Early Career Epidemiologist

SER’s Brian MacMahon Early Career Epidemiologist Award is awarded annually to recognize early career epidemiologists who have already made substantial contributions to the field and are poised to become future leaders in epidemiology. Please note that exceptional achievements may be in one or more of the following areas: research, mentoring, teaching, or service. This award is funded by Harvard University, School of Public Health in honor of Dr. Brian MacMahon.

Eligibility

At the time of the submission open date, candidates must be an SER member who is an early career epidemiologist, defined as < 7 years from terminal degree. This limit may be extended accordingly for parental leave, for medical leaves, for caregiving for a spouse or parent, or for other similar considerations. If you are unsure of the candidate’s eligibility, please contact Sue Bevan (sbevan@epiresearch.org). Epidemiologists in academia, government and the private sector are eligible. Career accomplishments, evidence of strong trajectory of career development, and promise of leadership strength are core criteria that are used for selection of the annual awardee.

Requirements

Nomination letters can be written by any current SER member. Self nominations will not be accepted. Multiple nominations do not increase the likelihood of being awarded. In the case of multiple nominations for a single candidate, submitters will be contacted to coordinate a joint nomination.

Award Details

The award winner will be awarded $5,000 and be invited to give a scientific presentation at the Annual Meeting.

Brian MacMahon was born on August 23, 1923, in Sheffield, England. At the University of Birmingham, England, he earned the diplomas of the Royal Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons in 1946, the MB, ChB degree in 1948 and the MD degree in 1955.

Between 1946 and 1948, MacMahon served as Ship Surgeon in the English Merchant Navy. He obtained a PhD in Social Medicine at Birmingham, UK, and then a Master’s degree in Epidemiology at Harvard School of Public Health in 1953. After faculty appointments back in Birmingham and in Brooklyn, NY, he was appointed Head of the Department of Epidemiology at Harvard School of Public Health in 1958. In 1960, with his colleague Tom Pugh, MacMahon published Epidemiologic Methods, later to become Epidemiology: Principles and Methods, which was the first modern epidemiology textbook and served as the standard text for decades.

At Harvard, MacMahon built a department that developed national and international leadership in epidemiologic methods, particularly with respect to cancer. His graduates have become leaders in academia and governmental research units worldwide. He is most widely known for his research on the etiology of breast cancer, which included a novel international case-control study.

Previous Award Winners

2025

Ellen Caniglia
Ellen Caniglia is an assistant professor of epidemiology in the Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Informatics at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. Dr. Caniglia is a perinatal and HIV epidemiologist who works to improve health outcomes among pregnant people and their children, and among people with HIV. Her work utilizes methods for causal inference to study the effects of pharmaceutical, lifestyle, and health services interventions to improve neonatal and maternal outcomes and disparities in these outcomes.
Dr. Caniglia received her ScD in Epidemiology from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She collaborates broadly on projects related to causal inference, HIV, and reproductive, perinatal, and pediatric epidemiology.

2024

Jacquelyn Cragg
Dr. Cragg is a data scientist and Assistant Professor in in the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences at UBC. She completed MPH and PhD degrees in epidemiology and biostatistics from the UBC School of Population and Public Health.
She also completed post-doctoral fellowships with the Harvard T.H Chan School of Public Health and International Collaboration on Repair Discoveries (ICORD).
Her current research aims to identify causes, risk factors, and biomarkers of neurological disease progression, including Parkinson’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injury, and stroke.
At the core of her work is a series of prospective and retrospective investigations that integrate genetic, biochemical, clinical assessments, and medication history with both traditional epidemiological approaches and machine-learning algorithms. Her work using advanced analytical techniques has applications in modelling disease progression, drug safety, and drug repurposing.

2023

Usama Bilal
Usama Bilal is an assistant professor in the Urban Health Collaborative and the Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics at Drexel’s Dornsife School of Public Health. His primary research interest is the macrosocial determinants of health, with an interest in describing health inequities in urban environments. He earned a PhD in Cardiovascular Epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, an MPH from the Universidad de Alcala in Spain, and MD from the Universidad de Oviedo in Spain.
@usama_bilal
s

2022

Maya Mathur

2021

Kara Rudolph
I am an Assistant Professor of Epidemiology at Columbia University. My research interests are in developing and applying causal inference methods to understand social and contextual influences on mental health, substance use, and violence in disadvantaged, urban areas of the United States.
My current work focuses on developing methods for transportability and mediation, and subsequently applying those methods to better understand mechanisms underlying the prevention and treatment of drug use disorders.
More generally, my work on generalizing/ transporting findings from study samples to target populations and identifying subpopulations most likely to benefit from interventions contributes to efforts to optimally target available policy and program resources.

2020

Elizabeth Rose Mayeda

2019

Lauren McCullough
Dr. Lauren McCullough received her PhD in Epidemiology from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in 2013 and is currently faculty in the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University. Dr. McCullough’s primary research interests are in uncovering the molecular mechanisms that underlie associations between energetics, cancer incidence and prognosis. Her research program integrates molecular epidemiology, epigenetics and other biomarkers for disease risk and progression; environmental and reproductive epidemiology; disparities research; as well as causal inference methods.

2018

Sonja Swanson
Dr. Swanson is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at Erasmus MC, and an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. Her methodological research focuses on improving the use and transparency of methods for estimating causal effects in epidemiology. Such work spans applications in observational studies and pragmatic randomized trials. Her substantive research primarily focuses on neuropsychiatric disorders and related health outcomes.

2017

Laura Rosella
Dr. Laura Rosella holds a primary role is a full-time tenure-track faculty position in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. Dr. Rosella currently holds a Canada Research Chair in Population Health Analytics and appointments at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences and Public Health Ontario. She has authored 100 peer-reviewed publications in the area of public health, public health policy, and health services research.
Her expertise in population health, health system research and strong methodological background uniquely positions her research to enable meaningful synergies between health care, public health and social systems to improve population health and ensure a sustainable and equitable healthcare system. She specializes in population data sources, ranging from primary collected data to administrative data, health and non-health data, as well as in designing new methods to use these data in innovative ways. Dr. Rosella has led the development of population risk tools to support health decision-making, which are being adapted in several countries. In addition, Dr. Rosella has developed a formal partnership with several health leaders across Canada, including local, provincial, and national health decision-makers. Her recent focus on linking prevention efforts to health system sustainability an issue that affects every healthcare system in the world as they grapple with declining funding yet increased demand for healthcare.

2016

Brandon Marshall
Brandon Marshall is an Assistant Professor and Graduate Program Director of the Department Epidemiology at the Brown University School of Public Health. He received his PhD in epidemiology from the University of British Columbia in 2011, and completed postdoctoral training at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. His research interests focus on substance use epidemiology, HIV/AIDS, and the social, environmental, and structural determinants of health among vulnerable populations.

2015

Sunni Mumford

2014

Daniel Westreich
Dr. Daniel Westreich, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at UNC-Chapel Hill. Dr. Westreich’s work focuses on infectious diseases particularly HIV, and how HIV intersects with women’s health and chronic diseases epidemiology. In addition, Dr. Westreich has an active research program on statistical methods for causal inference in observational data, with specific application to epidemiologic methods for translating science into policy.

Submit Nominations

Login Required:

You must be logged in to register for the meeting. Please Login Below: