Prof. Grażyna Jasieńska, head of the JU MC Institute of Public Health Department of Health and Environment, has become the secretary of the International Society for Evolution, Medicine and Public Health for the 2023–2027 term. The aim of the organisation is to promote and support the exchange of ideas between researchers, students, clinicians and public health experts.
ISEMPH brings together researchers and professionals interested in an evolutionary approach to health care in order to gain comprehensive understanding of the underlaying causes of diseases and developing new therapies and strategies in disease prevention. Every year, it organises conferences and publishes the journal Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health together with Oxford University Press. It also provides access to a database of 1,600 on-line teaching resources. Additionally, it hosts a bimonthly online discussion meeting ClubEvMed, attended by researchers and students from all over the world.
Prof. Grażyna Jasieńska’s research interests include various factors that affect fertility, breast cancer prevention and evolutionary approach to health care. She is the author of numerous papers as well as a book on women’s health entitled The Fragile Woman: An Evolutionary View on Women’s Biology and Health published by Harvard University Press (2013). She is a member of editorial teams of foreign journals specialising in human biology and evolutionary medicine, an expert in the European Commission and a Senior Research Scientist at Yale University. She was a fellow of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University and Research Council of Norway.
She graduated in biology from the Jagiellonian University and in biological anthropology from Harvard University, where she also successfully defended her PhD thesis in the same field. She is the co-founder and president of the Salus Publica Foundation, which carries out research projects aimed to improve the health of the general population, especially in rural areas.
