Sad News: The Passing of David Rosner
Dear Columbia Mailman Community,
I am writing with the sad news that David Rosner, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Sociomedical Sciences and History, passed away on Sunday, May 24.
Dr. Rosner made profound contributions to the Department of Sociomedical Sciences, the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health, and Columbia University. He taught widely on the history of public health and mentored generations of doctoral and master’s students in sociomedical sciences and history. He was an active and generous colleague in Sociomedical Sciences and across the School, and he also brought deep commitment to the Department of History. A unique scholar, Dr. Rosner’s work bridged the humanities, social sciences, and public health. In recognition of his extraordinary contributions, he was elected in 2010 to the National Academy of Medicine, one of only a handful of historians to receive that honor.
Dr. Rosner joined Columbia in 1998. In 2002, he co-founded the Center for the History and Ethics of Public Health, and forged a unique partnership across Columbia, between Columbia Mailman School and the History Department, and with leading Universities. He envisioned and built an expansive graduate program that has trained generations of students to examine public health through its historical, political, social, economic, and ethical dimensions, to answer the most urgent questions facing our society. In 2018, he co-founded Toxic Docs, a public repository of discovery documents related to lawsuits about toxic exposures, and in 2019, created the Sophie & Alex Rosner Seminar on Health, History & Social Justice, a seminar series featuring speakers active in struggles for social justice and health equity.
Dr. Rosner’s professional legacy also includes decades of influential scholarship and national leadership in the history of public health. A Guggenheim Fellow, with support from the NSF and RWJ Foundation, he earned wide recognition for his contributions to science and society, including major awards from Sigma Xi, the American Public Health Association, and CUNY, and he served the field through editorial leadership at Public Health Reports and other journals. David contributed to founding the renowned Arthur J. Viseltear book award in public health history, which is awarded annually by the Medical Care Section of the APHA, in collaboration with the Center for the History and Ethics of Public Health.
He authored and edited many acclaimed books, often in collaboration with his colleague Gerald Markowitz, including Deadly Dust and Lead Wars. His final book, Building the Worlds that Kill Us: Disease, Death and Inequality in American History(2024), was widely praised for its originality and impact. This book was named one of Smithsonian Magazine’s best books of the year and received the 2025 Columbia University Press Distinguished Book Award.
Dr. Rosner will be deeply missed by his family, colleagues, students, and everyone he touched through his intellectual insights and his lifelong and enduring commitment to workers’ rights and social justice. His expert testimony in landmark court cases relating to lead poisoning and asbestos exposure was instrumental in holding corporate polluters accountable for their actions, and he was engaged with this work in the courts until the last weeks of his life, as he was passionate about giving a voice to the voiceless. He was also known for his humor, warmth, and generosity, and his loss is felt deeply across our community.
The entire Columbia Mailman community extends our heartfelt condolences to Dr. Rosner’s family.
Sincerely,
Jonathan Mermin, MD, MPH
Dean and Professor of Epidemiology and Medicine
Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health
Senior Vice President
Columbia University Irving Medical Center