James Tielsch PhD

James M. Tielsch is Professor and Chair of the Department of Global Health at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health. Dr. Tielsch also holds an Adjunct Professor appointment in the Department of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

A graduate of the University of Washington and the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, Professor Tielsch has been engaged in epidemiologic research and service in a number of areas both domestically and internationally. He began his career documenting the burden of ocular disease and blindness in inner-city Baltimore and in various low-income countries around the world. He transitioned to applying experimental designs to test new interventions for blindness prevention in order to inform practice and policy. The expansion of vitamin A deficiency, a topic on which he has worked for over 20 years, from a strictly ophthalmologic issue to one of child health and survival prompted another transition to research in the areas of maternal, neonatal, and child health with a focus on micronutrient malnutrition, infectious disease, and environmental health in low-income countries. Dr. Tielsch has been the recipient of numerous national awards, served on a number of advisory committees for the US government and international agencies, and on the board of non-profit organizations involved in public health. He has published extensively in the scientific literature and maintains an active research program overseas.