Ryan Kennedy, PhD
Global E-Cigarette Regulatory Approaches
Dr. Ryan Kennedy earned his doctoral degree from the University of Waterloo. He is a tobacco control researcher interested in policy development, implementation, and evaluation. Dr. Kennedy has a background in air quality science and has led studies measuring tobacco smoke pollution in a variety of settings, including outdoor environments and residential spaces. He is also interested in tobacco cessation -- particularly in systems that can support tobacco users, such as quitlines and support from primary care providers. Collaborating with a team of researchers from across Canada, Dr. Kennedy has studied the role optometrists can, and do play in youth tobacco use prevention and patient tobacco cessation.
Dr. Kennedy was a Research Fellow (2010-2011) and Research Associate (2011-2012) at the Harvard School of Public Health in the department of Social and Behavioral Sciences. He worked on a study examining tobacco product design and opportunities for product regulation under the 2009 Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. Before joining the Department of Health, Behavior and Society at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health as Assistant Professor in 2013, Dr. Kennedy worked at the Harvard Clinical and Translational Science Center in the Community Health Innovation and Research Program (CHIRP), supporting translational science efforts across Harvard. During his graduate studies, he worked with Dr. Geoffrey T. Fong and other investigators with the International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Project (ITC) at the University of Waterloo as well as the longitudinal cohort study in France.
