I am pleased to share that, following a thorough internal search process, we have appointed Corwin Zigler, Ph.D., as the new director of the Center for Climate, Environment & Health (CCEH), effective September 1. Cory succeeds Joseph Braun, Ph.D., who has served as the center’s director since 2020. Under Joe’s strong leadership, the center was established as the Center for Children’s Environmental Health and he was instrumental in expanding its focus to the Center for Climate, Environment & Health in 2025. Joe will transition to a well-deserved year-long sabbatical where he will seek to expand the impact of his portfolio of work on the long-term health effects of environmental pollutant exposures early in the life course.

As many of you know, Cory is a professor of biostatistics at SPH, and his research brings together statistical methodology, epidemiology, large-scale computation and atmospheric science to better understand how environmental and climate policies affect human health. Cory brings a strong interdisciplinary perspective as well as a deep commitment to understanding and addressing the health impacts of environmental and climate-related exposures. His expertise in causal inference focused primarily on spatially-indexed data, spatial confounding, interference networks, physical process modeling and Bayesian methodology positions him exceptionally well to lead a center focused on the complex and increasingly urgent connections between climate, the environment and health.

Since joining Brown in 2024, Cory has become an important contributor to our research community, and we are excited about the opportunity for him to build on the strong foundation Joe has established. His experience working across disciplines, along with his national leadership and engagement with organizations including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, National Institutes of Health and Health Effects Institute, will be valuable as CCEH continues to grow its research, partnerships and impact. The search committee was particularly impressed by Cory’s vision for attracting and supporting trainees and building new collaborations in climate, environment and health research among faculty within and outside of Brown.

Please join me in congratulating Cory on his new role and in thanking Joe for his leadership and dedication to the center over the past six years. We are grateful for all that Joe has done to establish and strengthen this critical part of our School of Public Health, and we look forward to the next chapter of CCEH under Cory’s leadership.

Francesca L. Beaudoin, M.D., Ph.D.
Dean, School of Public Health