Gregory Wellenius, ScD

Gregory Wellenius, ScD, is a Professor of Environmental Health and Director of the Center for Climate and Health at the School of Public Health at Boston University. He is an environmental epidemiologist committed to reducing the adverse health impacts of continued climate change through research, training, and engagement. Dr. Wellenius also teaches an introductory graduate-level class on quantitative methods and serves on the Research Committee of the Health Effects Institute, as a visiting scientist with Google, and on the executive committee of the Extreme Heat Resilience Alliance.

In partnership with a faculty, staff, and students from diverse disciplines, Dr. Wellenius’s research seeks to generate the actionable scientific evidence needed to ensure that our communities are as resilient, sustainable, and healthy as possible. Specifically, his group seeks to: 1) understand the adverse health impacts of extreme weather events, air pollution, and other climate-relevant hazards, 2) assess the effectiveness of strategies to reduce these adverse health impacts, and 3) leverage novel signals to provide timely and actionable insights to public health officials and other key stakeholders. For example, his recent publications highlight the risks posed by extreme heat to our physical and mental health, the limited health benefits of heat warnings and advisories, and the potential utility of data on internet search patterns and population mobility to inform public health.

Prior to joining the faculty at BU in 2020, Dr. Wellenius served as Associate Professor of Epidemiology at the Brown University School of Public Health and Director of Brown’s Center for Environmental Health and Technology. Prior to that, he earned dual doctorate degrees from the Departments of Environmental Health and Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health, completed a post-doctoral fellowship in the Cardiovascular Division of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC, a Harvard Medical School teaching hospital), and served as Instructor in Medicine at BIDMC and Harvard Medical School. He has published extensively on the cardiovascular effects of ambient air pollution, contributed to the US EPA’s 2009 Integrated Science Assessment for Particulate Matter, provided invited expert testimony on this topic before the US House of Representatives and the US Senate, and served as a co-author of the 4th National Climate Assessment of the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP). He is the 2019 winner of the ISEE Tony McMichael Mid-Term Career Award.

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