About
Dr. Paul W. Brandt-Rauf is Dean and Distinguished University Professor in the School of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Health Systems at Drexel University. He was previously Dean of the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), where he also held appointments as Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences in the School of Public Health, Professor of Medicine in the College of Medicine, Professor of Bioengineering in the College of Engineering, and Professor of Public Administration in the College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs.
Dr. Brandt-Rauf received his BS, MS, and ScD in Applied Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, his MD, and his MPH and DrPH in Environmental Sciences from Columbia University. He did post-graduate training in anatomic/environmental pathology, internal medicine, and occupational/environmental medicine, and he is certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine and the American Board of Preventive Medicine in Occupational Medicine. He is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, the American College of Preventive Medicine, the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, and the Royal Society of Medicine. After completing his post-graduate training, Dr. Brandt-Rauf joined the faculty at Columbia where he was most recently Professor and Chair of the Department of Environmental Health Sciences in the Mailman School of Public Health as well as Professor of Medicine, Earth and Environmental Engineering, and International and Public Affairs. He became Professor Emeritus at Columbia University upon assuming his position at UIC.
Academic Focus and Leadership
Under Dr. Brandt-Rauf's leadership as Chair of the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at Columbia, the department successfully expanded its academic programs (including a new MPH track in environmental health policy and an interdisciplinary PhD in environmental health sciences) approximately doubling student enrollment and successfully expanded its research programs with an approximate 6-fold increase in extramural funding. As a result, at the time of his departure the department was ranked as the second best in the country among departments of environmental health.
Under his leadership as Dean of the School of Public Health at UIC, the school has initiated new academic programs (including an undergraduate major in public health and an on- line version of the doctoral program in public health leadership for practicing professionals) resulting in significantly increased enrollment, new research programs (including a research mentorship program for junior faculty and pilot grants for the development of new research initiatives) resulting in significantly increased extramural funding, new service/practice programs (including a joint training program in public health with the Peace Corps, increased collaboration with local and state health agencies, and major expansions of the highly acclaimed programs for violence prevention in the inner city and AIDS prevention in Africa), and new development activities (with a tripling of the school’s endowment including the school’s first three endowed professorships).
Dr. Brandt-Rauf’s background in teaching has been extensive and has included both graduate and undergraduate experiences in numerous disciplines and schools at both Columbia and UIC. At Columbia, he personally mentored a number of master’s students, doctoral students, post-doctoral fellows, and occupational medicine residents in addition to teaching in a range of graduate courses in the School of Public Health and the College of Physicians and Surgeons as well as undergraduate and graduate courses in the School of Engineering and Applied Science and the School of International and Public Affairs; he also served as a faculty advisor for undergraduate engineering students in the Columbia chapter of Engineers Without Borders. At UIC, he has also mentored master’s students, doctoral students and post-doctoral fellows and has taught in graduate courses in the School of Public Health and the College of Medicine. In addition, as noted, he has established a new and innovative undergraduate liberal arts program in public health at UIC based on confluent, interdisciplinary, action-oriented, community-based participatory learning, as well as an on-line DrPH in public health leadership.
Dr. Brandt-Rauf’s background in research has been focused on environmental health, particularly the molecular biology and molecular epidemiology of environmental carcinogenesis. In addition to basic mechanistic research, his work has included epidemiologic studies of workplace and environmental carcinogens in the United States and around the world, as well as the development of new prophylactic/therapeutic interventions to mitigate the effects of these exposures. He has also written extensively on ethical, legal and social issues in occupational/environmental health policy and practice. He has authored over 240 journal articles and book chapters and edited several volumes on occupational/environmental health, and he is currently the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.
Dr. Brandt-Rauf has been the recipient of several honors and awards including: the Allan Rosenfield Alumni Award for Excellence in Public Health from Columbia University; the Robert R.J. Hilker Award; the Harriet Hardy Award; the Robert A. Kehoe Award of Merit, the Meritorious Service Award and the Knudsen Lifetime Achievement Award of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine; and a Certificate of Appreciation from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. He has been featured in an award-winning film documentary (Blue Vinyl). He has been ranked among the top twenty Deans and Directors of Public Health and previously was regularly listed among the Top Doctors in Occupational Medicine and the Top Doctors in Preventive Medicine.
Dr. Brandt-Rauf is a former member of the Board of Directors of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine and Engineers Without Borders and a current member of the Board of Directors of the Carcinogenesis Foundation. He has served as an advisor and consultant to industry (e.g., IBM, ExxonMobil, Rohm and Haas, General Mills), academia (e.g., Harvard University, the Karolinska Institute) and numerous governmental agencies (e.g., the World Health Organization, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, the Pan American Health Organization Foundation, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering).