History of Public Health at Harvard

Timeline of Departmental Names and Chairs

The following research was conducted by Hanna Clutterbuck-Cook and Heather Mumford between 2020 and 2022, using historic course catalogs and other reference material available at the Center for the History of Medicine. Please email us with corrections, clarifications, or questions. 

1913 - 1921: Formal departments did not exist in the early school. Rather, courses were grouped together in the catalog, and these specific “groups” were given titles. Students took public health courses at HMS, HU in Cambridge, and MIT. As far as we can tell, there were no early groups with direct connections to Biostatistics. To see an isolated list of the first "departments" of the school, see The Early School (1913-1921).

1922 – Department of Vital Statistics 

• Edwin Wilson (1922-1945) 

1946 - Department of Biostatistics 

• Hugo Muench (1946-1961) 
• Robert Reed, (1961-1973) 
• Jane Worcester (1973-1977) 
• Frederick Mosteller (1977-1980) 
• Marvin Zelen (1981-1990) 
• Nan Laird (1990-1999) 
• Stephen Lagakos (1999-2007) 
• Louise Ryan (2007-2009) 
• Victor De Gruttola (2009-2014) 
• Xihong Lin (2015-2018) 
• John Quackenbush (2018-present) 

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Timeline 

• Founded 1922 

• Becomes Biostatistics 1946 

Chairs 

1. Edwin Wilson (1922-1945) 

2. Carl R Doering (1945-1946) 

3. Hugo Muench (1946-1961) 

4. Robert Reed (1961-1973) 

5. Jane Worcester (1973-1977) 

6. Marvin Zelen (1977-1990) 

7. Nan Laird (1990-1999) 

8. Stephen Lagakos (1999-2003) 

9. Lee-Jen Wei (2003-2006) 

10. Louise Ryan (2006-2009) 

11. Victor DeGruttola (2009-