Jessica Leibler

Jessica Leibler, affiliated faculty with the Boston University Institute for Global Sustainability (IGS), is an Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental Health at the Boston University School of Public Health. She is an environmental epidemiologist with focus areas in occupational health, agricultural health and safety, and emerging diseases. Dr. Leibler leads an NIH-sponsored research program on environmental risk factors for kidney disease among adolescents and young adults in Central America, a region of high risk for chronic kidney disease of non-traditional origin (CKDnt). She is also engaged in occupational health studies in Central America of agricultural workers and other outdoor workers focused on exposure to extreme heat, chemicals, and metals in the context of kidney disease. Additionally, Dr. Leibler has an active research agenda on emerging diseases from food animal production in the United States. She has led occupational health studies of the emergence of zoonotic influenza viruses and antibiotic-resistant bacteria from industrial food animal production. Her work is currently considering implications for respiratory health, including gene expression and the respiratory microbiome, among children living in proximity to industrial food animal facilities.

Dr. Leibler has also collaborated with veterinary colleagues to assess the risk of zoonotic pathogen emergence from wild rodents in Boston and the persistence of antibiotic-resistance genes in the wild rodent reservoir. She has also led studies of pathogen and metal exposure to children associated with contact with backyard chicken production in urban and suburban environments.

Dr. Leibler teaches within the BUSPH MPH core curriculum, including foundation courses on quantitative methods, epidemiology, leadership, and management. She was the 2019 recipient of the Norman Scotch Award for Excellence in Teaching from BUSPH and received the National Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health (ASPPH)’s Early Career Public Health Teaching Award in 2017.

Pronouns: she/her

LinkedIn: /in/jessica-leibler