Education

MBBS Medicine, University of Queensland (Australia), 1971
PhD Epidemiology, University of Queensland (Australia), 1984

Contact

jpotter@fredhutch.org

Bio

John D Potter is Chief Science Advisor, New Zealand (NZ) Ministry of Health, as well as: Professor at CPHR, Massey University, Wellington, NZ; Adjunct Professor at University of Canterbury, Christchurch, NZ; and Senior Advisor, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (FHCRC) and Professor Emeritus of Epidemiology at the University of Washington,

After 5 years of clinical medicine, Potter worked at CSIRO Division of Human Nutrition, Adelaide (1977-1986), completing his PhD and beginning his close partnership with Tony McMichael. Then, in the US, he held increasingly senior posts at the Universities of Minnesota and Washington and FHCRC (including as Director of its Division of Public Health Sciences).

Potter chaired the international panel that produced Food, Nutrition, and the Prevention of Cancer: A Global Perspective (1997). He is founding co-chair of the Asia Cohort Consortium, a collaborative cohort study across Asia of 1.1 million people.

International awards include: India’s Gopalan Oration Gold Medal for nutrition science (1996); American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) DeWitt Goodman Lectureship for international leadership in research in nutrition, cancer, and cancer prevention (2000); the US National Cancer Institute Annual Advances in Cancer Prevention Award (2005); AACR-American Cancer Society Award for Research Excellence in Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention (2009); and the 2012 Medal of Honour of IARC.