Howard H Hiatt

Dr. Hiatt attended Harvard College and received his M.D. from the Harvard Medical School in 1948. Trained in clinical medicine, biochemistry, and molecular biology, he has been on the Harvard University faculty since 1955. His early research focussed on the application of molecular biology to medical problems, particularly cancer. He was a member of the team at the Pasteur Institute, Paris, that first identified and described messenger RNA, and he was among the first to demonstrate messenger RNA in mammalian cells. From 1963 to 1972, he was the first Herrman L. Blumgart Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Physician-in-Chief at Beth Israel Hospital. From 1972 to 1984, while he was Dean of the Harvard School of Public Health, the School strengthened greatly its work in the quantitative analytic sciences, introduced molecular and cell biology into its research and teaching, began its program in health policy and management, the first in a public health school, and promoted integration of its teaching and research programs with those in other Harvard Faculties. He is now Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Senior Physician at the Brigham and Women's Hospital. From 1991 to 1997, he was Secretary of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, where he began and directs the Academy's Initiatives For Children program. The program brings together academics and community members to address a range of educational, health, and social issues affecting the nation's children.