Appointment of Dr. Howard Hu as Director, Dalla Lana School of Public Health

PDAD&C#26, 2011-12

To: Faculty, Staff & Students of the Dalla Lana School of Public Health
PDAD&C

From: Cheryl Misak, Vice-President and Provost
Catharine Whiteside, Dean, Faculty of Medicine and Vice Provost, Relations with Health Care Institutions

Date: November 11, 2011

Re: Appointment of Dr. Howard Hu as Director, Dalla Lana School of Public Health

We are extremely pleased to announce that the Agenda Committee of the Academic Board has approved the appointment of Dr. Howard Hu, MD, MPH, ScD, to lead the Dalla Lana School of Public Health for a five-year term effective July 1, 2012.

Dr. Hu is a physician, board-certified in internal medicine and occupational/environmental medicine, who also holds a doctoral degree in epidemiology. Since 2006 he has been at the University of Michigan Schools of Public Health & Medicine, where he is the NSF International Department Chair, Department of Environmental Health Sciences, and Professor of Environmental Health, Epidemiology and Internal Medicine. During Dr. Hu’s tenure, the Department of Environmental Health Sciences added 14 new faculty, expanded the recruitment of top students, and created new programs and laboratories in nutrition-toxicant interactions and environmental epigenetics. Dr. Hu also led the establishment of the Michigan NIEHS Center for Research on Lifestage Exposures, Epigenetics and Adult Disease. Prior to that, as Professor of Occupational and Environmental Medicine at the Harvard School of Public Health and the Channing Laboratory of the Brigham & Women’s Hospital, he directed the Harvard Metals Epidemiology Research Group, the Center for Children's Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research and the Harvard University Residency Program in Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

Dr. Hu’s creative and innovative research on environmental health has focused on issues such as the adverse health effects of lead and other heavy metals, the impacts of gene/environment interactions, the long-term effects of fetal exposure to lead and other chemical toxicants, interactions between aging and the environment, and global climate variability and change. Much of his work has been conducted internationally with collaborators in Mexico and India. He has authored or co-authored over 300 scientific papers and book chapters and co-edited or co-authored 7 books. Dr. Hu was the founding Medical Editor and continues as an Associate Editor of Environmental Health Perspectives, the official journal of the U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS).

A respected researcher, clinician and educator, Dr. Hu’s numerous awards and honours include: the 1999 NIEHS Progress and Achievement Award; the 2006 Harriet Hardy Award; the 2009 Linus Pauling Lifetime Achievement Award; and most recently, the 2011 American Public Health Association (APHA) Award for Excellence for his work on environmental health issues as well as his advocacy for human rights.

Dr. Hu served as the principal epidemiologist and/or leader on fact-finding missions related to potential violations of human rights in South Korea, Iraq, Burma and Guatemala on behalf of Physicians for Human Rights, and he also served on that organization’s founding board of directors. He was chair of the Research Commission for the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, has served on the Population and Public Health Practice Board of the Institute of Medicine and currently serves on the Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology of the National Research Council.

Dr. Hu brings a highly distinguished record of research and service to the Dalla Lana School of Public Health. Please join us in welcoming him to the University of Toronto.