Brad Rodu is a professor of medicine at the University of Louisville, holds an endowed chair in tobacco harm reduction research and is a member of the James Graham Brown Cancer Center at the University of Louisville. For 28 years, Rodu has published research on tobacco harm reduction involving permanent nicotine maintenance with safer tobacco products by smokers who are unable or unwilling to achieve abstinence. At the 2022 Global Forum on Nicotine, Rodu received the Michael Russell Award in honor of his substantial and innovative contribution to the science and understanding of safer nicotine products and tobacco harm reduction.

Rodu earned his dental degree from The Ohio State University. After an oral pathology residency program at Emory University, Rodu completed fellowships at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) sponsored by the American Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute. He was on the UAB faculty from 1981 to 2005, with appointments in several departments in the Schools of Medicine, Public Health and Dentistry. ‍