Dr. Kari Nadeau is the Naddisy Foundation Endowed Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics and Section Chief in Asthma and Allergy in the Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Division at Stanford. She is a world-renowned environmental health expert, especially on air pollution and how it affects the immune system in all ages – and she and her team are now focused on global climate change and wildfire exposures, particularly in underserved areas. She is a member of the NAM, a member of the Federal Wildfire Commission for the U.S., a member of the U.S. EPA Children Protection Committee, and works with the WHO on air pollution and climate change policy and education.
For more than 30 years, she has devoted herself to understanding how environmental and immune/genetic factors affect allergies, immune tolerance, and asthma. She and her team are focused in areas of global climate change and health by studying air pollution and wildfire exposures, particularly in underserved areas. As one of the globe’s foremost experts in adult and pediatric allergy, immunology, and asthma, her research is laying the groundwork for a variety of potential future therapies to prevent and cure allergies and asthma. Dr. Nadeau leads a team of multidisciplinary specialists. She has led research in oncology, transplant, infectious diseases, COVID, and autoimmune trials and is a member of the National Steering Committee at the NIH Immune Tolerance Network. She and her team have been awarded many patents, started 4 biotech companies, and worked in industry to shepherd two drugs through the FDA to approval. She also is an author of the Lancet Countdown in Global Climate Change 2020 and the book: The End of Food Allergy (published 2020).
Dr. Nadeau received her MD and PhD from Harvard Medical School through the NIH MSTP program. She completed a residency in pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital and a clinical fellowship in allergy, asthma and immunology at Stanford and at University of California, San Francisco.
Dr. Nadeau has served as a FDA consultant and a reviewer for NIH Study Sections. Also, she served on the environmental health policy committee for the American Thoracic Society, and serves on the Data and Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB) of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), and is a fellow in the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology (AAAAI). She started the Gordon Research Conference for Food Allergy and Chaired the first inaugural conference (2018). She is Chair of the Board of Scientific Counselors for the NIH Clinical Center (2018-2021). She is a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI), Association of American Physicians (AAP), the medical board of the American Lung Association in California, and in the past, has been a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the EPA, and is currently working with the US Congress, the WHO, International Wildfire Policy Group, CUGH, and CA Governor’s office on Global Climate Change emergency preparedness plans.
In addition to her above involvements, Dr. Nadeau contributes on multiple editorial boards for high impact journals and to date published over 300 peer-reviewed publications, and is a reviewer for high impact journals in basic science and clinical medicine (Nature, Nature Medicine, Science, Science Translational Medicine, Lancet, NEJM, JAMA, Allergy, JACI).
She is also passionate about breaking down health barriers and creating meaningful change for children and adults in underserved areas and has developed outreach and educational programs with partners in East Palo Alto, Inner City Chicago, Harlem, and San Francisco.
Her work has been recognized with numerous grants and awards. She has collaborated with many organizations and institutions. Through FARE, CoFAR, WHO, the United Nations and other partnerships, she collaborates with colleagues from institutions around the globe.