Steven D. Stellman

Steven Stellman’s original training was in physical chemistry (Ohio State 1966, New York University 1971) with a post-doc in crystallographic analysis of DNA and RNA structure at Princeton. In 1975, he transitioned to public health and epidemiology, specializing in causes and prevention of cancer and other chronic diseases. He worked at two non-profit research organizations: The American Health Foundation, where he conducted hospital-based studies of tobacco-related cancers and environmental aspects of breast cancer, and the American Cancer Society, where he co-founded a cohort study of over 1.25 million men and women. He served in the New York City Department of Health as Assistant Commissioner for Biostatistics and Epidemiological Research during the Koch years, and more recently as Research Director for a cohort of 71,000 survivors of the World Trade Center disaster. In 2001, he joined the faculty of the Department of Epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health, where he taught courses on basic epidemiology, data analysis, and chronic diseases, headed the chronic disease certificate program, served on numerous committees (curriculum, admissions, methods exam, cancer epidemiology training program), and mentored dozens of students; he retired in 2022. For over forty years, he collaborated with his wife, Dr. Jeanne Stellman, on studies of the health of Vietnam veterans, with a special emphasis on a cohort of 12,000 veterans begun in 1982, which they are still following up. He also had a lifelong interest in music. He spent 15 years as the music director of the DeRossi Singers at the Kane Street Synagogue in Brooklyn, and 20 years as a tenor with the Dessoff Choirs. Since 2016, he has studied piano and chamber music performance in the Evening Division of Juilliard.

Updated November 27, 2023