Martin Kulldorff is a biostatistician and epidemiologist who was a professor of medicine at Harvard University from 2003 until his dismissal in 2024. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Prof. Kulldorff was censored by Twitter, Linkedin, Google, Facebook, and TikTok when espousing basic health principles, advocating against school closures, Covid vaccine mandates and other unscientific measures. He was fired from the CDC Covid vaccine working group for arguing against the removal of the J&J vaccine. He was fired from Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital for not taking the Covid vaccine at a time of vaccine shortage, despite his arguments that many older and more vulnerable people need the vaccine and he already had superior, infection-acquired immunity. Scientists from NIH, Stanford, and Harvard declined his invitations to debate the science.
Dr. Kulldorff’s experience brings into sharp focus the absolute necessity of maintaining high integrity and open debate even in time of crisis.
For his courage in defending bedrock principles of scholarly inquiry, the Academic Freedom, the Columbia Academic Freedom Council is honored to present Dr. Martin Kulldorff with the 2025 Academic Freedom Award.
