Dr. John Brownstein '94, epidemiologist, professor of biomedical informatics at Harvard Medical School, and chief innovation officer of Boston Children’s Hospital, joins us for an in-depth look at the ongoing pandemic. (NOTE: Information shared in this episode was accurate on its release date of February 9, 2022, but may have changed since that time).

John was trained as an epidemiologist at Yale University, where he received his PhD. His research interests are in the development of methods and data sources in public health informatics which focuses on two major areas: (1) the design, evaluation and implementation of public health surveillance systems and (2) statistical modeling of public health surveillance data to improve prevention and control activities. This research has focused on a variety of infectious disease systems including malaria, HIV, dengue, West Nile virus, Lyme disease, RSV, salmonella, listeria and influenza.

John has advised the World Health Organization, Institute of Medicine, the US Departments of Health and Human Services and Homeland Security, and the White House on real-time public health surveillance data. He has used this experience in his role as Vice President of the International Society for Disease Surveillance. He has authored over 100 articles in the area of disease surveillance. This work has been reported on widely including pieces in the New England Journal of Medicine, Science, Nature, New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, National Public Radio and the BBC.

Affiliations:

• Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School
• Director, Computational Epidemiology Group, Children’s Hospital Boston
• Research Scientist, Partners Healthcare
• Adjunct Professor, McGill University
• Vice President, International Society for Disease Surveillance