Peter Orris, MD, MPH

Dr. Orris serves as Professor and Associate Director of the Great Lakes Center for Occupational and Environmental Safety and Health of the University Of Illinois School Of Public Health (a World Health Organization Collaborating Center) and is the Director of its Occupational Health Service Institute and Global Toxics Policy Program.  He maintains an active clinical and teaching practice in Occupational Medicine and is the chief of the clinical department at the University of Illinois Medical Center.  He is a Senior Attending physician in the Division of Occupational Medicine at the Stroger Hospital of Cook County (formerly Cook County Hospital) where he has been for close to 35 years.

Dr. Orris is an advisor to the International Association of Fire Fighters; the International Brotherhood of Teamsters; UNITE-HERE, the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, several corporations in the Chicago area, as well as to Greenpeace U.S.A.’s Toxics Campaign. On an international level he has been an advisor to the World Health Organization, Pan American Health Organization, and Health Care Without Harm.  Currently, Dr. Orris is the Director of the Human Health Effects of Chemicals Project of the World Federation of Public Health Associations, and is active with the Working Group on Heath Safety and the Environment of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU).

He has a long history of advocacy for elimination of profits and racism in health care and opposing corporate policies that poison the environment of the developing world. He serves on the Board of Physicians for Responsible Negotiations- SEIU, is a member of Physicians for Social Responsibility, a founder and member of Physicians for National Health Program, and an active member of the American Public Health Association.  He is the chair of the Public Health Committee of the Chicago Medical Society and a delegate to the Illinois State Medical Society.

Dr. Orris is a fellow of the American College of Physicians and the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, and holds additional faculty appointments as a Professor of Internal and Preventive Medicine at Rush University Medical College, and Preventive Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine Medical School.  He has edited and authored numerous articles, book chapters and governmental reports in the field of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

Dr. Orris graduated Harvard College in 1967, Yale School of Public Health in 1970, and the Chicago Medical School of the Rosalind Franklin University in 1975.  He lives in Chicago with his wife, a recently retired pediatrician, and has two children.