Dean's Seminar Series - Guest Speaker Biographies

Biographies

F. DuBois Bowman, Ph.D., M.S.

Professor and Dean
School of Public Health
University of Michigan

Dr. F. DuBois Bowman, a distinguished researcher whose scholarship focuses on improving mental health and neurological disorders such as Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease and depression is the 12th Dean of the School of Public Health, University of Michigan where he is also a tenured professor of biostatistics.  Prior to this appointment in October 2018, Dean Bowman was the Cynthia and Robert Citrone-Roslyn and Leslie Goldstein Professor and Chair of the Department of Biostatistics at the Mailman School of Public Health.  Currently, he is the President of the Eastern North American Region of the International Biometric Society and a Fellow of the American Statistical Association along with numerous past awards.

Dean Bowman's expertise focuses on neurosciences and prevalent diseases with challenging methodologic issues that impact research.  This includes expertise in Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease, depression, schizophrenia, and substance addiction.  Dean Bowman’s research has helped to reveal brain patterns indicative of psychiatric diseases, the detection of biomarkers for neurological diseases, and the identification of more individualized therapeutic treatments.  Additionally, Dean Bowman’s work is focusing on environmental threats to brain health and in optimizing brain health in aging populations.  Dean Bowman is passionate about ensuring a diverse, equitable and inclusive public health workforce and built his career to include mentoring minority undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and faculty.

By matter of background, Dr. Bowman has an earned B.S. degree in mathematics from Morehouse College, where he was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society.  He has an earned master's in biostatistics from the University of Michigan, and a Ph.D. in biostatistics from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Coleen Boyle, Ph.D., MS Hyg

Adjunct Professor, Center for Leadership in Disability, Georgia State University, School of Public Health & Former Director, National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Dr. Boyle is an adjunct professor in the Center for Leadership in Disability at the Georgia State University School of Public Health and serves as the COVID-19 Research Advisor at the CDC Foundation.  Dr. Boyle began her public health career at CDC in 1984 as part of a large effort to study the adverse health effects of exposure to Agent Orange, an herbicide used during the Vietnam War. Following that project, she joined CDC’s work in birth defects and developmental disabilities holding various positions of increasing responsibility until her appointment as the Director of the National Center on Birth Defects and Disabilities in 2010. She held that position until her retirement in early 2020.  

Dr. Boyle’s interest and expertise span a number of areas related to child health and disability. She directed a major public health response on cochlear implants and risk of meningitis, resulting in the recall of a particular implant device and helped guide the Nation’s emergency response on reducing the potentially devastating impact of the Zika virus on birth defects and child development. Dr. Boyle led the development of CDC’s autism research and surveillance activities that have documented the changing prevalence of autism in the United States and contributed widely to the field of newborn screening overseeing CDC’s work in newborn hearing and congenital heart disorder screening.

Dr. Boyle is trained in epidemiology and biostatistics from the University of Pittsburgh, School of Public Health and did postdoctoral work at the Yale School of Public Health. She has twice awarded CDC’s highest recognition for scientific excellence, the Charles C. Shepard Award, for her scientific work and on her retirement from CDC was honored with the Excellence in Public Health Service Award by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

 

Frank Hu, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H.

Fredrick J. Stare Professor of Nutrition and Epidemiology
Chair, Department of Nutrition
Director of Boston Nutrition Obesity Research Center Epidemiology & Genetic Core
Co-Director, Program in Obesity Epidemiology and Prevention
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Dr. Hu is an internationally recognized expert on the role of diet and lifestyle and chronic diseases, including obesity, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease in the context of other metabolic and genetic determinants.  Currently, Dr. Hu is the Fredrick J. Stare Professor of Nutrition and Epidemiology and Chair of the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.  He is also a Professor of Medicine at the Harvard Medical School and Channing Division of Network Medicine at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital.  Dr. Hu’s research and that of his team has identified dietary risk factors such as sugar-sweetened beverages, saturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids, red meat, and other dietary patterns as being associated with chronic disease.  These findings have contributed to the U.S. public health’s recommendations and policies for prevention of chronic diseases.

In addition, Dr. Hu’s research has identified novel biomarkers (e.g., adipokines and nutrient metabolites) that are important for the pathogenesis of obesity and diabetes.  Dr. Hu served on the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee for the USDA/HHS.  He is currently on the editorial/advisory board of Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, Diabetes Care, and Clinical Chemistry.  Dr. Hu was elected to the National Academy of Medicine (formerly the IOM) in 2015.  He is the author of the textbook entitled Obesity Epidemiology.

 

Kerry Keyes, Ph.D., M.P.H.

Associate Professor
Department of Epidemiology &
Co-Director, Psychiatric Epidemiology Training Program
Mailman School of Public Health
Columbia University

Katherine M. Keyes is an associate professor of epidemiology at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, and Co-Director of the Psychiatric Epidemiology Training Program. Katherine's research focuses on life course epidemiology with particular attention to psychiatric disorders, including examination of fetal origins of child and adult health, long-term outcomes of adverse childhood environments, and cross-generational cohort effects on substance use, mental health, and chronic disease.  She is particularly interested in the development of epidemiological theory to measure and elucidate the drivers of population health.  Dr. Keyes is an expert in methodological issues in age-period-cohort effect estimation, and her empirical work in age-period-cohort effect has examined a range of outcomes including obesity, perinatal outcomes, substance use disorders, and psychological distress.  She is the author of more than 170 peer-reviewed publications as well as two textbooks published by Oxford University Press with co-author Sandro Galea: "Epidemiology Matters: A New Introduction to Methodological Foundation" and "Population Health Science".

By matter of background, Dr. Keyes has earned Ph.D. and M.P.H. degrees from Columbia University, and a B.A. and B.S. from the University of Minnesota.

 

Jon Samet, M.D., M.S.

Professor and Dean, Colorado School of Public Health
University of Colorado, Colorado State University & University of Northern Colorado

Dr. Jon Samet is a pulmonary physician and epidemiologist and an internationally renowned expert on the health effects of cigarette smoking and air particulates on human health.  He is currently Dean of the Colorado School of Public Health where he also serves as a Professor in the Department of Epidemiology.  Previously, Dean Samet was the Flora L. Thornton Chair of the Department of Preventive Medicine, University of Southern California, along with his role as the Director of the Institute for Global Health.  This appointment followed his leadership role as Chair of the Department of Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.  

Dean Samet’s research focuses on the health risks of inhaled pollutants - particles and ozone in outdoor air and indoor pollutants including secondhand smoke and radon.  He has also investigated the occurrence and causes of cancer and respiratory diseases, emphasizing the risks of active and passive smoking.  For several decades, he has been involved in global health focusing on tobacco control, air pollution, and chronic disease prevention.  Of note, Dean Samet was the lead epidemiologist who worked with States to recover expenditures associated with cigarette smoking, and has served and chaired numerous committees for the National Research Council and Institute of Medicine.  In addition, he served as chair of the EPA’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee and the FDA’s Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee.  

Professor Samet has served as editor and author for Reports of the Surgeon General on Smoking and Health since 1984, receiving the Surgeon General’s Medallion in 1990 and 2006 for these contributions.  He was the Senior Scientific Editor for the 50th Anniversary 2014 report.  In addition, he has received the 2004 Prince Mahidol Award for Global Health awarded by the King of Thailand, the Alton Ochsner Award Relating Smoking and Health, the WHO World No Tobacco Day Award, the Edward Livingston Trudeau Medal from the American Thoracic Society/American Lung Association and the Luther L. Terry Award for Distinguished Career from the American Cancer Society.  Profesor Samet also received the Alumni Award of Merit from the Harvard School of Public Health, and was named Distinguished Alumnus of the Year by the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry.  He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine (Institute of Medicine) of the National Academy of Sciences in 1997 and received the David M. Rall Medal for his contributions in 2015. ​

By matter of background, Dean Samet has an earned B.S. degree in Chemistry and Physics from Harvard College, an M.D. degree from the University of Rochester's School of Medicine and Dentistry, and a MS degree in Epidemiology from the Harvard School of Public Health.  

 

Scott Zeger, Ph.D., M.S.-

John C. Malone Professor of Biostatistics and Medicine and former Chair
Department of Biostatistics
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Dr. Scott Zeger is the John C. Malone Professor of Biostatistics at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health with a joint appointment in the Department of Medicine.  In addition, he is the University’s co-Director of Hopkins inHealth, the Johns Hopkins precision medicine partnership of the University, Health System, and Applied Physics Laboratory, and the Malone Center for Healthcare in Engineering.  Professor is an internationally renowned biostatistician who was instrumental in developing analytic methods for the analysis of longitudinal data leading to his co-authored and highly impactful textbook entitled Longitudinal Data Analysis using Generalized Linear Models that was the recipient of the 2015 Karl Pearson Award from the International Statistical Institute.  He is well known for his regression models for correlated responses that arise when observations come in clusters, for example in longitudinal research or in sample surveys or when data are observed over time or space.  More recently, Professor Zeger’s research focuses on Bayesian models for "individualized health" that use population data to improve decisions about an individual's health state, trajectory or likely benefits and costs of competing interventions.  His models have been used globally by scientists and researchers.  He is a member of various centers at Hopkins including the Autoimmune Disease Research Center, Biostatistics Center, Center for Global Health, International Vaccine Access Center, The Johns Hopkins Institute for Clinical and Translational Research, and the Welch Center for Prevention, Epidemiology and Clinical Research.  He has made substantive contributions to our understanding of the effects on health of smoking and air pollution, the global etiology of children’s pneumonia and has developed multiple precision medicine decision support tools.

In light of his many accomplishments, Professor Zeger is the recipient of numerous awards including Samuel S. Wilks Award from the American Statistical Association, Marvin Zelen Leadership Award in Statistical Science, Bradford Hill Medal, Royal Statistical Society, Golden Apple Award, Ernest Lyman Stebbins Medal, and the Spiegelman Award.  Dr. Zeger is an elected member of the Institute of Medicine, National Academies of Sciences now known as the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, and was awarded an Honorary Doctoral Degree from the University of Lancaster’s School of Medicine.  Professor Zeger has served as expert witness to the U.S. Department of Justice and several states in their civil suits against the tobacco industry and as a member of the Board of Scientific Advisors for the Merck Research Laboratory.  He is a member of the Springer-Verlag editorial board for statistics and was the founding co-editor of the Oxford University Press journal’s Biostatistics.  He is most proud of his Golden Apple Awards from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School Student Assembly for excellence in teaching.