Threats to health are in our air, water and soil. Environmental epidemiologists like Francine Laden are researchers who try to connect the dots between our environment and our health, and their work is helping shape public health as we know it.

Laden will discuss her latest work at this year’s Richard V. Lee, MD Lectureship in Global Health, “Moving from Air Pollution to the Exposome: Incorporating Multiple Environmental Exposures into Epidemiologic Analyses.” The lecture will take place from noon to 1:30 p.m. Oct. 25 in 144 Farber Hall, South Campus. It is free and open to the public; registration is required.

Laden is a professor of environmental epidemiology and associate chair of the Department of Environmental Health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and associate professor of medicine at the Harvard Medical School and Brigham & Women’s Hospital. She is an author on more than 300 peer-reviewed publications on environmental epidemiology of chronic diseases and outcomes.

Her recent research focuses on the geographic distribution of risk, health effects of environmental exposures and social determinants of health. A past member of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Science Advisory Board and past president of the International Society of Environmental Epidemiology, she received the 2023 John Goldsmith Award for outstanding contributions to environmental epidemiology.

The Richard V. Lee, MD Lectureship in Global Health, sponsored by the Office of Global Health Initiatives in the School of Public Health and Health Professions, honors the late UB faculty member. Along with his faculty appointments at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and private group practice, he found opportunities for medical work in Southeast Asia and China through UB’s Public Health and International Education programs, playing an essential role in the university’s programs and outreach internationally.