Renee N Salas, MD, MPH, MS

Renee N. Salas, MD, MPH, MS is an attending physician in the Department of Emergency Medicine and an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at Harvard Medical School (HMS). She is also a Yerby Fellow at the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment (C-CHANGE) at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Affiliated Faculty and a previous Burke Fellow at the Harvard Global Health Institute (HGHI).Dr. Salas has served as the lead author of the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change U.S. Brief since 2018 and founded and leads its Working Group of over 70 U.S. organizations, institutions, and centers working at the nexus of climate change and health. Dr. Salas was a Co-Director for the first Climate Crisis and Clinical Practice Symposium, in partnership with The New England Journal of Medicine, and co-leads the broader Initiative. She was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2021 and serves on the planning committee for the Grand Challenge on Climate Change and Human Health Initiative. She has testified before Congress for the full House Committee on Oversight and Reform on how climate change is harming health. She engages in research on how climate change is impacting the healthcare system and developing evidence-based adaptation. She lectures and serves on committees at the nexus of climate and health nationally and internationally, advises and publishes in high impact journals, and her work and expertise are regularly featured in mainstream media outlets like the New York Times, NPR, Time, and the Associated Press. She is the recipient of the 2018 Clinician-Teacher Development Award from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and a past recipient of the Shore Faculty Development Award at HMS.Dr. Salas received her Doctor of Medicine from the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine and concurrently obtained a Master of Science in Clinical Research. Her alma mater later awarded her the Early Career Leadership Award for her outstanding career achievements. She completed a four-year emergency medicine residency at the University of Cincinnati and matriculated to a Fellowship in Wilderness Medicine at MGH. She graduated with a Master of Public Health from the Harvard School of Public Health in 2016, with a concentration in environmental health.