“Jim will work to ensure that HCRA promotes the highest quality of scholarship in the fields of risk and decision analysis and to see that these tools are applied to important problems in environmental and public health in a thoughtful and balanced manner,” Evans wrote in an e-mail.
Peter Neumann, associate professor of policy and decision sciences at the HSPH, singled out Hammitt’s ability to integrate academic and pragmatic considerations.
“He’s a rare person—one of the best pure methodologists I’ve ever worked with. He has a good understanding of policy issues, not just their applications,” Neumann said. “You don’t always get everything in the same package.”
Pointing to the importance of collaboration, Hammitt highlighted increased communication across the University as another of his objectives. He has begun work on a website to meet this need.
As director of HCRA, Hammitt has been forced to place some of his own research on the backburner.
“As a professor, I did a lot of my own research,” Hammit said. “I’m not getting my own research done at the moment.”
Whereas before he was responsible only for working with students and conducting research, Hammitt must now take on a variety of administrative tasks—recruiting faculty, overseeing faculty promotions and following the press’ coverage of HCRA, among many others. With all these added responsibilities, though, Hammitt said he hopes his new position will not prevent him from continuing to work personally with his students.
Only four months into his stint as director, Hammitt has plenty of time to tackle the items on his to-do list.
While Hammitt claims that he has “not done much” since he began his post, Bloom has great confidence in Hammitt.
“It would be hard to say that he has implemented anything tangible since he became director,” Bloom said. “But his role has been positive as he has reached out to colleagues and tried to develop a University-wide strategy.”
“I’m very hopeful that in the future, HCRA will continue to have a major impact in terms of helping people make decisions,” Bloom continued. “And I know that [Hammitt] will raise the level of academic performance.”
—Staff writer Claire G. Friedman can be reached at cfriedm@fas.harvard.edu.