Harvard Professor Appointed by Pope Leo to Vatican Advisory Body

Harvard School of Public Health Professor Tyler J. VanderWeele was appointed by Pope Leo XIV as the newest member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences last week, placing a leading epidemiologist inside one of the Vatican’s most influential advisory bodies.

VanderWeele is now one of 36 ordinary academicians in the Catholic Church-affiliated academy, which seeks to promote research in “the social, economic, political, and juridical sciences.”

Members meet regularly with the Pope — including in a plenary assembly held every two years — and collaborate in research and dialogue that help inform Catholic social teaching.

VanderWeele’s appointment brings a public health and epidemiological perspective to an academy historically shaped by scholars in economics, political science, and law.

“There has traditionally been a stronger focus on economics, politics, law,” VanderWeele said in an interview with The Crimson on Monday. “So I think coming in with an epidemiologic perspective is perhaps a bit unusual.”

“I think perhaps this is a turning of attention to health,” he added.

VanderWeele, who is Catholic, has served as a professor of epidemiology at the School of Public Health since 2009, where his research advances what he has termed “positive epidemiology,” the study of the social, psychological, and religious factors that contribute to positive health outcomes.

In 2016, he helped found the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard, an interdisciplinary initiative that brings together researchers from a range of fields to study and promote human well-being.

“In many ways, it was earlier work on the relation between religious communities and health outcomes that motivated the Human Flourishing Program and its development,” VanderWeele said.

VanderWeele joins a short list of Harvard affiliates who have served in the academy. Previous members include Mary A. Glendon, a professor emerita at Harvard Law School who served as the president of the academy from 2004 to 2014, and Kennedy School professor Dani Rodrik ’79.

VanderWeele said he would be “delighted” if his appointment could help improve Harvard and global religious institutions.

“Harvard has extraordinary capacity to influence what happens in this country and globally,” he said. “I think the more we can bring world religions into dialogue with one another and into dialogue with Harvard, the better off we will ultimately be.”

Despite the importance he places on theological considerations in public health, VanderWeele said religion remains an underemphasized topic at the School of Public Health.

“We’ve tried to bring attention to these matters, and I do think there has been some greater openness over the past decade or so,” he said. “But I would say at the School of Public Health, it’s still considered perhaps a not very important topic, or at least a neglected topic, from my perspective.”

A HSPH spokesperson declined to comment.

VanderWeele said the appointment will likely shift more of his attention toward examining how his research intersects with Catholic social teaching, though he emphasized that the broader aims of his work remains unchanged.

“In many ways, I see this appointment to the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences as consonant with what we’re already doing at the program: trying to study and promote human flourishing,” he said. “Mostly, I view this as a way to enhance the work that that we’re doing,”

“If we’re going to try to promote societal flourishing globally,” he added, “it is important to respect, and in some ways make use of, the incredible power of religions and religious communities and also to foster more global collaboration.”

—Staff writer Riya S. Shah can be reached at [email protected] and on Signal at riyas.23. Follow her on X @RiyaShah233.

—Staff writer Juliana L. Yao can be reached at [email protected] and on Signal at jly.87. Follow her on X @JulianaYao298.