BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
Candidate for Member-at-Large
Bernard L. Harlow, PhD
Mayo Professor of Epidemiology Chair
Division of Epidemiology and Community Health
University of Minnesota School of Public Health
It is a pleasure and honor to be nominated as a candidate for the SER Executive Committee as a Member at Large. I have been a member of SER since my days as a doctoral student when I had the opportunity to participate in the student workshop. That session holds special memories for me. The opportunity to sit around the table with professors whose articles we had been reading and critiquing as the gold standard for epidemiologic research was, to my surprise, not intimidating at all! In fact, it was a seamless give-and-take of ideas, approaches, and pathways regarding analytical methods pertaining to each of our dissertation projects. Not only did I receive valuable advice on how to approach my ongoing analyses, but more importantly, there was a sense of camaraderie that was devoid of the traditional separation that often exists between professors and students.
To me, this is what makes SER such a special organization. Our students and young investigators are not only welcome, but are an integral part of the annual meeting. We, as senior investigators (a nice way of referring to the aging constituency), take great pride in watching our current and former students make the transition to becoming independent investigators. In my view, this is a continuing mission of SER—not only to disseminate new and innovative research and methods, but also to serve as a platform by which we can provide guidance and training to the next generation of public health scientists who will move the field forward.
To that end, I would like to see SER sessions devoted to building bridges between epidemiologists and our colleagues in the other public health, clinical, biological and social sciences. There is a clear mandate to embrace and bring in as collaborators experts in a wide area of disciplines to assist us in understanding the pathogenic mechanism that precedes and charts the course of disease progression. So many of our biological systems are integrated and our external environment plays a role in both mediating and modifying how these systems relate to each other. Because of our methodological expertise, we have the ability to orchestrate interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary collaborative ventures.
Biographical – Personal Data
I received my epidemiology MPH under the tutelage of Drs. Leonard Schuman and Jack Mandel at the University of Minnesota, and Ph.D. with mentorship and guidance from Drs. Noel Weiss and Janet Daling at the University of Washington. The next 18 years were spent at Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School where I co-founded with my mentor, Dr. Daniel Cramer, the Obstetrics and Gynecology Epidemiology Center. During that period my research focused on a wide spectrum of women’s health issues including ovarian cancer, early menopause, and unexplained vulvar pain disorders. In particular, I have had a long standing interest in how psychiatric morbidity influences and occurs as a consequence of women’s reproductive and gynecologic conditions across the reproductive lifespan. In 2005, I was invited to Chair the Division of Epidemiology and Community Health at the University of Minnesota where Dr. Leonard Schuman first inspired in me the understanding, magnitude, and power of epidemiologic research. I am proud and humbled to hold that position today.