Meet the Dean

Kari Nadeau, MD, PhD, is dean of the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.

Nadeau’s research integrates exposomics (the comprehensive study of all environmental exposures) with immunology and epigenetics to understand and mitigate environmentally associated diseases like allergy, asthma, autoimmune diseases, and cancer. Nadeau actively engages in policy: She works with global health organizations (e.g., WHO, UN), serves on US EPA advisory committees, and translates her findings into actionable health strategies. She earned her MD and PhD from the Medical Scientist Training Program at Harvard Medical School and completed her clinical training in pediatrics and immunology. Nadeau is also a practicing allergist and immunologist, caring for both children and adults.

A world recognized leader in public health and in medicine, Nadeau previously served as the chair of the Department of Environmental Health at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and John Rock Professor of Climate and Population Studies. During that time, Nadeau was also professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and director of the Allergy, Climate, and Exposomics Laboratory. She has been involved in the practice, teaching, and research of public health for more than 30 years. For example, Nadeau previously worked on policy for climate change solutions to improve public health and currently co-leads the LA Fire Health Study. She is an adjunct professor at Stanford University in the Department of Pediatrics, and formerly served as the Nadissy Foundation Professor at Stanford University School of Medicine and director of the Sean N Parker Center for Allergy and Asthma at Stanford University School of Medicine.

Nadeau holds leadership positions on numerous boards and at institutions that include undergraduate and graduate schools of public health, medicine, and more. She launched four biotech companies, and while at Stanford University she founded the Climate Change and Health Equity Task Force, and started the Sustainability Health Seed Grant initiative. She has served on the Scientific Advisory Board of the US EPA and works as a member of the UNEA through Harvard University to address environmental health and planetary health governance and policy. She previously served as a member of the US EPA Children’s Protection Scientific Board.

To read Dean Nadeau’s July 1 message to the community, please click here.