Marie Griffin, MD, MPH

Dr. Griffin is a professor of Health Policy, Emerita, and an internationally recognized epidemiologist and scholar. Her research focus has been safety and effectiveness of drugs and vaccines and the burden of vaccine-preventable diseases.

She has more than 300 peer-reviewed publications and has made seminal contributions to the vaccine science and public health literature. Her research has impacted policy and advanced some of the most important challenges and controversies in the field of vaccines and public health over the last several decades. Her work was the first to quantify the risks of influenza for pregnant women and was pivotal in the universal recommendation of influenza vaccine for all individuals in the United States over 6 months of age.

Dr. Griffin joined the faculty at Vanderbilt as an assistant professor in 1986 and advanced to professor of Health Policy and Medicine. She was one of the first women to choose the tenure track in the Medical Center and soon became a role model for other women interested in becoming research scientists. She co-founded the Master of Public Health program, which admitted its first students in 1996, and served in many roles in that program before becoming the director in 2014.

She was one of the key figures in the creation of the David Satcher Public Health Scholars Program, which provides tuition support and the opportunity to conduct research at the Satcher Health Leadership Institute to students from underrepresented backgrounds.