Jukka-Pekka "JP" Onnela

Professor Jukka-Pekka "JP" Onnela serves as Professor of Biostatistics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Co-Director of the Master in Health Data Science program. Born in Oulu, Finland in 1976, he earned his doctorate in network science from Helsinki University of Technology (now Aalto University) in 2006, where his dissertation received the university's Dissertation of the Year award. His academic journey included positions as a Junior Research Fellow at Oxford University, a Fulbright Scholar at Harvard Kennedy School, and a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School before joining Harvard Chan School in 2011. His groundbreaking research focuses on statistical network science and digital phenotyping, introducing the concept of "moment-by-moment quantification of individual-level human phenotype using personal digital devices." He directs the Onnela Lab, which developed the open-source Beiwe Research Platform for smartphone-based digital phenotyping, and received the prestigious NIH Director's New Innovator Award in 2013 for his pioneering work in digital phenotyping. His research has revolutionized the use of cell phone data to study human social behavior and its connections to health outcomes.