Joseph Allen
Associate Professor of Exposure Assessment Science, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health (USA)
Dr. Joseph G. Allen is an associate professor of exposure science at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and co-author of Healthy Buildings: How Indoor Spaces Drive Performance and Productivity, with John Macomber at Harvard Business School. He began his career conducting forensic health investigations of sick buildings in several hundred buildings across a diverse range of industries, including healthcare, biotechnology, education, commercial office real estate and manufacturing. At Harvard, Dr. Allen directs the Healthy Buildings program where he created ‘The 9 Foundations of a Healthy Building’. He is also the faculty advisor to the Harvard Healthier Building Materials Academy.
Dr. Allen is a Certified Industrial Hygienist (C.I.H.) and has been involved with infectious disease research and control strategies for over 12 years. He was the lead investigator for several Legionnaires’ disease outbreaks in major U.S. hospitals, responsible for testing, assessing risk, and developing control strategies. He was the lead author on a report for the National Academies of Sciences Airport Cooperative Research Program titled, “Infectious Disease Mitigation in Airports and Airplanes.” He has published peer-reviewed papers on the influence of humidity on risk from influenza, upper respiratory illness in dormitories using university electronic medical health records, and modeling how building factors can reduce measles risk in schools. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Dr. Allen has published over 18 op-eds in leading newspapers translating science into actionable tips for the public (New York Times; Washington Post x5; USA Today x3; Financial Times; STAT News), and an article in Harvard Business Review, “What Makes and Office Building Healthy“, which outlines a layered defense ‘Return to Office’ strategy for Covid-19 grounded in the hierarchy of controls.
Dr. Allen works with Fortune 500 companies on implementing Healthy Building strategies in their global portfolios and presents internationally on the topic of Healthy Buildings. His work has been featured widely in the popular press, including the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, National Geographic, Time, NPR, USA Today, The Washington Post, Fortune and The New York Times. He has appeared on national TV (Meet the Press; CNN; Fox News). Dr. Allen is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology and an Associate Editor of the journal Indoor Air. He earned his Doctor of Science (DSc) and Master of Public Health (MPH) degrees from the Boston University School of Public Health, and a Bachelor of Science (BS) degree in Biology from Boston College. More information on his research can be found at www.ForHealth.org.