Dr. John D. Beard is an environmental, occupational, and neuro- epidemiologist and Associate Professor in the Department of Public Health at Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo, UT. He teaches courses on environmental health, disaster response and emergency preparedness, and epidemiologic study design and analysis. His research focuses on environmental and occupational risk factors for neurological diseases and suicide, risk factors for Parkinson’s disease, and temperature inversions, air pollution, and health. Before starting at BYU in 2017, he worked for two years as a Lieutenant in the Commissioned Corps of the U.S. Public Health Service during which time he was assigned to be an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer and a Research Officer in the Industrywide Studies Branch of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in Cincinnati, OH. Before that he worked for six years as a Summers of Discover Intern, Special Volunteer, and Pre-Doctoral Fellow in the Epidemiology Branch of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in Research Triangle Park, NC. He also worked for nine months as an Epidemiologist in the Environmental Epidemiology Program of the Utah Department of Health in Salt Lake City, UT. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from BYU in Statistics and Public Health, respectively, and a PhD in Epidemiology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.