Boston, MA – Barry R. Bloom, PhD, Dean of the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), will receive today an Honorary Doctorate from Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands.
The University annually awards one or more honorary doctorates to mark its founding, a celebration called “Dies Natalis.” Last year’s awardees were Professor Sir Clive W.J. Granger, who shared the 2003 Nobel Prize in Economics, and Professor Arnold Zellner, a leading American economist and statistician. For a list of previous recipients of honorary doctorates from the University, see http://www.eur.nl/english/eur/honorary/awards/
Dean Bloom, an internationally recognized expert in immunology and infectious diseases, is a leader in global health policy as a member of scientific advisory boards for the World Health Organization, the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, independent foundations, and as a former consultant to the White House on international health policy. He continues to pursue an active interest in bench science as the principal investigator of a laboratory researching the immune response to tuberculosis, a disease that claims more than two million people each year. Dean Bloom is also Joan L. and Julius H. Jacobson Professor of Public Health.
In a letter to Dean Bloom, Professor Steven W.J. Lamberts, Rector Magnificus at Erasmus University Rotterdam, wrote that the Doctorate Board was conferring the honorary doctorate, “in recognition of your outstanding studies on the immune response in tuberculosis, in particular of its genetic control, and on your work on various techniques in vaccine development. You are also honored for your towering contribution to international health and leadership in public health education.” The position of Rector Magnificus is comparable to a university's Chancellor.
The ceremony will take place at Erasmus University Rotterdam today, November 8, 2007. Dean Bloom will speak on “Agendas and Architecture of Global Health.”
Dean Bloom holds a bachelor's degree in biology from Amherst College and a doctoral degree in immunology from Rockefeller University.
He is a past president of the American Association of Immunologists and the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology. He received the first Bristol-Myers Squibb Award for Distinguished Research in Infectious Diseases in 1991, shared the Novartis Award in Immunology in 1998, and was the recipient of the Robert Koch Gold Medal for lifetime research in infectious diseases in 1999.
Erasmus University Rotterdam grew out of the Netherlands School of Commerce founded in 1913. The University has been in existence in its present form since 1973 after the Medical Faculty Rotterdam and the Netherlands School of Economics merged. For more information about the university, see http://www.eur.nl/english/eur/background/
See the latest news from the Harvard School of Public Health.
Harvard School of Public Health is dedicated to advancing the public's health through learning, discovery, and communication. More than 300 faculty members are engaged in teaching and training the 900-plus student body in a broad spectrum of disciplines crucial to the health and well being of individuals and populations around the world. Programs and projects range from the molecular biology of AIDS vaccines to the epidemiology of cancer; from risk analysis to violence prevention; from maternal and children's health to quality of care measurement; from health care management to international health and human rights. For more information on the school visit: www.hsph.harvard.edu