Alexander More
Area of Expertise
Climate change and health, Environmental health, Air and water pollution (PM2.5, metal, fossil fuel), Sustainability, Economic impact of epidemic disease, Climate & migrations, Urban health, Health policy
Degrees
PhD, Harvard University
MA, Harvard University
BA, Washington University
Additional Information
Dr. Alexander More's research focuses on the impact of climate change on population and ecosystem health and the economy. By using ultra-high-resolution climatic, epidemiological, ecological, economic and archeoscientific records, Dr. More brings recent catastrophic environmental changes into a broader perspective, one that allows stark comparisons between current and past trends in temperature, pollution, pandemic disease, and extreme weather, all of which directly impact food production, human health, economic prosperity, and political stability. Dr. More is author of several landmark studies of the impact of climate on pandemics and pollution, and an active contributor to the fields of environmental health, climate science, health economics & policy, sustainability and planetary health.
Dr. More leads a project on the impact of climate change on human and ecosystem health and the economy in the last millennium. In addition to academic journals such as The Lancet, Nature Medicine, and AGU’s GeoHealth, his work is routinely featured in The Washington Post, CNN, The Guardian, Popular Science, Forbes, Smithsonian Magazine, Natural History Magazine, Der Spiegel, Archaeology Magazine, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Frankfurter Allgemein, AGU's Eos, Science et vie, and more than 150 other print and online publications (see media page). He has been a keynote speaker at the Global Exploration Summit, the Milstein Science Series at the American Museum of Natural History, TEDx, and several other global events.
His work brings him to study government responses to environmental and public health crises. He is completing a book on the origins of welfare and health care policy in the western world, a long-standing interest that gained him a position in the Office of Senator Ted Kennedy while he was drafting the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). More’s interests have taken him to traditional archival repositories, as well as to expeditions to sites across Europe, North America and Oceania, including several underwater surveys in the Mediterranean, North Atlantic and South Pacific. Dr. More is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society the Managing Editor of Harvard's MAPS Digital Atlas where his and other researchers’ data is visualized for public and media use.
Raised and educated in Italy and Greece in the early part of his life, More moved permanently to New York City to complete his secondary education. He attended college in Chicago and eventually Washington University in St. Louis. Immediately after graduation, he continued his studies in an interdisciplinary PhD program at Harvard University, where he has taught ten different courses and earned as many teaching awards. He has supervised seven theses, with topics ranging from the creation and evolution of Medicaid and Medicare legislation in the United States, to the establishment of the public health system in post-revolutionary Mexico and the Sultanate of Oman, the leading role of women in the creation of the World Health Organization (WHO), and the first food enrichment policies in interwar United States.
Dr. More is a frequent contributor in media coverage of climate change, public health and economic trends. His work extends into the non-profit world, where he has supervised a Harvard-Columbia student-run, public-health/environmental initiative in Bolivia—now a full-fledged NGO, Refresh Bolivia—securing initial funding with two grants from the Ford Fund. More also served as Managing Director of the World Ocean Forum, former chair of the Dept. of Public Health and Honors College at Long Island University, and he serves as Communications and Education Director at Blue Ocean Watch, a climate-oriented ocean non-profit. More is a fellow and former director of the Explorers Club, a former fellow of the Theodore Roosevelt Institute and Dumbarton Oaks Research Library in Washington, D.C., and a recipient of the Arango Fund and Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation Research Grants.