Mark Nieuwenhuijsen: New President of the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology

Two researchers from the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), a research centre supported by the ”la Caixa” Banking Foundation, have been elected to the Executive Council of the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology (ISEE): Mark Nieuwenhuijsen as president of the Council and Michelle Turner as secretary-treasurer.

“Their election represents a great accomplishment for ISGlobal and consolidates its global leadership in the area of environmental epidemiology” explains ISGlobal researcher Manolis Kogevinas, who was president of ISEE in 2016 and 2017.

“Being president of the ISEE represents a great challenge and responsibility. I am excited to accept the office and hope to contribute to the goal of ensuring that the field of environmental epidemiology plays an important role in the world, in both the scientific arena and in policy decision making” said Mark Nieuwenhuijsen.

Michelle Turner says that she is “enthusiastic about this opportunity to play a leading role to ensure the continued organizational and financial success of the Society and support professionals working in the field of environmental epidemiology”.  

Mark Nieuwenhuijsen is the director of ISGlobal’s Urban Planning, Environment and Health initiative and head of the institute’s Air Pollution and Urban Environment research programme. Last year, he won the John Goldsmith Award, the highest honour in the world of environmental epidemiology, and was included in the list of the world’s most highly cited researchers. Nieuwenhuijsen is considered an authority on the links between urban planning, transport, and health. Over a career spanning 25 years he has published almost 400 scientific papers and has been cited over 25,000 times.

In her work, Michelle Turner, Assistant Research Professor at ISGlobal, has focused on examining potential environmental and occupational determinants of cancer and chronic disease in large-scale epidemiological studies. She has actively conducted research in both North America and Europe including on the health effects of long-term ambient air pollution and on ionizing and non-ionizing radiation exposure. She is currently Vice-Chair of the 28-country OMEGA-NET Project, a network created to optimise the coordination of European occupational cohorts. She was recently awarded a prestigious Ramón y Cajal fellowship in Spain.

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• ISEE
• Mark Nieuwenhuijsen
• Michelle Turner