Thomas Clasen, an epidemiologist, is the Rose Salamone Gangarosa Professor of Environmental Health at the Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University and Professor of Water, Sanitation and Health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. He has led more than $40 million in research on household-level environmental health interventions in low-income countries, including water, sanitation and indoor air pollution. His work has been published in leading journals, including The Lancet Global Health, The BMJ, PLOS Med, Environmental Health Perspectives, WHO Bulletin, Epidemiology, and the International Journal of Epidemiology. His research includes randomized controlled field trials to assess the health impact of water, sanitation and household air pollution interventions, systematic reviews of water quality and sanitation interventions to prevent diarrhoeal disease and enteric infection, assessments of water and sanitation interventions in emergency and outbreak response, and cost and cost-effectiveness analyses of water and sanitation interventions in developing countries. His current research includes a multi-country trial to assess the health impact of LPG stoves; a large-scale trial of a program provide water filters and improved cook stoves to lower income populations in Rwanda; a matched-cohort study to evaluate a rural water and sanitation programmes in Orissa, India; a trial to assess the impact of arsenic water filters in West Bengal, India; and an evaluation of a slum redevelopment intervention in Fiji and Indonesia. Dr. Clasen was the chief advisor to the World Health Organization in developing the first set of Guidelines for Sanitation and Health.
Dr. Clasen holds an MSc (Control of Infectious Diseases) and PhD from the University of London; he also holds a JD (Law) from Georgetown University. Prior to moving into public health, Prof. Clasen practiced law for 20 years as a partner at Foley & Lardner, a 1000+ lawyer firm, where he specialized in securities, mergers and acquisitions, international licensing and joint ventures.