Biography

Eric Boerwinkle is dean and M. David Low Chair in Public Health at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) School of Public Health. He began serving as dean on Jan. 1, 2016. Boerwinkle joined the UTHealth faculty in 1986 and served as chair of the Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics and Environmental Health at UTHealth School of Public Health from 2003-2015. He has also directed the Human Genetics Center at the School of Public Health and the Brown Foundation Institute for Molecular Medicine (IMM) for the Prevention of Human Diseases, which are a part of UTHealth. He holds the Kozmetsky Family Chair in Human Genetics at the School of Public Health as well. Author of more than 800 scientific papers, Boerwinkle has led groundbreaking research on the connection between genes and health. He and his colleagues completed the world’s first genome-wide analyses for a variety of cardiovascular disease risk factors, including hypertension and diabetes. These investigations have been a critical step in developing drugs that lower disease risk. Boerwinkle earned a Ph.D. in human genetics from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he also earned master’s degrees in human genetics and statistics. In 2003, he was the recipient of the President’s Scholar Award, which recognizes distinguished achievements in research and education at UTHealth. Boerwinkle has served on several national research panels, including the Advisory Council for the National Human Genome Research Institute and the Board of External Advisors for the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health. Boerwinkle has also served as an editor of several journals including Circulation, Epidemiology, Genetic Epidemiology and the American Journal of Epidemiology.

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