BIOGRAPHY
Joseph Allen
Dr. Joseph G. Allen is an assistant 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. At Harvard, Dr. Allen directs the Healthy Buildings program where he created The 9 Foundations of a Healthy Building.
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. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Allen has published ten op-eds in leading newspapers including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and STAT News, translating science into actionable tips for the public.
Dr. Allen 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. 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.
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, Newsweek, The Washington Post, Fortune, and The New York Times. 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.