Sharon Lee Reilly Kardia is an American epidemiologist. She is the Millicent W. Higgins Collegiate Professor of Epidemiology and Associate Dean for Education at the

University of Michigan School of Public Health The University of Michigan School of Public Health is one of the professional graduate schools of the University of Michigan. Located in Ann Arbor, Michigan, UM SPH is one of the oldest schools of public health in the country and is also consid ...

. Her research interests involve genetic epidemiology of common chronic diseases.

Early life and education

Kardia earned her

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, B.S., B.Sc., SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree that is awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Scienc ...

degree from

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The institution was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools. In 1912, it became the Carnegie Institu ...

and her graduate degrees from the

University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...

Career

Kardia accepted a faculty position at the

(UMich) in 1998. Within her first year teaching at the institution, Kardia led a study examining why risk factors for atherosclerosis varied from person to person. Her research team discovered that the

Apolipoprotein E Apolipoprotein E (Apo-E) is a protein involved in the metabolism of fats in the body of mammals. A subtype is implicated in Alzheimer's disease and cardiovascular diseases. It is encoded in humans by the gene ''APOE''. Apo-E belongs to a family ...

protein determined how much influence cholesterol and other risk factors had on atherosclerosis. She later worked alongside Toby Citrin in 2001 to propose, develop, and lead UMich's first Center for Public Health and Community Genomics through a cooperative agreement between the

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the National public health institutes, national public health agency of the United States. It is a Federal agencies of the United States, United States federal agency under the United S ...

and the Association of Schools of Public Health. While serving in this role, Kardia led a nationwide study of 6,250 people to conclude that there was no single genetic cause of hypertension. Citrin and Kardia were also both appointed co-directors of the Life Sciences, Values and Society Program in 2004, where they said they would "expand the cross-campus initiative exploring the ethical and societal questions raised by advances in science." As a result of her genetics research, Kardia was named to the nonprofit Genetic Alliance Council. In 2017, Kardia was appointed the Millicent W. Higgins Collegiate Professor of Epidemiology. She was later named the University of Michigan's School of Public Health’s inaugural Associate Dean for Education During the

COVID-19 pandemic in North America The first cases of the COVID-19 pandemic of Coronavirus Disease 2019 in North America were reported in the United States on 23 January 2020. Cases were reported in all North American countries after Saint Kitts and Nevis confirmed a case on 2 ...

, Kardia co-led a project to develop an online COVID-19 symptom checklist and COVID-19 dashboard to give Michigan health officials easy access to high risk areas for new coronavirus cases and to assist in educating the public.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kardia, Sharon Living people Year of birth missing (living people) American women epidemiologists American epidemiologists University of Michigan alumni University of Michigan faculty Carnegie Mellon University alumni Genetic epidemiologists Apolipoproteins