Elizabeth Matsui, M.D., M.H.S, is a Professor of Population Health and Pediatrics and Director of Clinical and Translational Research at Dell Medical School, and holds a courtesy appointment with the Steve Hicks School of Social Work. She 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 her work has been on housing-related exposures and her group identified endemic mouse infestation in Baltimore as the major environmental cause of asthma-related emergency department visits and hospitalizations among children in Baltimore. 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 Baltimore City Health Equity Leadership Award Leadership Award in 2017.
She 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, she spent several years practicing general pediatrics. During that time, she developed an interest in asthma and environmental exposures and subsequently completed her fellowship in allergy and immunology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Matsui 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 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, and as Chair of the Section of Allergy and Immunology of the American Academy of Pediatrics. In 2012, Matsui was named the top young investigator in allergy and immunology by an international body of scientists assembled by Phadia Allergy Research Forum.