10th Nordic Conference of Epidemiology and Register-Based Health Research

Arna Hauksdóttir is a professor and head of the Centre of Public Health Sciences, University of Iceland. She is a researcher within the area of epidemiology, stress and health. Her main theme of research has been the health effects of traumas, both personal (loss of a loved one) and collective (economic crisis, natural disasters).

Francesca Dominici, PhD is the co-Director of the Harvard Data Science Initiative, at the Harvard University and the Clarence James Gamble Professor of Biostatistics, Population and Data Science at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and of the International Society of Mathematical Statistics. She is an expert in causal inference, machine learning, Bayesian statistics. She leads an interdisciplinary group of scientists with the ultimate goal of addressing important questions in environmental health science, climate change, and biomedical science. Dominici has published more than 220 peer-reviewed publications and was recognized in Thomson Reuter’s 2019 list of the most highly cited researchers–ranking in the top 1% of cited scientists in her field. Her work has been covered by the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, BBC, the Guardian, CNN, and NPR. In April 2020 she has been awarded the Karl E. Peace Award for Outstanding Statistical Contributions for the Betterment of Society by the American Statistical Association.

Ingileif Jónsdóttir is Professor of Immunology at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Iceland and Head of Division of Infectious and Inflammatory Diseases at deCODE genetics.

She is a former Member of the Science Committee of the University of Iceland (1999-2002), Member of the Quality Assurance Committee of the University of Iceland (2007-11) and Member of the Icelandic Research and Policy Council (2003-9). She was Chair of the National Bioethics Committee (1999-2002) and Member of the Nordic Committee on Bioethics (2002-2009, Chair in 2005). She was Delegate for Iceland in EU FP Programme Committees (1999-2007; FP4: Biotechnology, FP5:Quality of Life, FP6: Genomic and Biotechnology), and is Specialist in EU FP7 Programme Committee on Health (since 2007)

Prof. Jonsdottir’s research focuses on the limitations of the neonatal immune system and how they can be circumvented by vaccination strategies, including adjuvants, mucosal and maternal immunization. Prof. Jonsdottir also works on human immunology, focusing on long-term B-and T-cell memory induced by vaccination against pneumococci, meningococci, smallpox and influenza.

At deCODE genetics Prof. Jonsdottir leads the research on genetics of vaccine responses, infectious disesases, autoimmune and inflammatory diseases.

Paul Dickman PhD is a biostatistician with primary research interests in developing and applying statistical methods for population-based cancer survival analysis, particularly the estimation and modeling of relative survival. Current research, in collaboration with Professor Paul Lambert (University of Leicester), focuses on the development and application of methods for presenting patient survival that are relevant for patients, clinicians, and the general public. Paul also has general interests in epidemiology, particularly cancer epidemiology, and methods for register-based research.

Unnur A. Valdimarsdóttir, is a professor of Epidemiology at the University of Iceland, and adjunct professor at the Unit of Integrative Epidemiology, Karolinska Institutet, and Department of Epidemiology, Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health.

Her research program has focus on psychological trauma and stress-related disorders and their role in general health and major disease development. She has written more than 200 scientific papers and as principal investigator received several international grants supporting her ongoing research, e.g. from the European Research Council (StressGene) and NordForsk (COVIDMENT).