Olaf Dammann

Olaf Dammann is a physician, epidemiologist, and philosopher at Tufts University School of Medicine, where he holds a professor position in both the Department of Public Health and Community Medicine and the Department of Pediatrics. He also holds a professorship in Philosophy at Tufts University School of Arts and Sciences.

Education:

• Doctor of Medicine (Universities of Lubeck and Hamburg, Germany, 1990)
• Master of Science in Public Health (Harvard School of Public Health, 1997)
• Ph.D. (University of Johannesburg, South Africa, 2019)

Research Interests: His work spans epidemiology and philosophy, focusing on the etiology of perinatal retina and brain disease, particularly the role of intrauterine infection in maternal/fetal inflammatory responses leading to brain white matter damage and ROP. He has been funded by the National Eye Institute (R21 and R01 grants) to study inflammatory biomarkers and ROP. His philosophical work centers on causal inference and etiological explanation, including two books: Causation in Population Health Informatics and Data Science (Springer, 2019) and Etiological Explanations (CRC Press, 2020).

Article Trends: His recent publications emphasize opioid-related mortality (spatiotemporal modeling), neonatal sepsis and ROP (etiological pathways), and philosophical critiques of statistical significance and causal inference in medicine.

Scientific Awards:

• Excellence in Teaching Award, MD/MPH and DVM/MPH Tracks (Tufts University, 2015)
• New England Perinatal Society Mentor Award (2015)
• Outstanding Tufts University School of Medicine Lecturer (2015-2016)

Teaching Activities include courses such as Clinical Epidemiology, Skills & Tools II/III, and Health Data Analysis and Usage, reflecting his interdisciplinary expertise in public health, informatics, and epidemiology.