Editor Profiles

Natalie joined BMC after having completed an MSc in Environmental Health at the Cyprus International Institute, in Association with the Harvard School of Public Health, USA where she completed courses including global climate change, environmental epidemiology, sustainable development and exposure assessment.  Prior to this, she gained her BSc in Environmental Science at the University of Indianapolis, USA. Natalie is a Senior Editor for the BMC-series and has been Editor of BMC Public Health since 2007. She has a keen interest in the use of research evidence to underpin public health policy and is an Editor of the BMC Series blog where policy implications of BMC Public Health articles are also discussed.

Ben studied for his BSc in Biomedical Sciences, MRes in Translational Medicine and PhD in Cancer Sciences at the University of Manchester, UK. His doctoral research was focused on the role of osteoblasts in prostate cancer bone metastasis. Ben joined the BMC Series as a Manuscript Editor in April 2020.

Energy balance-related behaviors

Marc Adams is an Assistant Professor in the Exercise Science and Health Promotion program in the School of Nutrition and Health Promotion at Arizona State University (Phoenix, Arizona). He is a behavioral scientist with a background in psychology and public health.  His research focuses on the influence of place on health behaviors, especially as walking for transport and recreation, for prevention of chronic diseases. Dr. Adams is principal investigator of a NIH-funded grant examining interactions between built environment features and technology-based adaptive interventions.  He is also a co-investigator on the International Physical Activity and Built Environment Network (IPEN) studies examining urban form and physical activity across several countries.  He has authored more than 60 publications in peer-reviewed journals and is a Senior Sustainability Scientist with the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability.

Mental Health

Dr. Noriko Cable is a Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London. She works on social relationships, alcohol use and mental health from childhood to late adulthood as well as on cross-national examinations of mental health. Her work appears in the booklets Life gets under your skin and Never too early, never too late published by her research group, the International Centre for Lifecourse Studies in Society and Health (ICLS). She currently works on her ESRC funded project, UK-Japan Social relationships and well-being across ageing nations  (UK-Japan SWAN) to establish early career researchers' networks between the UK and Japan. Dr. Cable joined the Editorial Board of BMC Public Health as Section Editor in 2019.

Health policies, systems and management in high-income countries

Associate Professor Summer Sherburne Hawkins, PhD, MS, joined the Boston College School of Social Work (BCSSW) faculty in 2012. She is a social epidemiologist with an interest in addressing policy-relevant research questions in maternal and child health. Her research examines the impact of policies on health disparities in parents and children, particularly using methodology that integrates epidemiology and economics. Dr. Hawkins has published on the topics of parental and adolescent tobacco use, infant feeding practices, and childhood obesity as well as the impact of state and local policies on disparities in these health behaviors and outcomes. A more recent area of her research focuses on the role of the Affordable Care Act on the uptake of preventive health services. She first joined the Editorial Board of BMC Public Health in 2018 as an Associate Editor.

Chronic disease epidemiology

Associate Professor Jianguang Ji is a Senior Lecturer in Cancer Epidemiology at Lund University. His research has a strong focus on the influence of genetic and environmental factors on chronic diseases, with a main focus on cancer incidence and mortality. Associate Professor Ji has used data from nationwide registers and national and regional surveys to shed new light on potential genetic and environmental factors associated with the development of various types of cancer. Results from his research studies can be found in highly ranked journals, such as The Lancet Oncology, J Clin Oncology, J National Cancer Inst, Gastroenterology, and Circulation. His article “Cancer incidence in patients with polyglutamine diseases: a population-based study in Sweden” (Lancet Oncol, 2012) was reported by Nature Review Clin Oncol as “Research Highlight” and interviewed by BBC news and many other media organisations regarding this study. The article “Increased risks of coronary heart disease and stroke among spousal caregivers of cancer patients” (Circulation, 2012) was selected as Circulation Editors’ Picks: Most Read Articles in Epidemiology and Prevention. Associate Professor Ji joined the Editorial Board of BMC Public Health in 2019.

Health policies, systems and management in low and middle-income countries

Ariadne Beatrice Kapetanaki is a Lecturer at the York Management School, University of York, UK. Her research focuses on food policies that effectively prevent and tackle nutrition-related non-communicable diseases; social marketing for behavior change in relation to healthy eating and alcohol consumption; upstream social marketing and critical marketing. She has worked on research projects related to food policies, food systems and healthy diets funded by the Food Standards Agency, Food Standards Scotland and the Economic and Social Research Council. She earned her PhD in Food Policy from the Centre for Food Policy, City University London, UK. She is also a Fellow of the Lancet Commission on Obesity. Ariadne joined the Editorial Board of BMC Public Health in 2015.

Health behavior, health promotion and society

A/Prof Frances Kay-Lambkin is a NHMRC Senior Research Fellow, and the Director of Translation for the NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence (CRE) in Mental Health and Substance Use, University of Newcastle. She is also Conjoint Associate Professor at the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, and a Visiting Fellow at the Black Dog Institute, University of New South Wales. She is internationally recognized for her innovative web-based interventions for mental health and substance use disorders, and is the current President of the International Society for Research on Internet Interventions. Frances’s research is developing high quality, evidence-based care that is accessible and acceptable to people with mental and physical health comorbidities. She aims to bridge the evidence-practice gap in four key ways: (1) Determining ‘what’ to disseminate; (2) Deciding ‘who’ to disseminate it to; (3) Deciding ‘how’ to disseminate it; and (4) Determining ‘when’ is best to disseminate it.

Global health

Zohra Lassi is a Perinatal Epidemiologist working as a NHMRC Public Health and Health Services Fellow at the University of Adelaide. Her research work has primarily focused on maternal, child and adolescent health and nutrition issues particularly in marginalised and low resource settings. She has speacial interest in research synthesis, scaling up evidence-based intrventions in community settings and implementation research in health system research. In particular, her work with community health workers and out-reach services has contributed significantly to global integrated maternal and newborn outreach policies and guidelines. Her work with the WHO and PMNCH in developing consensus based essential interventions for women, children and adolescents is the dominant set of agreed interventions guiding global policy. Dr. Lassi joined the Editorial Board of BMC Public Health in April of 2019.

Occupational Health

Dr. Youcheng Liu is currently an Associate Professor at Wayne State University School of Medicine . He trained in medicine and public health with specialties in industrial hygiene, environmental health, occupational health and epidemiology. His research focuses on assessing occupational and environmental exposures to chemical hazards and biological agents, evaluating the resultant health outcomes (asthma, COPD, cardiovascular diseases and diabetes) and identifying effective and feasible measures and strategies to reduce exposures and prevent diseases.  Current research projects include dermal exposure to nicotine in migrant tobacco farm workers in Kentucky and the development of a barrier cream and other intervention methods to reduce exposure and green tobacco sickness, isocyanate exposure in neonates and the identification of user barriers of Powered Air-Purifying Respirators (PAPRs) in health care workers. He joined the Editorial Board of BMC Public Health in 2010.

Global Health

Prof Tim K. Mackey is Section Editor of the Global Health section of BMC Public Health.  He is the Director of the Global Health Policy Institute, an Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology and Global Public Health at UC San Diego School of Medicine, and is the Associate Director for the UC San Diego MAS Program in Health Policy & Law.  He has an interdisciplinary background and a passion for engaging in research, teaching, and advocacy on global public health policy-related issues.  He has co-authored over 100 journal articles, with his work featured in multidisciplinary journals such as Science, JAMA, Nature Biotechnology, The Lancet, Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology, Clinical Microbiology Reviews and BMC Medicine. His research and expertise has also been featured in major news outlets such as CNN, NPR, and POLITICO Pro.  His work focuses on an array of multidisciplinary topics in domestic and global public health.

Energy balance-related behaviors

Carol Maher is an Associate Research Professor in the Alliance for Research in Exercise, Nutrition and Activity (ARENA) at the University of South Australia.  With a background in physiotherapy, her research focuses on the links between lifestyle behaviors (particularly physical activity, sedentary behavior and sleep) and health and obesity in children and adults. She is particularly interested in developing and testing technology-based interventions for improving health behaviours, using platforms such as websites, smartphone apps and online social media. Associate Professor Maher joined the Editorial Board of BMC Public Health in May of 2014.

Occupational Health

Isabelle Niedhammer is a Research Director at the French National Institute for Health and Medical Research (INSERM, France). She is currently working at the Research Institute for Environmental and Occupational Health (IRSET-INSERM U1085). Her background is in occupational health epidemiology. Her research topics are related to occupational and social epidemiology and she is particularly interested in job stress, psychosocial work exposures and workplace violence, and their impact on health, as well as in the contribution of these occupational exposures to social inequalities in health. She is the author of more than 100 publications in international peer-reviewed journals and participated in the writing of 8 books. She joined the Editorial Board of BMC Public Health in 2011.

Environmental Health

Mahfuzar Rahman is physician/epidemiologist by training. He has been with BRAC (NGO) since 2014 and joined the Editorial Board of BMC Public Health in 2015. His main research interests are occupational, environmental and molecular epidemiology, with a focus on the effects of pollutants on health and the interactions between host factors (genetic and acquired susceptibility) and environmental exposures on acute and chronic diseases. Other interests include the evaluation of non-communicable diseases, examining and measuring the underlying causes of chronic disease, morbidity and mortality. His works involve health system research concerning health delivery for women and children, public health implementation research to ensure evidence-based interventions incorporating health human resource issues and leading interventions for improved service quality. While most of his work is related to low income settings, Dr. Rahman has also been involved in The Global Burden of Disease Study in Seattle and Imperial College, London for many years.

Health behavior, health promotion and society

Dr. Rehkopf is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Stanford University, in the Division of Primary Care and Population Health, with an appointment in Health Research and Policy, and affiliations with the Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality and the Stanford Center for Population Health. He received his Masters in Public Health in Epidemiology and Biostatistics from the University of California, Berkeley, and his doctorate at the Harvard School of Public Health in the Department of Health and Social Behavior. He was a Robert Wood Johnson Health and Society Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of California, San Francisco. His research focus is on understanding the health effects of income and work policy on health, as well as understanding the biological pathways through which the social and economic environment impacts disease and death. He joined the Editorial Board of BMC Public Health in 2016.

Infectious Disease Epidemiology

Giovanni Rezza (MD) is the Director of the Department of Infectious Diseases of the Istituto Superiore di Sanità in Rome, Italy. Specialized in Hygiene and Preventive Medicine, and in Infectious Diseases, his main background is in infectious disease epidemiology. He has worked for WHO, the Italian Cooperation, and the European Union. His area of expertise includes HIV and other emerging infectious diseases. He is an expert on vaccines and vaccination strategies, and he has been a member of the WHO committee on HIV vaccine research and development. He has been the Director of the AIDS National Research Programme, project leader of several Italian and EU projects, and reviewer for the EU, Pasteur Institute, MRC, and RIVM grant proposals. As an author of more than 400 articles indexed in PubMed, 4 books, and book chapters, his H index is currently 49 (according to Web of Science).

Energy balance-related behaviors

Richard Rosenkranz is currently a Professor in the Department of Food, Nutrition, Dietetics & Health at Kansas State University. With a background in behavioral science, public health nutrition, and physical activity, he has focused his research on the identification of modifiable influences of healthful eating and physical activity toward health promotion and chronic disease prevention. He is particularly interested in developing and testing interventions designed to impact the influences on physical activity and healthful eating, and then employing methods from implementation science to disseminate evidence-based policies and practices at scale within communities. Dr. Rosenkranz joined the Editorial Board of BMC Public Health in May of 2015.

Environmental Health

David Stieb is a public health physician/epidemiologist with the Environmental Health Science and Research Bureau at Health Canada and adjunct professor at the University of Ottawa School of Epidemiology, Public Health and Preventive Medicine. His main research interest is application of epidemiology to understanding and managing the public health impacts of air pollution, including primary research, systematic reviews and meta-analysis, risk analysis and risk communication. He joined the Editorial Board of BMC Public Health in 2015 and currently serves as a Section Editor of the Environmental Health section.

Energy balance-related behaviors

Dr. Thompson completed her PhD in Exercise Physiology and Nutrition from Arizona State University in 1991, and post-doctoral training at Stanford University in 1995. She is currently Professor of Public Health Nutrition and Exercise in the School of Sport and Exercise Sciences, University of Birmingham, UK. Janice’s research interests include working with high-risk communities to develop, implement, and evaluate culturally-tailored diet and physical activity interventions to reduce obesity and subsequent risks for type 2 diabetes. She is a Fellow and past Vice President of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), a Scientific Committee member of the European College of Sport Science (ECSS), and has authored over 100 scientific publications and four nutrition textbooks. In 2015, she was awarded the ACSM Citation Award in recognition of her significant contributions to research and scholarship in exercise science. Janice joined the Editorial Board for BMC Public Health as Section Editor in February 2016.

Environmental Health

Michelle C Turner is an Assistant Research Professor at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal, formerly CREAL), Barcelona, Spain as well as Affiliate Scientist at the McLaughlin Centre for Population Health Risk Assessment, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada.  Her primary research interest is examining potential environmental and occupational risk factors for cancer and chronic disease focusing on ambient air pollution exposures; ionizing and non-ionizing radiation (radon, extremely low frequency magnetic fields); chemical exposures; and circadian disruption using both epidemiologic and biomarker- based approaches to inform policy making.  She currently serves as Section Editor of the Environmental Health section of BMC Public Health.  She joined the Editorial Board of the journal in 2013.

Energy balance-related behaviors

Dianne S. Ward, EdD, is an experienced researcher in the area of child health; specifically, obesity prevention. She has published more than 189 research articles, 10 book chapters, and a book about physical activity interventions for children and adolescents.  Since 1998, she has been Professor of Nutrition at the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Research Fellow in the Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention and the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. Over the past 20 years, Dr. Ward has been Principal Investigator of co-investigator for more than 20 NIH, CDC, or RWJF funded research projects exploring environmental determinants of obesity and testing home-, school-, and community-based interventions to prevent obesity in children and families through promotion of healthy eating and/or physical activity.  Dr. Ward joined the editorial board of BMC Public Health in 2015.

Biostatistics and Methods

Dr. Shankar Viswanathan is an Assistant Professor of Biostatistics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, in the Department of Epidemiology and Population Health. He received his doctoral degree in Biostatistics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His methods research focuses on multivariate survival analysis, longitudinal data, and missing data analysis. His applied area focusses on Global Health, Injury Epidemiology, and Chronic Disease Epidemiology. He joined the Editorial Board of BMC Public Health in 2018.