Ana Navas-Acien

Ana Navas-Acien is a Spanish physician-epidemiologist who is the Leon Hess Professor and Chair of Environmental Health Sciences at Columbia Mailman School of Public Health. She looks to improve the quality of drinking water for American Indian communities.

Early life and education Navas-Acien grew up in Almería, a desert-like part of Spain with scarce access to drinking water. Her parents relied on aljibe, a rainwater collection system. She earned her undergraduate degree in medicine at the University of Granada. She moved to the Hospital Universitario La Paz for her specialty training, and eventually to Johns Hopkins University for a doctoral degree. In Madrid, she became interested in environmental risk and how to support communities. As a doctoral researcher she was a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

Research and career Navas-Acien works on environmental exposures, molecular pathways and effective interventions for improving public health. She has studied risk factors for cardiovascular and kidney disease in minority communities. She has explained that exposures to metals is commonplace in everyday society, and whilst some are essential for physiological functioning, some are risk factors for cardiovascular disease. She has shown that arsenic contamination is linked to the development of type 1 diabetes.

In 2016, Navas-Acien joined the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. She was named the Leon Hess Professor in 2024. In April 2025, she joined a group of environmental health scientists to launch an educational video series about why environmental health is important for everyone's lives.

Selected publications