Elizabeth Matsui, M.D., MHS

Elizabeth Matsui, M.D., is a pediatric allergist-immunologist and epidemiologist and a leading international expert on environmental exposures and their effects on asthma and other allergic conditions.

A major focus of Matsui’s work has been on housing-related exposures and her group identified endemic mouse infestation as the major environmental cause of asthma-related emergency department visits and hospitalizations among children in Baltimore and in other similar cities in the U.S. Her group followed up on this observation by developing and testing interventions to address infestation, which include integrated pest management strategies for individual households and housing policy interventions. She has worked with both local government and non-profits to address housing-related health issues, and was recognized with the Baltimore City Health Equity Leadership Award in 2017.

Matsui received her undergraduate degree in molecular biology and her medical degree from Vanderbilt University. She completed her residency in pediatrics at the University of California at San Francisco in 1996. After completing her residency, Matsui spent several years practicing general pediatrics at a community hospital and served on the faculty of the family medicine residency training program there. During that time, she developed an interest in asthma and environmental health and subsequently completed her fellowship in allergy and immunology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She also completed a Master of Health Science in epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

She joined the Johns Hopkins faculty in 2003 and was promoted to Professor in 2015 before joining that faculty at Dell Med at UT Austin in 2018. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, as chair of the Section of Allergy and Immunology of the American Academy of Pediatrics, and as a member of the National Academies of Sciences Standing Committee on Medical and Epidemiological Aspects of Air Pollution on U.S. government employees and their families. In 2012, she was named the top young investigator in allergy and immunology by an international body of scientists assembled by the Phadia Allergy Research Forum.