Kari C. Nadeau is the Chair of the Department of Environmental Health at Harvard School of Public Health and John Rock Professor of Climate and Population Studies.[1] She is also adjunct professor at Stanford University in the Department of Pediatrics.[2] She practices Allergy, Asthma, Immunology in children and adults as a physician, and has published over 400 papers.[3] Her team focuses on quantifying health outcomes of solutions as they pertain to air pollution mitigation and adaptation at the local, regional, country, and global levels. Dr. Nadeau, with a team of individuals and patients and families, has been able to help major progress and impact in the clinical fields of exposomics, immunology, infection, asthma, and allergy. Dr. Nadeau is a member of the National Academy of Medicine[4] and the U.S. EPAChildren’s Health Protection Committee.[5]
For more than 30 years, she has devoted herself to understanding how environmental and genetic factors affect the risk of developing human disease. Her laboratory has been studying pollution effects on children and adults. Many of the health issues involving individuals and the public are increasing because of air pollution and extreme weather conditions. She oversees a team working with a multidisciplinary group of community leaders, engineers, scientists, lawyers, and policy makers. Dr. Nadeau was appointed as a member of the U.S. Federal Wildfire Commission in 2022.[6]
Dr. Nadeau works with other organizations and institutes across the world. She works with the WHO on a scoping review and report for health ministers and policy makers on wildland fires and/or air pollution: how to mitigate, adapt, and follow UN SDG’s to create resiliency and co-benefits in communities, especially LMICs.
Dr. Nadeau and her team perform research in the prevention and therapy of disease. She also launched four biotech companies,[7][8][9] and founded the Climate Change and Health Equity Task Force and started the Sustainability Health Seed Grant initiative and Climate Change and Health Fellowship program.[10] She has served on the Scientific Advisory Board of the U.S. EPA.
She works as a member of the UNEA through Harvard to work on environmental health and planetary health governance and policy.[11] She is also a member of the Center for the Early Development of the Child scientific committee at Harvard.[12]
Her groundbreaking research has pioneered the field of allergies, asthma, and immunology, specifically in food allergies, pollution-induced asthma, and COVID-19. Dr. Nadeau’s studies have demonstrated that exposures to water and air pollution can modify the DNA of all ages of individuals and can lead to respiratory, allergic, and immune disorders.[14]
Education
After graduating from Haverford College with a degree in biology,[15] Nadeau attended Harvard Medical School via the Medical Scientist Training Program (NIH), and received a PhD in biological chemistry and molecular pharmacology and an MD in 1995. She then started an internship and residency in pediatrics. From 1998 to 2002, she worked in the field of biopharmaceuticals and led clinical research to obtain FDA approval for two biologics in the field of Autoimmunity and Oncology, respectively. From 2003 to 2006, Nadeau was a pediatric resident and a fellow in Asthma, Allergy, and Immunology. She also did a postdoctoral fellowship in human immune tolerance mechanisms in asthma and allergy.[16] She received a certificate in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School in 2022.
Career
In 2006, Nadeau was appointed to the Stanford University School of Medicine with appointments in Pediatrics and Otolaryngology. In 2016 she was named the Naddisy Foundation Professor of Pediatric Food Allergy, Immunology and Asthma endowed professorship under the Naddisy Family Foundation.[17] Nadeau has served as a reviewer for NIH Study Sections, and a member of the American Lung Association Medical Board, CA. She serves on the Environmental Health Policy committee for the American Thoracic Society and is a Fellow in the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology and is a member of ASCI (American Society of Clinical Investigation).[18] Her laboratory focuses on the study of immunological mechanisms involved in the cause, diagnosis, and therapy for allergy and asthma.[19] In December, 2014 Sean Parker donated $24 million to Stanford to establish the Sean N. Parker Center for Allergy Research at Stanford University,[20] with Nadeau as the director.[21][22]
In September 2020, Dr. Kari Nadeau published The End of Food Allergy: The First Program To Prevent and Reverse a 21st Century Epidemic with co-author Sloan Barnett.[23]
As of January 2023, Nadeau is Chair of the Department of Environmental Health at Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health.[24]
Research
Monitoring cells and responses in human immunotherapy and their effect on immune tolerance
Translational work (through conducting novel and innovative clinical studies to induce tolerance through immunotherapy) on Treg function and epigenetic changes.[25][26][27] This research led to novel findings on markers of immune tolerance in clinical trial using food oral immunotherapy for near fatal food allergies. Dr. Nadeau and her team study how immune cells respond to therapy using human blood and organoids.
Multiple Pollution Exposomics
Dr. Nadeau oversees collaborative teams examining plasma, cellular, and epigenetic markers that are affected by pollution in children, adolescents, and adults. Using well characterized cohorts across the world (for acute pollution exposure—i.e. wildfire) and in the Central Valley of California (for chronic exposure—i.e. Fresno is one of the highest ranked cities in the country for PM2.5 air pollution), Dr. Nadeau and her team have been able to perform innovative and impactful research that has helped shape public policy towards mitigating pollution and its effects on the public, (especially those at risk populations (like children) and the underserved (like Hispanic populations in the Central Valley of California).[28][29][30][31]
Solutions in Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation
Working with a team of dedicated multidisciplinary experts, Dr. Nadeau focuses on quantifying the health outcomes of solutions that have been implemented to address climate change. For example, her team studies whether certain diseases are lessened by switching from diesel to electric vehicles, from gas to electric stoves, from no to cooling devices, or from no biodiversity to greening a local area. She focuses her research on those communities that are inequitably exposed to climate change and extreme weather.[32][33][34][35][36]
Honors and awards
2006 Parker B. Francis Fellowship to Faculty Award[37]
2008 American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology (AAAAI) Award for Junior Faculty[38]
2008 McCormick Award, Stanford University School of Medicine[39]
2010 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) STAR Grant Award[40]
2010 Elected to Collegium Internationale Allergologicum (CIA)[41]
