Harvard’s Meir Stampfer, M.D., is 2015 Commencement Speaker at Notre Dame of Maryland University

BALTIMORE - March 30, 2015 - PRLog -- Notre Dame of Maryland University announced that its speaker for the 2015 Commencement will be Meir Stampfer, M.D., (http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/meir-stampfer/) one of the five most cited scientists in clinical medicine over the past 20 years. He is the principal investigator of the Nurses’ Health Study and founding co-investigator of three other large-scale studies that are contributing to knowledge about cancer, nutrition, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and other serious medical conditions.

Dr. Stampfer is Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, Professor of Medicine in the Harvard Medical School and associate director of the Channing Division of Network Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Dr. Stampfer will be awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters at the ceremony on May 23 at the Hilton Baltimore.

“We are delighted to have Dr. Stampfer, a world-renowned scientist and researcher, as our Commencement speaker,” said NDMU President Marylou Yam, Ph.D. “His body of work, which has often contradicted conventional wisdom, has contributed to the health and wellbeing of countless people and will continue to benefit humanity for generations. He is a great example of what it means to transform the world.”

Dr. Stampfer’s research focuses on the causes and origins of chronic diseases, with particular focus on nutrition, cancer, and cardiovascular disease. He is involved in four large prospective cohort studies involving nurses, physicians and other health professions in which information on diet, smoking, physical activity, medications, and health screening behavior is gathered and the occurrence of cancer, cardiovascular disease, and other conditions is ascertained.

Dr. Stampfer is widely known for his writing on nutrition and health, including a 2003 article in Scientific American (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/rebuilding-the-...) he co-wrote with Harvard colleague Walter C. Willett that challenged the classic USDA food pyramid and offered an alternate pyramid that advocated the consumption of healthy mono- and polyunsaturated fats and whole grain carbohydrates – an approach finally recommended in the most recent 2015 U.S. Dietary Guidelines.

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Notre Dame of Maryland University was founded 120 years ago by the School Sisters of Notre Dame. Based on the progressive vision that education can transform the world, we prepare compassionate leaders who change lives. The University has four schools: Arts and Sciences, Education, Nursing and Pharmacy, as well as the Women’s College. Visit our website, ndm.edu, (http://www.ndm.edu/) for more information.