Alfred Sommer is dean of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and professor of ophthalmology, epidemiology and international health. From 1980 to 1990, he was the founding director of the Dana Center for Preventive Ophthalmology at Johns Hopkins, which focuses on clinical epidemiology and public health aspects of blindness prevention and child survival.

Dr. Sommer received his M.D. from Harvard Medical School in 1967 and his Master of Health Science in Epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in 1973.

Currently, Dr. Sommer's academic interests include outcomes assessment, clinical guidelines, cost containment, blindness prevention strategies, child survival, health interventions in developing countries and the growing interface between medicine and public health.

Dr. Sommer's landmark work on Vitamin A has been credited with saving the lives of millions of children around the world. This pioneering work has earned him numerous awards, including the Albert Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research, the Helmut Horten Medical Research Award, and the Charles A. Dana Award for Pioneering Achievements in Health. Dr. Sommer is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, president of the Association of Schools of Public Health and holder of the 19th Chair of the Academia Ophthalmologica Internationalis. He is a corporate director of Becton Dickinson & Co. and the Academy for Educational Development.

Back to the Centennial Board