Eva Schernhammer teaches at the Harvard School of Public Health and, since 1999, has been based at the Channing Laboratory, home of several famous cohort studies including the Physicians’ Health Study and the Nurses’ Health Study, on which she is a co-investigator.

She directs several innovative, NIH-funded projects related to her primary research interest in the relation of circadian rhythms and melatonin to cancer risk. Her major scientific contributions have highlighted the effects of light at night on cancer risk through the melatonin pathway. More broadly, she is interested in identifying and applying the use of biomarkers such as insulin-like growth factor and other endogenous hormones. In 2006, she became president of ASciNA (Austrian Scientists and Scholars in North America).

Schernhammer holds a Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Vienna Medical School, a Doctor of Public Health degree (epidemiology) from the Harvard School of Public Health, as well as a Master of Science degree in psychology from the University of Vienna. She completed her medical training in Vienna and practiced for several years in hematology/oncology before becoming interested in cancer prevention.

• Alpbach Technology Forum: Excellence in Science - a Matter of Gender? (September 20, 2005)