Kurt Straif

Research Professor

Co-Director, Global Observatory on Planetary Health

Morissey College of Arts and Sciences, Schiller Institute for Integrated Science and Society, and Connell School of Nursing

Department

Biology

Research

With my background in clinical oncology, occupational and environmental medicine and epidemiology my research is broad and into identification of all kinds of risk and preventive factors of cancer and evidence-informed global cancer control in support of achieving the goals of the SDG 2030 agenda, and particularly SDG 3, Health, with a focus on non-communicable diseases.

Before joining Boston College as a Visiting Professor (2019-2022) and Research Professor (since 2022), I have worked for almost two decades at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC/WHO) in Lyon, France as the Head of the IARC Monographs Program and the Section of Evidence Synthesis and Classification (encompassing the groups of IARC Monographs, IARC Handbooks of Cancer Prevention, WHO Classification of Tumours). I was responsible for the series of Monographs on the carcinogenicity of tobacco (including involuntary smoking, smokeless tobacco and betel quid); air pollution (including indoor and outdoor air pollution, diesel engine exhaust); radiofrequency electromagnetic fields; shift-work and circadian disruption; the IARC Handbooks of Cancer Prevention including Handbooks on cancer preventive effects of avoidance of obesity and screening for breast and colorectal cancer. I contribute my expertise to the Global Burden of Disease project to inform global and local policy for cancer prevention.