David Rosner, a Professor of Sociomedical Sciences at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, studies how structural inequities impact health. He also serves as Co-director of Columbia University’s Center for the History and Ethics of Public Health, and as a Professor of History in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Professor Rosner is the author of nearly a dozen books. His most recent work, Lead Wars: The Politics of Science and the Fate of America’s Children, was co-authored with his long-time collaborator, Gerald Markowitz.
Professor Rosner’s extensive research and writing on the politics of industrial pollution and occupational disease has supported litigation at the city, state, and community level nationwide. He has been an expert witness in cases focusing on the occupational disease silicosis, and against former lead paint manufacturers for their role in creating the hazardous environment that has plagued generations of American homes. In 2001, Professor Rosner was featured in Bill Moyers’ investigative report, Trade Secrets.
Before joining the faculty at Columbia University, Professor Rosner was a Distinguished Professor of History at the City University of New York. He is the recipient of a Robert Wood Johnson Investigator Award and the Viseltear Prize from the American Public Health Association’s Medical Care Section for “Outstanding Health, Safety, and Environmental Investigative Journalism”. Professor Rosner has also been a Guggenheim Fellow; a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow; a Josiah Macy Fellow; and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine in 2010.
Professor Rosner received his Ph.D. from Harvard University, his Masters in Public Health from the University of Massachusetts and his BA from the City College of New York. He is the father of two, and currently lives in New York City with his wife, an author and psychotherapist.
