Prof. Dr. Iris Pigeot

Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Iris Pigeot has been the director of today’s Leibniz Institute for Prevention Research and Epidemiology - BIPS since March 2004. As of August 2025 she is in charge of the Department “Research Data Infrastructures and Data Science”, which emerged from the Department “Biometry and Data Management” headed by Prof. Pigeot since September 2001.

Having finished her studies in statistics and sociology at the University of Dortmund in 1985, she worked as a scientific assistant, obtained her doctorate with a dissertation on the topic “Estimators of common odds ratios in sparse contingency tables” in 1989, and earned a professorship for statistics with a post-doctoral dissertation entitled “Multiple tests in outlier detection” in 1993.

Before Prof. Pigeot accepted a full professorship for “Statistics with a Focus on Biometry and Methods in Epidemiology” at the University of Bremen in September 2001, she was appointed assistant professor at the University of Dortmund, acting professor at the University of Mainz and full professor at the University of Munich. She also held positions as a visiting lecturer and visiting professor in Zurich (Switzerland), Aalborg (Denmark), and Bern (Switzerland).

Prof. Pigeot’s research activities focused on the use of secondary data, the research of pharmaceutical drug safety as well as primary prevention and its evaluation, especially on childhood obesity, graphical models, and genetic epidemiology. In recent years, she has widened the spectrum of her research to include digital public health as well as statistical methods and data protection issues related to data sharing, federated data analyses, record linkage and the establishment of research data infrastructures. So, Prof. Pigeot is the spokesperson for NFDI4Health, the National Research Data Infrastructure for Personal Health Data since the start of the 2nd project phase in 2025, having been the deputy spokesperson for NFDI4Health during the 1st phase of the project since 2021. As an interdisciplinary consortium of various institutions, NFDI4Health has set itself the goal of making clinical and epidemiological research data easier to find for the specialist community, taking data protection and ethical principles into account.

Since 2023 Prof. Pigeot is president of the International Biometric Society and was appointed a member of the Expert Council on "Health and Resilience" by the Federal Government in 2024. Prof. Pigeot is also a member of the working group on „Strategies for preventing and treating obesity” as well as the working group on “Data-driven dementia prevention” at Leopoldina. In March 2025 Prof. Pigeot became the spokesperson of “Section C - Life Sciences” of the Leibniz Association and since October 2025 she is member of the "Support Group in the Science Year 2026 - Future Medicine". Among others, Prof. Pigeot is also a member of the Board of Trustees of the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine (BNITM), member of the Committee on Scientific Library Services and Information Systems (AWBI) of the German Research Foundation (DFG) as well as associate editor of „Statistics in Medicine” and co-editor of the book series on “Epidemiology and Public Health” published by Springer.

Prof. Pigeot received several teaching awards: the “Medal for Excellent Teaching” from the University of Dortmund in 1994, the “Award for Quality Teaching” from the Friends of the University of Munich in 1996, and the “Berninghausen Award for Excellent Teaching and its Innovation” by the Friends of the University of Bremen and Jacobs University Bremen (so-called unifreunde) in 2008. She was awarded the "Award for Outstanding Doctoral Supervision" for her professional and encouraging support of doctoral candidates in 2019. In 2010, the IBS-DR awarded her the Susanne-Dahms medal for special accomplishments in the field of biometry. The University of Rzeszów, Poland, awarded her together with Wolfgang Ahrens the University's Great Medal in 2020 for her services to the scientific and didactic development of the employees of the Medical Faculty. In 2025 Prof. Pigeot received the renowned “DAGStat-Medaille” from the Deutsche ArbeitsGemeinschaft STATistik for her commitment to the development and imparting of statistics in Germany.

  • Primary prevention and its evaluation, especially of childhood obesity
  • Use of secondary data in research of pharmaceutical drug safety
  • Digital public health
  • Statistical methods and data protection issues related to research data infrastructure

Selected BIPS-Publications

  • Articles with peer review

  • Lin Q, Hunsberger M, Klingberg S, De Henauw S, Hebestreit A, Lauria F, Mazur A, Moreno LA, Molnár Kurdiné E, Pigeot I, Tornaritis M, Veidebaum T, Lissner L. Physical, mental and behavioral health indicators in relation to academic performance in European boys and girls: The I.Family study. BMC Public Health. 2025;25:2176.
    https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-025-23578-3
  • Pigeot I, Ahrens W. Epidemiology of metabolic syndrome. Pflügers Archiv: European Journal of Physiology. 2025;477(5):669-680.
    https://doi.org/10.1007/s00424-024-03051-7
    https://repository.publisso.de/resource/frl%3A6526627
  • Pigeot I, Intemann T, Kollhorst B, Sax U, Ahrens W. FAIRifizierung von Real World Data für die Gesundheitsforschung - Ein Petitum für modernes Record Linkage. Prävention und Gesundheitsförderung. 2025;
    https://doi.org/10.1007/s11553-022-00973-x
  • Dijkstra L, Schink T, Linder R, Schwaninger M, Pigeot I, Wright MN, Foraita R. A discovery and verification approach to pharmacovigilance using electronic healthcare data. Frontiers in Pharmacology. 2024;15:1426323.
    https://doi.org/10.3389/fphar.2024.1426323
  • Foraita R, Witte J, Börnhorst C, Gwozdz W, Pala V, Lissner L, Lauria F, Reisch LA, Molnár D, De Henauw S, Moreno LA, Veidebaum T, Tornaritis M, Pigeot I, Didelez V. A longitudinal causal graph analysis investigating modifiable risk factors and obesity in a European cohort of children and adolescents. Scientific Reports. 2024;14:6822.
    https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-56721-y
  • NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC). Worldwide trends in diabetes prevalence and treatment from 1990 to 2022: A pooled analysis of 1101 population-representative studies with 82 million participants. The Lancet. 2024;404(10467):2077-2093.
    https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(24)02317-1
  • NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC). Worldwide trends in underweight and obesity from 1990 to 2022: A pooled analysis of 3663 population representative studies with 222 million children, adolescents, and adults. The Lancet. 2024;403(10431):1027-1050.
    https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(23)02750-2
  • Pigeot I, Ahrens W, Darms J, Fluck J, Golebiewski M, Hahn H, Hu X, Intemann T, Kasbohm E, Kirsten T, Klammt S, Klopfenstein S, Lassen-Schmidt B, Peters M, Sax U, Waltemath D, Schmidt CO. Making epidemiological and clinical studies FAIR using the example of COVID-19. Datenbank-Spektrum. 2024;24(2):117-128.
    https://doi.org/10.1007/s13222-024-00477-2
  • Swenne A, Veidebaum T, Tornaritis M, Dello Russo M, Moreno LA, Molnár D, Mårild S, De Henauw S, Pigeot I, Pohlabeln H. Reliability of parental recall of birth weight, birth length and gestational age in the multicenter cohort study IDEFICS. Maternal and Child Health Journal. 2024;28(12):2071-2085.
    https://doi.org/10.1007/s10995-024-04009-y
  • Zeeb H, Schüz B, Schultz T, Pigeot I. Entwicklungen in der Digitalisierung von Public Health seit 2020: Beispiele aus dem Leibniz-WissenschaftsCampus Digital Public Health Bremen. Bundesgesundheitsblatt, Gesundheitsforschung, Gesundheitsschutz. 2024;67(3):260-267.
    https://doi.org/10.1007/s00103-023-03827-9

  • Editorials

  • Zeeb H, Pigeot I, Schüz B. Digitale Public Health - Welche Voraussetzungen sind notwendig, um Versprechen und Potenziale einzulösen. Bundesgesundheitsblatt, Gesundheitsforschung, Gesundheitsschutz. 2024;67(3):257-259.
    https://doi.org/10.1007/s00103-024-03839-z

  • Position papers

  • Bozicevic I, Oreskovic S, van der Graaf R, McKee M, on behalf of the 479 WHO Collaborating Centres signatories. Open letter in support of WHO. 2025.
    https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(25)01174-2
  • Mitglieder des Expertinnenrats "Gesundheit und Resilienz" der Bundesregierung. Stärkung der Resilienz durch Impfen und Hygiene. 2025.
    https://tinyurl.com/5n6pvc85
  • Mitglieder des Expertinnenrats "Gesundheit und Resilienz" der Bundesregierung. Prävention und Gesundheitsförderung durch Entstigmatisierung. 2025.
    https://tinyurl.com/5n6pvc85
  • Mitglieder des Expertinnenrats "Gesundheit und Resilienz" der Bundesregierung. Gesunde Kinder und Jugendliche, resiliente Gesellschaft: Investieren in faire Chancen und gesunde Lebensumwelten. 2025.
    https://tinyurl.com/5n6pvc85
  • Mitglieder des Expertinnenrats "Gesundheit und Resilienz" der Bundesregierung. Das Gesundheitswesen: Mitverursacher des Klimawandels - und Teil der Lösung. 2025.
    https://tinyurl.com/5n6pvc85
  • Mitglieder des Expertinnenrats "Gesundheit und Resilienz" der Bundesregierung. Gesundheit: Ganzheitlich denken, vernetzt handeln. 2024.
    https://tinyurl.com/5n6pvc85
  • Mitglieder des Expertinnenrats "Gesundheit und Resilienz" der Bundesregierung. Gesundheitssicherheit: Health Security als wesentliches Element eines resilienten Gesundheitssystems. 2024.
    https://tinyurl.com/5n6pvc85
  • Mitglieder des Expertinnenrats "Gesundheit und Resilienz" der Bundesregierung. Klimawandel und Gesundheit: Zusammen denken, Systemgrenzen überwinden. 2024.
    https://tinyurl.com/5n6pvc85
  • Mitglieder des Expertinnenrats "Gesundheit und Resilienz" der Bundesregierung. Krankheitsprävention bei Kindern und Jugendlichen: Lebensbezogene Ansätze zur Vorbeugung. 2024.
    https://tinyurl.com/5n6pvc85
  • Mitglieder des Expertinnenrats "Gesundheit und Resilienz" der Bundesregierung. Resilienz und Gesundheitssicherheit im Krisen- und Bündnisfall. 2024.
    https://tinyurl.com/5n6pvc85
  • Mitglieder des Expertinnenrats "Gesundheit und Resilienz" der Bundesregierung. Resilienz, Innovation und Teilhabe. 2024.
    https://tinyurl.com/5n6pvc85
  • Mitglieder des Expertinnenrats "Gesundheit und Resilienz" der Bundesregierung. Stärkung der Resilienz des Versorgungssystems durch Präventionsmedizin. 2024.
    https://tinyurl.com/5n6pvc85
  • Mitglieder des Expertinnenrats "Gesundheit und Resilienz" der Bundesregierung. Wirksame Prävention braucht verlässliche Gesundheitsdaten. 2024.
    https://tinyurl.com/5n6pvc85

  • Guidelines and reports

  • Stallmann C, Brandes B, Goldhahn L, Wulf T, Reineke A, Swart E, Ahrens W, Pigeot I, Schäfer W. Daten der gesetzlichen und privaten Krankenversicherung in der NAKO Gesundheitsstudie: Nutzermanual. Bonn. 2025.
    https://doi.org/10.4126/FRL01-006510711

  • Editorships

  • Digitale bevölkerungsbezogene Gesundheit in Deutschland - Beispiele aus der Forschung im Leibniz WissenschaftsCampus Digital Public Health. Berlin. 2024.

  • Books

  • Zeeb H, Maaß L, Schultz T, Haug U, Pigeot I, Schüz B. Digital public health: Interdisciplinary perspectives. Cham: Springer. 2025.
    https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-90154-6

  • Book chapters

  • Ahrens W, Pigeot I. Surveillance of population health and wellbeing (EPHO 1). Cham. 2025.
    https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-90154-6_16
  • Brand T, Herrera-Espejel PS, Busse H. Digital health inequality. Cham. 2025.
    https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-90154-6_12
  • Cloes R, Jones C, Zeeb H, Schüz B. Advocacy, communication, and social mobilization for health (EPHO 9). Cham. 2025.
    https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-90154-6_24
  • Didelez V. Causal reasoning and inference in epidemiology. New York. 2025.
    https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6625-3_74-1
  • Foraita R, Spallek J, Zeeb H. Causal directed acyclic graphs. New York. 2025.
    https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6625-3_65-1
  • Forberger S. Assuring governance for health and wellbeing (EPHO 6). Cham. 2025.
    https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-90154-6_21
  • Fuhr D, Wensing M. Evidence to practice: Implementing evidence-based prevention programs. New York, USA. 2025.
    https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6625-3_93-1
  • Garbe E, Suissa S, Douros A. Pharmacoepidemiology. New York, USA. 2025.
    https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6625-3_31-1
  • Intemann T, Haug U, Pigeot I. Use of secondary and registry data for digital public health. Cham. 2025.
    https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-90154-6_28
  • Jahnel T, Schüz B, Zeeb H. Public health in the digital era: Digital entry points for population health. Cham. 2025.
    https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-90154-6_2
  • Lange O, Boskamp P, Brannath W, De Santis KK, Müllmann S, Rogowski W, Rothgang H. Evaluation of digital public health interventions. Cham. 2025.
    https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-90154-6_8
  • Maaß L, Dassow H-H, Diethei D, Freye M, Niess J, Do S. Why is it essential to address digital public health in an interdisciplinary way. Cham. 2025.
    https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-90154-6_1
  • Miller AB, Haug U. Screening. New York, USA. 2025.
    https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6625-3_32-1
  • Pan C-C, Barnils NP, Müllmann S, Jahnel T, Jürgens D, Freye M, Dassow H-H, Rogowski W, Gerhardus A. A framework to develop and evaluate digital public health interventions. Cham. 2025.
    https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-90154-6_3
  • Reineke A, Pohlabeln H, Intemann T, Schmidt CO. Data management in epidemiology. New York, USA. 2025.
    https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6625-3_48-1
  • Sina E, Freye M, Eßmeyer T, Reich L, Diethei D. Social media in digital public health. Cham. 2025.
    https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-90154-6_15
  • Steinert L, Diethei D, Hoel V, Hahn H, Wolf-Ostermann K, Wright MN, Schultz T. AI meets digital public health. Cham. 2025.
    https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-90154-6_27
  • Zeeb H, Dratva J. Digital health literacy. Cham. 2025.
    https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-90154-6_13
  • Zeeb H, Forberger S. Advancing public health research to inform policy and practice (EPHO 10). Cham. 2025.
    https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-90154-6_25
  • Zeeb H, Maaß L, Haug U, Pigeot I, Schultz T, Schüz B. Digital public health: An outlook. Cham. 2025.
    https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-90154-6_31
  • Zeeb H, Merzenich H, Blettner M, Wollschläger D. Radiation epidemiology. New York, USA. 2025.
    https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6625-3_68-1
  • Zeeb H, Stronks K, Agyemang C, Spallek J. Epidemiological studies on migrant health. New York, USA. 2025.
    https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6625-3_80-1

  • PhD-Theses

  • Dijkstra L. Statistical methods for pharmacovigilance based on electronic healthcare data. Bremen: University of Bremen; 2024.

  • Presentations at scientific meetings/conferences

  • Intemann T, Swenne A, Iqbal K, Wolters M, Hebestreit A, Aleksandrova K, Ahrens W, Pigeot I. Modelling global pediatric growth curves based on heterogenous individual-level data. Berlin. 2025.
  • Mändle A, Intemann T, Pigeot I. Privacy-preserving synthetic data generation in DataSHIELD using partition-of-unity copulas. Lausanne, Switzerland. 2025.
  • Swenne A, Intemann T, Moreno LA, Pigeot I. Federated generalized additive models for location, scale and shape for pooled analysis with DataSHIELD: Implementation and practical considerations. Lausanne, Switzerland. 2025.
  • Zhang J, Behrendt J, Schultz T, Vrijkotte T, Zhou S, Pigeot I, Börnhorst C. Using mixed-effects random forests to predict BMI development in children and adolescents based on multi-cohort data. Münster. 2025.
  • Swenne A, Intemann T, Pigeot I. Federated generalized additive models for location, scale and shape in DataSHIELD. Atlanta, USA. 2024.
  • Swenne A, Intemann T, Pigeot I. Federated generalized additive models for location, scale and shape in DataSHIELD. Lübeck. 2024.
  • Swenne A, Intemann T, Pigeot I. Federated generalized additive models for location, scale and shape in DataSHIELD. online presentation. 2024.

  • Presentations at scientific meetings/conferences (invited)

  • Intemann T, Pigeot I. NFDI4Health: Re-search data infrastructure for personal health data. 2025.
  • Intemann T, Reineke A, Pigeot I. Data from NFDI4Health in focus: BIPS research data portal. online presentation. 2025.
  • Intemann T, Reineke A, Pigeot I. Accessing valuable datasets in health research. Bremen. 2025.
  • Pigeot I. NFDI4Health. Köln. 2025.
  • Pigeot I. NFDI4Health, 2. Phase: Was kommt jetzt. Jena. 2025.
  • Pigeot I. NFDI4Health - Aufbau einer nationalen Forschungsdateninfrastruktur für personenbezogene Gesundheitsdaten. Berlin. 2025.
  • Pigeot I. NFDI4Health. Berlin. 2025.
  • Pigeot I. Keynote: Are we already FAIR? - The future of data sharing. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. 2025.
  • Pigeot I. Keynote: Forschungsdatenmanagement in der Epidemiologie. Hannover. 2025.
  • Pigeot I. Keynote: Are we already FAIR? - The future of data sharing. Vitória, Espírito Santo, Brazil. 2025.
  • Pigeot I. Greetings as IBS president. Vitória, Espírito Santo, Brazil. 2025.
  • Pigeot I. Greetings as IBS president. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. 2025.
  • Pigeot I. Are we already FAIR?: The future of data sharing. online presentation. 2025.
  • Pigeot I. Interoperable Infrastrukturen für Gesundheitsdaten in Europa. Hamburg. 2025.
  • Pigeot I, Fluck J. FAIR Data Sharing in der Gesundheitsforschung. Online-Vortrag. 2025.
  • Pigeot I, Foraita R, Börnhorst C, Didelez V. How to derive a causal graph from cohort data: An example. Milan, Italy. 2025.
  • Ahrens W, Intemann T, Pigeot I. Verbesserung des Record Linkage für die Gesundheitsforschung in Deutschland - Wissenschaftliche Anforderungen. Berlin. 2024.
  • Foraita R, Witte J, Börnhorst C, Pigeot I, Didelez V, on behalf of the I.Family and GrowH! consortia. A longitudinal causal graph analysis investigating modifiable risk factors and obesity in a European cohort of children and adolescents. online presentation. 2024.
  • Intemann T, Dreger S, Wolters M, Hebestreit A, Iqbal K, Aleksandrova K, Ahrens W, Pigeot I, De Henauw S, Kelishadi R, Lauria F, Lissner L, Molnár D, Moreno LA, Tornaritis M, Veidebaum T. Upscaling from African to global initiatives for child growth curves: International multicohort pediatric biomarker collaboration (Biomarkers4Pediatrics) and childhood hypertension consortium of South Africa (CHCSA). Cape Town, South Africa. 2024.
  • Pigeot I. The International Biometric Society: A journey through history and its impact on statistical science. online presentation. 2024.
  • Schaade L, Pigeot I. Künstliche Intelligenz in der öffentlichen Gesundheitsforschung - Einblicke aus der Sicht des Nationalen Public Health Instituts. Bremen. 2024.

  • Other presentations/speechs (invited)

  • Pigeot I. Panel 6: Big data addressing global health. Berlin. 2024.

  • Posters at scientific meetings/conferences

  • Zeeb H, Peters M, Fluck J, Pigeot I. Gesundheitsdaten nutzen und teilen: Wie die NFDI4Health bisher und in Zukunft unterstützt. Münster. 2025.
  • Bergen L, Wright MN, Pigeot I, Didelez V. Causal discovery for nonlinear mixed-scale data. Copenhagen, Denmark. 2024.
  • Intemann T, Dreger S, Wolters M, Hebestreit A, Iqbal K, Aleksandrova K, Ahrens W, Pigeot I, De Henauw S, Kelishadi R, Lauria F, Lissner L, Molnár D, Moreno LA, Tornaritis M, Veidebaum T. Biomarkers4Pediatrics - International multicohort pediatric biomarker collaboration. Cape Town, South Africa. 2024.
  • Kollhorst B, Ludewig A, Niemeyer M, Intemann T, Haug U, Pigeot I. Feasibility of the OMOP Common Data Model for German claims data. Berlin. 2024.
  • Maier L, Sun Y, Hernandez-Pacheco N, Melén E, Petersen CET, Bønnelykke K, Kronberg J, Metspalu A, Bouzigon E, Siroux V, Karramass T, Duijts L, Kress S, Schikowski T, Foraita R, Pigeot I, Bilbao JR, Bustamante M, KiMataba NT, Holloway JW, Gilles S, Traidl-Hoffmann C, Gieger C, Pechlivanis S, von Mutius E, Wang C, Pennell CE, Weiss S, Völzke H, Mykkänen J, Raitakari OT, Schaub B, Schmidt-Weber CB, Kersten ETG, Vonk JM, Thiering E, Peters A, Koppelman GH, Standl M, on behalf of the Food Allergy Genetics consortium. Genome-wide association meta-analysis of IgE-mediated food allergies in 16 cohorts. Valencia, Spain. 2024.

  • Software

  • Mändle A, De Henauw S, Lissner L, Mazur A, Molnár D, Moreno LA, Lauria F, Tornaritis M, Veidebaum T, Pigeot I, Ahrens W, Intemann T. IDEFICS/I.Family-Dashboard. 2025.
    https://www.bips-institut.de/en/research/research-data-portal/idefics-ifamily-dashboard.html

For further publications please follow this link:

  • DAGStat-Medaille
    Deutsche Arbeitsgemeinschaft Statistik (DAGStat) (2025)
    besondere Verdienste um die Statistik in Deutschland
  • Große Medaille der Universität Rzeszów
    Universität Rzeszów (2020)
    Verdiensten um die wissenschaftliche und didaktische Entwicklung der Mitarbeiter der medizinischen Fakultät
  • Preis für herausragende Promotionsbetreuung
    Universität Bremen (2019)
  • 1st Prize in Oral Communication Modality in the Area of Metabolism (W Ahrens, C Börnhorst, I Pigeot)
    European Childhood Obesity Group (ECOG) (2018)
    Vortrag "Trajectories of overweight and metabolic syndrome in the IDEFICS/I.Family cohort"
  • Nominiert für den L’Oréal-UNESCO Awards For Women in Science
    Leibniz-Gemeinschaft (2015)
    Outstanding contribution to the general advancement of science
  • Nominiert für AcademiaNet
    Leibniz-Gemeinschaft (2015)
  • Susanne-Dahms-Medaille
    Deutsche Region der Internationalen Biometrischen Gesellschaft (IBS-DR) (2010)
    für außergewöhnliches Engagement um die Belange der Biometrie
  • Berninghausen-Preis für ausgezeichnete Lehre
    Freunde der Universität Bremen

Study course Medical Biometry/Biostatistics (M.Sc.), University of Bremen
  • Lectures on statistical modeling
  • Seminar on "Problems of biometric reseach"
Graduate Training "Data Train"
  • Statistical thinking

The responsibility for the content of this page lies with Iris Pigeot.

Iris Pigeot

Contact

Phone:
+49 (0)421 218-56-942
E-mail:
pigeot(at)leibniz-bips.de