BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
Candidate for President-Elect
Hal Morgenstern, PhD
Professor of Epidemiology and Environmental Health Sciences
University of Michigan School of Public Health
I first became a member of SER in 1976 while I was an epidemiology doctoral student at UNC in Chapel Hill. Many have commented how our discipline has changed since the 70s—expanding technologies for processing data and exploring the human genome; new approaches for conducting studies, analyzing data, and modeling disease occurrence; a more sophisticated understanding of causal inference and bias assessment; stricter regulations to protect the rights of human subjects and health information; the emergence of many new research specialties from molecular epidemiology to health disparities to global health; the emergence of new diseases and the reemergence of others; growing basic-science knowledge for understanding disease processes and aging; and more advanced and diverse didactic training for epidemiology students—to highlight a few such changes. These developments evolved along with the growing influence of researchers and scholars trained in other disciplines, which has made the theory and practice of epidemiology much more multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary over the past few decades. Of course, these changes have kept epidemiology vibrant and exciting, but they also pose challenges for maintaining our disciplinary identify and professional community. I believe that SER has played, and will continue to play, a vital role in this important effort.
My academic and professional background is, to say the least, not typical of contemporary epidemiologists. I received my first professional degree in architecture at MIT in 1969. For the next three years, I worked in the Boston area as an architect during the day and as a community organizer/social worker at night and on week-ends. In 1972, I returned to school at UNC and received a master’s degree in regional planning, concentrating in mental-health policy and the planning of community mental-health services. Realizing that I was more interested in research than planning, I switched to Epidemiology at UNC where I concentrated on the social epide-miology of cardiovascular disease and received my PhD degree in 1978. A week after defending my dissertation, I started as an assistant professor at Yale where I remained for 7 years. Then I took a tenured position at UCLA and remained there until 2003 when I accepted the position as chair of Epidemiology at the University of Michigan. I stepped down as chair in 2008 and continue to direct the Graduate Summer Session in Epidemiology at UM.
With 32 years in academia, I have extensive research experience in a wide range of diseases and public-health areas, including cardiovascular disease, neuropsychiatric disorders, cancers, musculoskeletal conditions, nonin-tentional injuries, kidney disease, plus epidemiologic methods, clinical and outcomes research, occupational and environmental health, psychosocial aspects of disease, and use of health care. My current research includes studies of outcomes and practice patterns among hemodialysis patients in 12 countries, the effectiveness of interventions for preventing anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injures, and the quality care for patients undergo-ing arthroscopic surgery. I have co-authored more than 170 articles and an influential 1982 textbook on Epide-miologic Research: Principles and Quantitative Methods; and I have received four teaching awards in schools of pub-lic health at Yale and UCLA.
My goals as SER president would be to have the organization continue its leadership role in the changing landscape of epidemiology and epidemiologic methods, maintain its strong commitment to the education and training of our students and junior colleagues, and extend its influence to society beyond the activities of scientists and public-health professionals. Regarding the latter goal, I believe we can do more to inform and guide other practitioners and the public about the uses, misuses, and abuses of epidemiologic and statistical methods in the media, the courts, legislative bodies, and other constituencies.