly used techniques in the medical literature. He was the instructor for Principles of Biostatistics II (BIO203) at HSPH for four years, and this past summer he taught the introductory biostatistics module for the Master’s Program in Clinical and Translational Investigation at HMS. In addition to full courses, Dr. Healy has led several short courses related to biostatistics at MGH. He has given lectures related to biostatistics for several courses including the Introduction to Clinical Investigation (ICI) and Fundamentals of Clinical and Translational Research (FaCToR) through Harvard Catalyst and the Design and Conduct of Clinical Trials at MGH. He also has taught online and on-site courses as part of the HMS-Portugal Program and the Global Clinical Scholars Research Training Program. Dr. Healy began his teaching career as a Teach For America corps member from 2000-2002. Dr. Healy’s research focuses on modeling the disease course in patients with multiple sclerosis.
Pamela Rist
Dr. Pamela Rist, ScD is an Instructor in Medicine at the Harvard Medical School (HMS) and an Instructor in Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH). She taught in Health in Numbers: Quantitative Methods for Clinical and Public Health Research, one of the first two massive open online courses (MOOC) offered through the Harvard/MIT edX program. She is the Course Instructor for the summer Principles of Biostatistics and Epidemiology course offered to students in the Doctor in Public Health Program at HSPH. Dr. Rist uses a “blended format” to teach this course, utilizing videos from the edX course with on-campus lectures and group exercises. She also teaches in Fundamentals of Epidemiology, a large introductory epidemiology course offered in the fall semester at HSPH. She has been involved in other courses at HSPH including Introductory Statistics for Medical Research and served as a teaching assistant for a course on regression methods for analyses of epidemiologic data and an integrated course in clinical epidemiology and biostatistics. She has received teaching awards from HSPH and the Department of Epidemiology for her teaching.
Dr. Rist’s academic research interests are primarily focused on the epidemiology of cardiovascular disease (particularly stroke) and neurologic diseases (especially those with a vascular component) with the goal of identifying ways to reduce the morbidity burden associated with stroke, migraine, and cognitive decline. During her doctoral degree, she received the Abraham Lilienfeld Student Prize Paper Award from the Society for Epidemiologic Research for her research on migraine and functional outcomes from stroke.
Michelle Williams
Michelle Williams is Stephen B. Kay Family Professor of Public Health and Chair of the Department of Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health. Her research interests lie principally in the field of reproductive and perinatal epidemiology where she focuses on integrating epidemiological, biological, and molecular approaches into rigorously designed clinical epidemiology research projects. Her overarching goal has been, and continues to be, to use biological and molecular biomarkers as objective measures of exposure and as validated pre-clinical proximal determinants (such as oxidative stress, systemic inflammation, and endothelial dysfunction) of discrete outcomes of clinical, public, and global health importance (such as preterm birth, placental abruption, hypertensive disorders of pregnancy and gestational diabetes). She is the principal investigator of three large projects funded by the National Institutes of Health. She is also Director of the Population Health Research and Health Disparities Research Programs of Harvard’s Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) Program. Dr. Williams has published over 370 scientific articles; served on several national and international scientific advisory committees; and has received numerous research and teaching awards. Dr. Williams received her ScD in epidemiology from Harvard University.
Learn more about the faculty in the Department of Epidemiology.