Adami named chair of HSPH Department of Epidemiology

Hans-Olov Adami, professor of cancer epidemiology at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, will become chair of the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) Department of Epidemiology on Feb. 1, 2007. Current chair Meir Stampfer, HSPH professor of nutrition and epidemiology, plans to step down from the position on Jan. 31, 2007.

Adami has been an adjunct professor in the HSPH Department of Epidemiology since 1992. From 1994 to 2001, he served as a member of the editorial advisory board of the New England Journal of Medicine. In 1992, Adami gave the HSPH Department of Epidemiology’s Cutter Lecture, and in 2000 he was the Harvard Center for Cancer Prevention’s Distinguished Visiting Lecturer. From 1997 to 2005, he chaired the Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the Karolinska Institute. His research focuses on cancer epidemiology, including areas of prostate cancer, hormones and cancer, and the effect of early life and in utero exposures on adult cancer.

Stampfer has chaired the HSPH Department of Epidemiology for the past seven years. In an e-mail message to the HSPH community, HSPH Dean Barry R. Bloom recounted that, under Stampfer, the department had recruited outstanding new junior faculty and had continued to be in the forefront of scientific advances. Most recently, Stampfer organized two pivotal symposia on controversial areas of epidemiology that were garnering public attention – the relation of obesity to mortality and the role of postmenopausal hormones in cardiovascular disease.

In 2005, ISI Essential Science Indicators determined that Stampfer was the most-cited scientist in clinical medicine for the past decade. He has served on the U.S. dietary guidelines committee.