Honored: Clarice Weinberg, Ph.D., was awarded the 2024 Jeanne E. Griffith Mentoring Award — the highest honor of its kind to a statistician in federal, state, or local government. The annual award in recognition of a mentor’s support and development of junior staff is presented by the American Statistical Association.

Weinberg, a principal investigator in the Biostatistics and Computational Biology Branch, has mentored nearly 40 students and postdoctoral fellows, and served on the thesis committees of more than twenty Ph.D. students during her career at NIEHS. She also has published and worked with biostatistics and epidemiology trainees on nearly 200 scientific articles

Honored: The National Academy of Medicine has announced 100 newly elected members. Jennifer Nuzzo MA’23, director of Brown’s Pandemic Center, made the list. Nuzzo, who is also a professor of epidemiology, was selected after co-creating the inaugural Global Health Security Index, which assesses 195 countries’ preparedness for epidemics and pandemics. She was also highlighted by NAM for her COVID-19 testing global data tracker, a resilience checklist for biological emergencies and her extensive research in US infectious disease threat readiness. 

Awarded: The Boston University Department of Biostatistics is pleased to announce that Nandita Mitra, PhD will be the recipient of the 2024 L. Adrienne Cupples Award for Excellence in Teaching, Research, and Service in Biostatistics. Dr. Mitra is Professor of Biostatistics Professor of Biostatistics in the Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Informatics at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania. Briefly, the Cupples award was created to recognize a biostatistician whose academic achievements reflect the contributions to teaching, research, and service exemplified by Professor L. Adrienne Cupples. Dr. Mitra was selected because of her substantial achievements in each of these areas. Dr. Mitra is currently Vice Chair of Education and Co-Director of the Center for Causal Inference in the Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Informatics at Penn.

Awarded: Trinity College has awarded alumna Kaja LeWinn the Trinity College President’s Award for Science and Innovation. Driven by a conviction that all children should have the opportunity to realize their full potential, Trinity College alumna Kaja LeWinn ’98 has dedicated her work to studying the neurodevelopment and mental health of the youngest members of society. LeWinn is a leader of several regional and national epidemiological studies, including the NIH funded ECHO Consortium, which includes over 60,000 U.S. children and their families.

Awarded: University of California – Merced second-year public health Ph.D. student Sarina Rodriguez was named as a Health Policy Research Scholar by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The HPRS program supports doctoral students from underserved and underrepresented demographics and brings together students from various fields to apply their expertise to policies that advance equity and health. According to the foundation’s website, the leadership program connects “changemakers across the country — from diverse professions and fields — to learn from and work with one another in creating more just and thriving communities.”

Named:  Joseph Amon, PhD, MSPH, has joined the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health as director of the Center for Public Health and Human Rights. Amon, whose work focuses on neglected diseases and populations, comes from Drexel University’s Dornsife School of Public Health, where he served in several positions, including director of the Office of Global Health, director of the Jonathan Mann Global Health and Human Rights Initiative, and clinical teaching professor in the Department of Community Health and Prevention. He is also the editor-in-chief of the Health and Human Rights Journal, which is co-published by Drexel in collaboration with the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University. 

Appointed: Vanderbilt University Dept of Biostatistics has promoted Brant Imhoff to the position of senior biostatistician. His support for projects at the Vanderbilt Biostatistics Data Coordinating Center, Pragmatic Critical Care Research Group, and other teams has included leading DSMB (data and safety monitoring board) closed session meetings for multiple clinical trials; constructing, maintaining, and monitoring electronic data captures; generating statistical analyses, custom reports, and billing; and working on manuscripts and study analysis plans, with co-authorship of peer-reviewed papers published in the New England Journal of Medicine, American Heart Journal, and BMJ Open.

In the News: Flojaune Cofer, the epidemiologist and leading candidate in Sacramento’s mayoral race, will always remember watching her father die from congestive heart failure in 1993. She was 11,  the same age he’d been when he started smoking cigarettes back in the late 1950s, when little was known about the health impacts of tobacco. By the time the Surgeon General issued the first report on the negative effects of smoking, it was too late for Cofer’s dad; he was already hooked. The traumatic experience of seeing her father lose his life from something so preventable stayed lodged inside Cofer, pushing her to get a PhD in epidemiology, pursue a career in public health policy, and eventually get involved in her adopted city’s budgeting process.

Passed: Richard Allen Cash passed away on October 22, 2024.  He graduated from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, then New York University School of Medicine. After interning at Bellevue Hospital, Richard relocated to Dacca, East Pakistan to work at the Cholera Research Laboratory (CRL): now the International Centre for Diarrheal Diseases, Bangladesh (ICDDR,B). That decision shaped his career and life. Bangladesh remained a touchstone in Richard’s life. He returned annually to work with the ICDDR,B and teach at the BRAC School of Public Health. He also lived, worked and taught in India. Beginning in 1977, Richard made Cambridge, Massachusetts his home base, teaching at the Harvard (T.H. Chan) School of Public Health and running projects for the Harvard Institute for International Development. Richard deeply influenced countless students. https://tinyurl.com/yxrhr632

Passed: Dr. Frank L. Mitchell, a dedicated public servant and passionate craftsman, passed away at the age of 89 on October 13, 2024. In Miami he was the Senior Medical Officer for the Cuban Rescue Program, and was on the first flight sent to Cuba to rescue those fleeing Cuba after its takeover by Fidel Castro. He later transferred to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) in Bethesda, MD where he served 10 years as the Senior Reviewer of the team that identified Superfund sites and wrote regulations for safely dealing with hazardous substances in the workplace and the environment. He rose to the role of Chief Medical Officer for the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry in Atlanta. His expertise and leadership left a lasting impact on Public Health including his contributions to the treatment and handling of individuals experiencing Multiple Chemical Sensitivity.    https://tinyurl.com/58unc5u2

Honored: The Royal Society announced that its Michael Faraday Prize and Lecture is awarded to Professor Salim Abdool Karim, MBChB, FFPHM, PhD, CAPRISA Professor for Global Health in the Department of Epidemiology at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. He is also Director of the Centre for the AIDS Program of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA). The honor was bestowed  for Abdool Karim’s  scientific leadership, policy advice, epidemiological analyses, and articulate public education, while actively countering disinformation in Africa, particularly South Africa, during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Appointed: Bhramar Mukherjee, a leader in the field of public health statistics and data science who recently joined the Yale faculty, has been appointed the Anna M.R. Lauder Professor of Biostatistics. The appointment, which began on Aug. 1, is for a term of 10 years, renewable by the dean of the Yale School of Public Health (YSPH).

She joined the YSPH faculty last month as the inaugural senior associate dean of public health data science and data equity. She assumed the Lauder chair previously held by Paul Cleary, the school’s former dean.

Appointed: Wiley Jenkins, Ph.D., has been appointed chair of the Clemson University Department of Public Health Sciences. His term began July 1.  

Jenkins joins Clemson and the College of Behavioral, Social and Health Sciences (CBSHS) from Southern Illinois University School of Medicine where he served as interim chair of the Department of Population Science and Policy. Prior to his appointment as interim chair, he worked in the department as a professor and chief of epidemiology and biostatistics. He has served in faculty, research and administrative positions in the public health field for more than 30 years.

Appointed: Michael Bloom, professor in George Mason University’s Department of Global and Community Health, was appointed as a member of the Reproductive, Perinatal and Pediatric Health Study Section, Population Sciences and Epidemiology Integrated Review Group, which is part of the National Institutes of Health Center for Scientific Review. 

Appointed:  Professor of public health studies at the University of Hawaiʻi Mānoa, Tetine Sentell, has been named the inaugural Chin Sik and Hyun Sook Chung Endowed Chair in Public Health Studies. This endowment aims to recruit and retain top faculty in public health, supporting research, training and scholarship dissemination on critical health issues in Hawaiʻi and the Pacific region.

Appointed: Ricardo Izurieta, MD, DrPH. MPH, an internationally known expert on tropical and infectious diseases, is leaving his long-time post as associate professor at the University of South Florida’s College of Public Health (COPH) to become dean of the new School of Health Sciences and Public Health at California State University Los Angeles.

Appointed: In July 2024, Berkeley Public Health welcomed assistant professor of biostatistics Xiudi Li, PhD. Dr. Li received a PhD in biostatistics from the University of Washington in 2022 and a BSc in mathematics and economics from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in 2017.

Retiring: Jim Tonascia, whose public health career in biostatistics and epidemiology spanned more than five decades, retired from the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins this August. Tonascia arrived at the School in 1967 as a graduate student and received his PhD in Biostatistics from the School in 1970. Since then, he has been faculty in the departments of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, becoming full professor in 1981.

Passed:  Professor Clair Chilvers, a McPin trustee, died recently surrounded by her family, aged 78. As a cancer epidemiologist, first at the Institute of Cancer Research, then at the University of Nottingham where she was Professor of Epidemiology, she knew how crucial the charity Cancer Research UK was for progressing and understanding treatments for cancer – but mental health did not have anything like that at the time   

https://tinyurl.com/3xu293h3    https://tinyurl.com/4yfzn2r5

Recovering: Dr. Anthony Fauci is continuing his recovery at home following a 6 day hospitalization for West Nile Virus.  Insiders report that although he is unsure where he contracted the virus, the supposition is that he was bitten by a mosquito in his backyard.  The prognosis is that he will experience a full recovery.

Awarded: Scott Proescholdbell, MPH is a public health epidemiologist and unit manager for the Epidemiology, Surveillance, and Informatics Unit of DPH’s Injury and Violence Prevention Branch and has more than 20 years of service with North Carolina. His efforts have significantly advanced the state’s injury and violence prevention surveillance, bringing recognition, funding and policy improvements for critical public health issues, such as substance use and violence prevention, both within North Carolina and nationally.  The Ronald H. Levine Public Health Award recognizes exemplary contributions to public health in North Carolina. This prestigious award is named for former State Health Director Dr. Ron Levine.   https://tinyurl.com/4zc9x3d6

Appointed: Yale School of Public Health has announced the appointment of Lee Kennedy-Shaffer as an assistant professor in the department of biostatistics. Kennedy-Shaffer, BS ’13 (mathematics), joins YSPH from Vassar College, where he has been an assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics since 2020. Prior to that appointment, he served as a postdoctoral researcher with the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics at Harvard.

Appointed:  Qiao Liu, PhD has been appointed an assistant professor in the department of biostatistics at the Yale School of Public Health. Liu comes to YSPH from Stanford University, where he has been a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Statistics since 2021. earned a BS from ShenYuan Honors College at Beihang University in Beijing in 2016 and a PhD in Bioinformatics from Tsinghua University in Beijing in 2021. Since 2019, Liu has been conducting extensive research at Stanford Statistics, initially as a visiting PhD student, and later transitioning into a postdoc.

Awarded: The Society for Epidemiologic Research presented its Roger Detels Distinguished Researcher Award in Infectious Disease Epidemiology to William Schaffner, MD.  Dr. Schaffner is a Professor of Preventive Medicine in the Department of Health Policy and a Professor of Infectious Disease at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Dr. Schaffner's primary interest has been the prevention of infectious diseases and he is the current Medical Director and past president of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases and has served on the Executive Board for the Infectious Diseases Society of America. 

Featured: Zilong Wang, a Chinese native who was attending Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, has seen his dream come true by gaining admission to Harvard University’s biostatistics program.  Prior to attending Harvard he also spent a year at Berkeley.  The heartwarming feature story details how is perseverance helped him overcome the long odds to gain admission to Harvard.  Full article:  https://tinyurl.com/2dn8ah7a

Passed:  Retired NIH biostatistician Raymond Charles Boston of West Chester, PA passed away on June 29, 2024 in Chestertown, MD. A native of Melbourne, Australia he became a research scientist at the National Institute of Health and a tenured professor at the University of Pennsylvania for the remainder of his career. As a biomathematician and biostatistician his research included areas ranging from veterinary to medical to epidemiological issues. Ray lectured and taught at institutions across the world; from Glasgow to Taipei to Finland, etc. And most recently in Melbourne Australia, where he assisted with clinical research projects at St Vincent’s hospital. In the field of biomathematical modeling he contributed significantly to the development of the Winsaam program, used by research scientists around the world. Ray was also a member of the prestigious selection committee at the Franklin Institute.  https://tinyurl.com/2eupt5nr

Passed: VCU professor David Charles Wheeler III passed away on June 29th, 2024 after a lengthy battle with brain cancer. David was an internationally recognized biostatistician with a focus on spatial, cancer, and environmental epidemiology. He served as the Principal Investigator on more than 15 major grants most of which were funded by the National Cancer Institute. His research demonstrated the importance of considering environmental exposures decades prior to diagnosis, identifying important historical risk patterns for cancer (clusters) utilizing environmental risk analysis and associations between neighborhood deprivation and myriad health-related outcomes. His prolific scholarly contributions include 110 peer-reviewed publications with more than 7,650 citations (to date). David also served on the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. https://tinyurl.com/567jsynd

Awarded: The American Medical Association (AMA) presented Michael Osterholm, Ph.D., MPH, with the AMA Award for Outstanding Government Service. The director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota, Osterholm is a renowned epidemiologist who warned for years that the United States was ill-prepared for a pandemic. He was appointed to President-elect Joe Biden’s COVID-19 transition advisory board, and previously served as science envoy for health security on behalf of the U.S. Department of State.

Awarded: Principal scientist Gertjan Medema has been awarded the Lee Kuan Yew Water Prize 2024 for his groundbreaking research and significant contributions in the field of sewage epidemiology for virus detection in wastewater during the COVID-19 pandemic. With the emergence of COVID-19 in early 2020, Gertjan Medema and his colleagues recognized the need for early detection and monitoring, and began collecting sewage samples at nine locations in the Netherlands to test for the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The results were promising as traces of the virus were detected in the sewage of several cities before they were officially reported.  

Named:  Benika Dixon, an assistant professor at Texas A&M University School of Public Health, has been named a Kavli Fellow. This prestigious fellowship, awarded annually by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), recognizes the brightest young scientists who are 45 years old or younger. Her research focuses on the mental and physical health implications of environmental exposures, hazards and disasters on vulnerable populations. Her current work centers specifically on inmates in the Texas prison system.

Named: Utrecht University and UMC Utrecht have announced the appointment of Patricia Bruijning-Verhagen as professor of vaccination and infection control epidemiology, effective June 1, 2024. This position will enable Patricia to continue her work in designing and evaluating optimal infection prevention policies through vaccination and other innovative strategies. Her appointment comes at a crucial time, as the world faces the dual challenge of emerging infectious diseases and an expanding portfolio of vaccines.

Named: Nolan Wages, Ph.D., a professor in Virginia Commonwealth University’s Department of Biostatistics in the School of Population Health, has been named a fellow of the Society for Clinical Trials. For more than a decade, Wages has been deeply involved in a national research effort aimed at revolutionizing how early phase oncology trials are conducted. His team has not only developed novel methods but also ensured their successful implementation into actual trials, where they can improve patient outcomes.

Passed:  Richard M. Simon former NIH biostatistician passed away on May 9, 2024.  Richard was born in St. Louis and graduated from U-City High school, where he found and mastered a love of mathematics, cultivated by a 7th grade math teacher. Richard later went to Washington University where he received a Doctoral degree in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science. After a 2-year stint in the Public Health Service in Washington DC, Rich began working at the National Institute of Health, where he spent his entire career. As a biostatistician, Rich became associate director of the Division of Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis, director of the Biometric Research Program, and chief of the Computational and Systems Biology Branch. Rich pioneered many of the statistical methods in cancer clinical trials used today.  https://tinyurl.com/nhae3sdv

Passed: Biostatistician Dr. James "Jim" Mason Harper, died at the age of 71 on May 23rd, 2024, after sixteen years of living bravely with PLS. Jim earned his Ph.D in Biostatistics from the University of Pittsburgh, where he met his wife, Jackie. He spent his career with contract research organizations, supporting the development and approval of many new drugs to treat different diseases; he was proud to have been critical to the approval of the first drug to treat ALS, which he eventually benefited from himself.  https://tinyurl.com/yu5hpydr

Named: Shruti Mehta, PhD, MPH, has been named The Dr. Charles Armstrong Chair in Epidemiology and Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, effective June 1. Her work as an infectious disease epidemiologist focuses on ensuring equitable access to prevention and treatment services for vulnerable and disenfranchised populations, particularly people who inject drugs who are at risk for, or living with, HIV or hepatitis C.

Named: Washington University in St. Louis has announced that Sandro Galea, MD, DrPH, one of the world’s most influential public health leaders, will become the inaugural Margaret C. Ryan Dean of the university’s planned School of Public Health, effective January 1, 2025. Galea is currently dean of Boston University’s School of Public Health and the Robert A. Knox Professor. He also is a professor of family medicine at Boston University’s Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine.

Named:  Elizabeth Selvin, PhD, '04, MPH, has been appointed the next director of the Welch Center for Epidemiology and Clinical Research at the Johns Hopkins University, effective May 1, 2024. Selvin is a professor of Epidemiology at the Bloomberg School and holds a joint appointment in the School of Medicine, Division of General Internal Medicine. She is the author or co-author of over 550 peer-reviewed papers. She has devoted her career to leading translational research projects designed to evaluate and improve screening, diagnosis, and patient care for persons with diabetes.

Named: The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai has established a new Department of Public Health under the visionary leadership of Rosalind J. Wright, MD, MPH, the Horace W. Goldsmith Professor in Children’s Health Research at Icahn Mount Sinai. Dr. Wright will continue in her role as Director of Conduits, the Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) Program at Mount Sinai, which will serve to better integrate the school’s programs in clinical and public health research.

Appointed: Dr. Weng Kee Wong has been appointed as the associate editor for the Journal of the American Statistician Association and Scientific Reports. A UCLA faculty member, he is currently the biostatistician for the "Multi-Center Phase II Trial of Oral Type I Bovine Collagen in Scleroderma" supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Appointed:  Bhramar Mukherjee, PhD, has been appointed Yale School of Public Health’s inaugural Senior Associate Dean of Public Health Data Science and Data Equity. She joins YSPH on Aug. 1, 2024. Mukherjee currently holds a number of academic positions at the University of Michigan School of Public Health where she is the John D. Kalbfleisch Distinguished University Professor, Siobán D. Harlow Collegiate Professor of Public Health, and chair of the Department of Biostatistics. She is also a professor of epidemiology, and of global public health.

Honored: Tanya Garcia, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Biostatistics at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public health has been honored with the 2024 Gertrude M. Cox Award, which is awarded by Washington Statistic Society (WSS) and RTI International. For over a decade, Garcia has led a transdisciplinary research team of statisticians and neuroscientists toward designing robust statistical methods for neurodegenerative diseases.

Honored: The United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service (ARS), has named Adam Drewnowski, professor of epidemiology at the University of Washington  School of Public Health the 2024 Wilbur Olin Atwater Memorial Lecturer. He is a member of core faculty in the Food Systems, Nutrition, and Health Program at the UW. He is well known for his contributions to research in nutrition, socioeconomic determinants of obesity and diet-related chronic disease, relation between diet quality and diet cost, and sustainable nutrition security as it relates to climate change. 

Appointed:  Benjamin French, PhD, professor of biostatistics and director of graduate studies at Vanderbilt University, has been elected to the National Council for Radiation Protection and Measurements (NCRP) for a six-year term. Dr. French joined the NCRP's program area committee on Basic Criteria, Epidemiology, Radiobiology, and Risk in Fall 2023. He serves as an expert advisor to the Department of Statistics at the Radiation Effects Research Foundation and contact PI of the R01-funded "Optimizing the implementation of personalized risk-prediction models for venous thromboembolism among hospitalized adults" study; he was also PI of "Evaluation of time-dependent covariates in radiation dose-response models in the Million Person Study," supported by Oak Ridge Associated Universities and is co-investigator of the NASA-sponsored "Evaluation of dementia and cognitive tests among workers exposed to low-LET radiation."

Awarded:  "Great Barrington Declaration" co-author Dr. Jay Bhattacharya and two others were awarded the Samizdat Prize by Real Clear Politics. The organization stated that the three were chosen for their bravery in resisting censorship.

Awarded: Claudia Zimmermann, a member of the Department of Epidemiology at MedUni Vienna's Center for Public Health, has been awarded this year's Best Paper Award by the Austrian Society for Epidemiology for her work on suicide mortality in healthcare professions and other highly qualified occupational groups.

Named: Mercedes Carnethon, PhD, vice chair and Mary Harris Thompson Professor of Preventive Medicine and chair of the Appointments, Promotions, and Tenure Committee at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, has been named chair of the Department of Preventive Medicine, effective September 1.

Honored: Pandemic Center Senior Adviser Seth F. Berkley, MD, will receive the 2024 Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Humanitarian Award for his work as an innovative entrepreneur, a pioneer in global health, and a champion of equitable access to vaccines. Berkley is adjunct professor of the practice of epidemiology at the Brown University School of Public Health.

Honored:  Leonard E. Egede, M.D., M.S. has been chosen to deliver the 2024 Robert S. Gordon, Jr  Lecture in Epidemiology. He is a general internist, a tenured Professor of Medicine, and the Inaugural Milwaukee Community Chair in Health Equity Research at the Medical College of Wisconsin. He is also Chief of the Division of General Internal Medicine and Director of the Center for Advancing Population Science. Dr. Egede's research focuses on developing and testing innovative interventions to reduce and/or eliminate health disparities related to race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and geographic location for chronic medical and mental health conditions.

Named:  Justin B. Starren, MD, PhD, has been named director of the Center for Biomedical Informatics and Biostatistics at the University of Arizona Health Sciences. He is a professor, researcher and data scientist with more than 30 years of experience in biomedical informatics. He joins the university from Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., where he started in 2010 and was the director of the Center for Biomedical Informatics and Data Science. He was also a professor and chief of the Division of Health and Biomedical Informatics, which he founded.

Named: Heather Bush, Ph.D., has been named permanent dean of the University of Kentucky’s College of Public Health. Bush has served as the acting dean of the College of Public Health since June 15, 2022. Bush earned her bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Mount Vernon Nazarene University, and she earned both her M.S. and Ph.D. in statistics from UK’s College of Arts and Sciences. Prior to her academic appointment at UK in 2006, Bush worked as a senior biostatistician in industry, developing protocols and designing observational studies.

Awarded: Internationally recognized sexual health epidemiologist Professor Eric Chow has received a 2024 Australian Academy of Science Gottschalk Medal, one of 22 annual honorific awards announced by the Academy today. The Gottschalk Medal honors the contributions to science by the late Professor A Gottschalk FAA and recognizes outstanding research in the biomedical sciences by researchers up to 10 years after completing their PhD.

Published:  Erjia Cui, PhD, is a tenure-track assistant professor in the Division of Biostatistics and Health Data Science at the University of Minnesota. In March 2024, Erjia co-published the book Functional Data Analysis with R

Awarded:  Dr. Jessica Cohen, Associate Professor of Global Health at Harvard has been selected as this year’s recipient for the Alice Hamilton Award and will deliver the 2024 Alice Hamilton Award Lecture. Dr. Cohen is an original thinker whose work is of substantial global health impact. Dr. Cohen is a dedicated teacher, mentor, leader, and scholar. Her work in the field of maternal and child health has transformed the design of malaria control policies around the world and has been innovative in addressing gaps in care that often led to worse and inequitable outcomes for pregnant people and babies.

Named: The UNC-Chapel Hill Gillings School of Global Public Health has appointed Michael Hudgens, PhD, as chair of the Department of Biostatistics, effective August 1. Hudgens has been on faculty in the biostatistics department since 2004. He became a full professor in 2016 and has served as associate chair since 2021. He also has served as director of the UNC Center for AIDS Research Biostatistics Core since 2010.

Honored: It has been announced that Dr. Bhramar Mukherjee will receive  the 2024 Marvin Zelen Leadership Award. Dr. Mukherjee a statistician working in key areas of statistical genetics and genetic epidemiology, with an expansive body of work that has helped to define the methodological landscape in statistical genetics. She is currently aProfessor of Biostatistics, Chair of the Biostatistics Department, and Assistant Vice President for Research at the University of Michigan, Dr. Mukherjee is also the Siobán D. Harlow Collegiate Professor of Public Health, and Professor of Epidemiology and Global Public Health at the University of Michigan.

Appointed:  Brown University has announced that Rebecca A. Hubbard, Ph.D. will join the university as a professor of biostatistics and data science. She is currently a professor of biostatistics and vice chair for faculty professional development in the Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Informatics at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

Appointed:  Brown University has announced that Corwin Zigler, Ph.D. joins as a professor of biostatistics. He is currently an associate professor of statistics and data sciences at the University of Texas at Austin. 

In the News: Since 2021, Marta Shore, a biostatistics lecturer at the University of Minnesota, has spent her free time painstakingly recreating classic album artwork using everything from quinoa to chia seeds to flax to barley to wild rice. It’s called crop art, and at the 2023 Minnesota State Fair, Shore displayed three plant-based recreations of 1983 pop classics: Madonna’s self-titled debut album, Donna Summer’s She Works Hard for the Money and Cyndi Lauper’s She’s So Unusual. https://tinyurl.com/44h82824

Passed: Dennis Michael Perrotta, Ph.D., CIC, passed away January 13, 2024, at his home in Smithville, Texas. His education was extensive, earning his PhD in epidemiology in 1982 and becoming Board Certified in Infection Control (CIC) in 1989. Throughout the 52 years of his professional career, he was notably known as director and chief of the Bureau of Epidemiology or the Texas Department of Health and professor of epidemiology at the University of Texas.  https://tinyurl.com/jve256tx

Passed:  Dr. Joel Gordon Breman passed away April 6, 2024 in Chevy Chase, Maryland, after a full and uniquely impactful life. A deeply loved husband, father, grandfather, uncle, friend and colleague to so many in the global health community, Joel was known for his kindness, optimism, humor, athleticism, passion for social service, mentoring the next generation of global epidemiologists, and love for the African continent. He was a dedicated leader in the smallpox eradication program, a pioneer in the discovery of the Ebola virus, and part of the global fight to control and eliminate malaria, among many other scourges.   

He earned his M.D. from the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California (USC). Joel’s medical school advisor piqued his interest in global health, which led to his participation in the Centers for Disease Control’s Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) program, Infectious Disease training at Harvard Medical School, and a Doctorate of Public Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

 https://tinyurl.com/ymz2kavz    https://tinyurl.com/bdehknr6
 

Honored:  Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health associate professor in the Department of Biostatistics, Abhirup Datta, PhD, , was named a 2024 Emerging Leader in Statistics by the Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies (COPSS). Datta was awarded the honor for his contributions to geospatial statistics and machine learning, for leading the development and application of Bayesian methods for improving mortality estimates in low- and middle-income countries, for prolific open-access software development, and for being a role model in advising and mentoring students as well as junior colleagues.

Honored:  Emily Hector, assistant professor in the Department of Statistics at NC State, has received a Faculty Early Career Development Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The award, also known as the NSF CAREER award, is one of the highest awards the foundation gives to young faculty in the sciences. The five-year award will support Hector’s research project entitled “New data integration approaches for efficient and robust meta-estimation, model fusion and transfer learning.” The research aims to develop new methods for combining information from multiple datasets that have the potential to improve the robustness and generalizability of scientific findings.

Honored: Yangjianchen Xu and Justin DeMonte, biostatistics doctoral students at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, were among only 20 selected recipients for the Distinguished Student Paper Award. The award is presented by the Eastern North America Region (ENAR) of the International Biometric Society.

Xu was selected for his paper titled “Proportional Rates Models for Multivariate Panel Count Data.” He helped to propose a model that relates risk factors to recurrent events to analyze data to estimate the effects of risk factors on recurrent events under the constraints that the exact time a disease occurs is never observed. 

Honored: Yangjianchen Xu and Justin DeMonte, biostatistics doctoral students at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, were among only 20 selected recipients for the Distinguished Student Paper Award. The award is presented by the Eastern North America Region (ENAR) of the International Biometric Society.

DeMonte was selected for his paper titled “Assessing COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness in observational studies via nested trial emulation.” The paper illustrates how nested trial emulation can be applied to estimate vaccine effectiveness that may vary over time since vaccination and calendar time. 

Passed:  The former dean of the Harvard School of Public Health, Howard H. Hiatt, a physician, scientist and academic who reshaped the field of public health, steering it away from the narrow study of infectious diseases toward big-picture issues of fiscal and societal accountability in medicine, died on  March 2^nd at his home in Cambridge, MA at the age of 98. Harvard Public Health, a magazine published by the Harvard School of Public Health, where Dr. Hiatt was dean for 12 years, wrote in 2013 that Dr. Hiatt “made public health the conscience of medicine.”  https://tinyurl.com/2z9aj69u       https://tinyurl.com/bdha4xh2

Passed:  The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) is saddened by the passing of Professor Jürgen Wahrendorf, who died on 15 March 2024 at age 75 years. He was a pioneer of cancer epidemiology in Germany. He was appointed chair and professor of the epidemiology unit at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) in Heidelberg, Germany, in 1986 and remained in that position until his retirement in 2013. A mathematician by background, he was attracted to cancer epidemiology during his first position in the Unit of Biostatistics at DKFZ and while working at IARC for 6 years in the Unit of Biostatistics and Field Studies (from April 1980 to March 1986) before he returned to DKFZ.  https://tinyurl.com/mu2szee4       https://tinyurl.com/2cystubv

Fired: Infectious-disease epidemiologist and biostatistician Martin Kulldorff is no longer a professor at Harvard Medical School after refusing the COVID vaccine because he had infection-acquired immunity. He is a member of the US Food and Drug Administration's Drug Safety and Risk Management Advisory Committee and a former member of the Vaccine Safety Subgroup of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In 2020, Kulldorff was a co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration. The declaration was widely rejected, and was criticized as being unethical and infeasible by Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organization.

Appointed:  Tamara Dubowitz, ScD, MS, MSc, a senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation in Pittsburgh, has been appointed professor and chair of the Department of Epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh, effective April 15. A faculty member at the Pardee RAND Graduate School, Dubowitz is trained in social epidemiology. Her research interests focus on the role of place and geography in shaping the health and health behaviors of marginalized populations, particularly in view of policies affecting housing, urban planning and food security.

Appointed:  Dr. Jaimie Gradus has been named the new PhD Program Director for the Boston University School of Public Health Department of Epidemiology. She received her BA in psychology from Stony Brook University, her MPH with a concentration in epidemiology and biostatistics and DSc in epidemiology at Boston University and her DMSc at Aarhus University. Dr. Gradus's research interests are in the epidemiology of trauma and trauma-related disorders, with a particular focus on suicide outcomes.

Appointed: Dr. James “Jamie” Mancuso, a retired Army physician with significant expertise in tropical medicine, preventive medicine, and occupational medicine, was selected to chair the Department of Preventive Medicine and Biostatistics (PMB) in the F. Edward Hebert School of Medicine at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU).  This is Mancuso’s second appointment as PMB department chair. 

Appointed:  Anarina Murillo, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Biostatistics at Brown University was appointed Associate Editor for the Journal of Statistics and Data Science Education. The journal is an open access peer-reviewed journal published by the American Statistical Association. The articles are aimed at improving data science and statistics education at all levels. In this AE role, Murillo will be responsible for handling up to four papers a year. She will also help out with the journal's social media outreach.

Appointed:  The University of Florida Health Cancer Center is pleased to announce that Ji-Hyun Lee, DrPH, has been elevated to a new role as associate director for cancer quantitative sciences. In this role, she will provide high-level strategic leadership and administrative direction for Cancer Center researchers. This support aims to ensure high-quality data, rigorous and reproducible analyses, and effective reporting, fostering collaborative team-based scientific endeavors. The appointment is part of the center’s continued development as a National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated cancer center.

Passed:  Cameron Grace Estrich, MPH, PhD, 40, epidemiologist and suspected fae, passed away seven months after being diagnosed with metastatic lung cancer. Dr. Estrich worked for the ADASRI, studying policy implementation, dental professionals' occupational health, and trends in dental treatment in the U.S. civilian population. As a Public Health epidemiologist, Cameron also researched vaccine hesitancy, mental health issues, and sexual identity. Cameron's advocacy was instrumental in improving access to the HPV vaccine nationally.  http://tinyurl.com/yc2atpzh

Passed: Dr. Adaora "Ada" Alise Adimora passed away at age 67 after a years long battle with cancer. As evidenced by her 37-page curriculum vitae, Adimora's career was long and far-reaching. In her 35-year career at UNC, Adimora was awarded the position of Sarah Graham Kenan Distinguished Professor of Medicine in the School of Medicine and served as a professor of epidemiology in the Gillings School of Global Public Health. As an associate professor in 2003, she became the first African American woman in UNC’s Department of Medicine to receive tenure.  http://tinyurl.com/yux5hjer

Passed:  Dr. Denise Simons-Morton, beloved wife, mother, and grandmother and accomplished physician epidemiologist, artist, and author, passed away on January 10, 2024. Denise was a passionate researcher whose career at the NIH advanced our understanding of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hypertension, and chronic disease. In 2019, Denise published her Memoir Public Health / Private Disease about the intersection of her experience battling Parkinson's Disease and her commitment to advancing public health.  http://tinyurl.com/3ht932wu

Passed:  Harold W. (Bill) Kohl III, Professor of Epidemiology at the UTHealth Houston School of Public Health in Austin and Research Professor of Kinesiology and Health Education at the University of Texas at Austin, died on January 7, 2024. He was regarded as a luminary in public health, epidemiology, and physical activity research.  An esteemed educator, mentor, and researcher, Kohl dedicated over four decades to advancing the scientific understanding of physical fitness and its impact on health and disease.  http://tinyurl.com/3s6kyyz5

Passed:  Pranab K. Sen, PhD, professor emeritus at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, passed away in Chapel Hill on December 31, 2023, at age 86.  He earned a doctorate in statistics and an honorary doctorate in science from the University of Calcutta.  He taught at the University of Calcutta and the University of California at Berkeley, before joining the faculty of the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  In 2002, he won the Gottfried E. Noether Senior Scholar Award of the American Statistical Association (ASA). He was the 2010 recipient of the ASA’s Samuel Wilks Memorial Award for outstanding contributions to statistical research, especially in nonparametric statistics and biostatistics, and for exceptional service in mentoring doctoral students.   http://tinyurl.com/22d56hmb

Passed: Stanley S. Schor, 100, formerly of Philadelphia, retired professor of statistics at the University of Pennsylvania and Temple University’s medical school, former executive director of clinical biostatistics and research data systems at Merck & Co., pioneer in the application of biostatistics, prolific clinical researcher, author, and veteran, died Monday, Dec. 26, at his home in Highland Beach, Fla. His reports elevated the role of statisticians in approving research, refined project policies, and updated everyday medical information for women, children, veterans, and the general public. Among other activities, he revamped questions on medical tests and research reviews, and introduced new methods to ensure safety, accurate product information, and the efficient distribution of effective drugs.

He taught statistics and research methodology at Penn from 1950 to 1964, was professor of biometrics and onetime department chair at Temple from 1966 to 1975, and worked at Merck from 1975 to 1991.  http://tinyurl.com/ya2fdt8w

Apppointed:  North Dakota Information Technology (NDIT) is pleased to announce Kimberly Weis as its new chief data officer. As chief data officer, Weis will have a pivotal role in shaping how NDIT leverages data to drive innovation, enhance efficiency, and achieve better outcomes for stakeholders.Weis, who holds a Master of Public Health degree in Epidemiology, began her professional career in genetic epidemiology at the University of Minnesota. In 2004, she relocated back to her home state of North Dakota and worked at North Dakota Department of Health for five years.

Appointed:  Boston College School of Social Work Professor Summer Sherburne Hawkins, a social epidemiologist whose research interests include health disparities among women and children, has been appointed as the inaugural associate director of BC’s Global Public Health and the Common Good interdisciplinary undergraduate program. University administrators expressed praise for Hawkins, who joined BCSSW in 2012, and is assistant director of BC’s Institute of Early Childhood Policy; she has published in prominent peer-reviewed public health journals on such topics as tobacco and cannabis use, maternal morbidity and mortality, infant feeding practices, and preventive health services.

Appointed: Manya Magnus, PhD, MPH, has been named Chair of the Department of Epidemiology at the Milken Institute School of Public Health. Magnus, who started January 2, has served as a professor of epidemiology, interim Chair of the Department of Epidemiology, the principal investigator (multiple) for the NIH/DAIDS-funded DC Clinical Trials Unit (DC CTU), and co-Director of the NIH-funded DC Center for AIDS Research. For more than 30 years, Magnus has conducted applied epidemiologic research that focuses on innovative biomedical and structural interventions to prevent HIV transmission.

Appointed:  Ruth Etzel, MD, PhD, an eminent pediatrician and environmental epidemiologist, has been named Editor-in-Chief of Environmental Health.  Etzel was appointed to serve a five year term, from January 2024 until January 2029.  Etzel is internationally recognized for her work on reducing children's exposures to indoor air pollutants such as tobacco smoke and molds.   

Apppointed:  Judd Walson, MD, MPH, has joined the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health as chair of the Department of International Health and as professor in the Department’s Global Disease Epidemiology and Control program. He assumed the role on November 14, 2023. Walson, whose work focuses on low- and middle-income settings, comes from the University of Washington, where he held several positions since 2007, most recently professor of Global Health, Medicine (Infectious Disease), Pediatrics, and Epidemiology.

Appointed:  Julie Kapp, an associate professor of public health in the University of Missouri’s College of Health Sciences, has been appointed to the Publications Board of the American Public Health Association (APHA). Kapp was selected to serve a three-year term on the board, which will run from November 2023 until November 2026. Kapp is nationally recognized by the American College of Epidemiology as a fellow for her significant and sustained contributions to the field.  Her work has been highlighted in The New York Times, Psychology Today, USA Today and Yahoo! Health.

Appointed: Douglas Landsittel has been named the new chair of the Department of Biostatistics in the School of Public Health and Health Professions. Landsittel will join UB in February from the Indiana University-Bloomington School of Public Health, where he has served as the James A. Caplin, M.D. Chair in Evidence-based Public Health and chair of the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics since 2021. Prior to joining Indiana University-Bloomington, Landsittel held numerous academic appointments and leadership positions at the University of Pittsburgh.

Appointed:  The Global Virus Network (GVN) today announced the appointment of Sten Vermund, MD, PhD, as President of the GVN. Dr. Vermund is the Anna M.R. Lauder Professor of Public Health, former Dean of the Yale School of Public Health (2017-2022) and serves as a Professor in Pediatrics at the Yale School of Medicine. Dr. Vermund’s research has mainly focused on health care access, adolescent sexual and reproductive health and rights, and prevention of HIV transmission among general and key populations, including mother-to-child.

Appointed:   James Luby, M.D., an infectious disease specialist, epidemiologist, and 55-year member of the UT Southwestern faculty, has been appointed Professor Emeritus of Internal Medicine. He joined the faculty of UT Southwestern in 1967 and has served the University in multiple ways during his tenure, including as Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases from 1975 to 1997. For many years, Dr. Luby headed UT Southwestern’s viral diagnostics lab.

Passed:   Wu Zunyou, an epidemiologist who helped drive the country's strict zero-COVID measures in China that suspended access to cities and confined millions to their homes, died on Friday. He was 60. Wu's health had been poor. He disappeared out of the public eye for months last year while battling cancer.

Wu, who earned his master’s and doctorate from the University of California, Los Angeles, had spent much of his early career working on HIV/Aids prevention in China. Wu was instrumental in developing China’s flagship policy in the HIV epidemic among intravenous drug users, according to his biography on the UCLA website.

Passed:  Judith Schwartzbaum, an epidemiologist whose groundbreaking research focused on the relationship between the immune system and the development of glioma (a form of brain cancer). Born in Alameda, California, in 1945, and raised in Los Angeles, she earned multiple degrees in history before shifting to epidemiology, and in 1991 began a long, distinguished career at the Ohio State University's College of Public Health, from which she retired in 2022. https://tinyurl.com/5dfvw68x

Passed:   Public Health Servant Dr. Douglas Huber, of Newton, died peacefully at home, on November 7, 2023, following a short illness. Douglas pursued undergraduate studies at the University of Arizona, earned his MD at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and completed his internship and residency at the University of Oklahoma's Health Sciences Center. Douglas discovered his love for "the anonymous gift of public health" in the Epidemic Intelligence Service at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, and earned a Master of Science in Medical Demography at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Subsequently, Douglas enjoyed five decades of rewarding work in epidemiology and international public health, working in more than 40 countries to improve health at the population level.  https://tinyurl.com/yeyrfw94

Passed: Gary Marsh, PhD, of McMurray, PA passed away on October25, 2023. Gary was Professor Emeritus of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, and the Founding Director of the Center for Occupational Biostatistics and Epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh, Graduate School of Public Health. He graduated with honors with a BS in Mathematics from the University of Pittsburgh, and a MS (Hyg) and PhD in Biostatistics from the Graduate School of Public Health at the young age of 25. He joined the faculty of the Department of Biostatistics in the Graduate School of Public Health in 1978 until his retirement in 2020. Gary also served as Interim Chairman for the Department of Biostatistics in the Graduate School of Public Health. Gary became a Senior Principal Health Scientist at Stantec ChemRisk in 2015.  https://tinyurl.com/yc5kry87

Named:  Global expert services and consulting firm Berkeley Research Group (BRG) has announced that epidemiology expert Wendy Cheng has joined the firm's Boston office as a managing director in its health care practice. The leading epidemiologist will extend health analytics and outcomes research, strengthening scope of firm's practice. Prior to her career in healthcare consulting, Dr. Cheng served as a research scientist at Columbia University and worked as a biostatistician in the Clinical Trials Network of the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Named:  Tara M. Friebel, a cancer epidemiologist with expertise in global oncology and implementation science, is joining Rutgers Global Health Institute as a principal faculty member.Friebel will become an assistant research professor of global health at the institute on October 16. Her research focuses on the prevention, early detection, and treatment of breast and cervical cancer in low-resource settings. She also will be affiliated with Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey and Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in the Cancer Epidemiology and Health Outcomes section of the Division of Medical Oncology.

Honored: The National Academy of Medicine (NAM) announced this morning that M. Daniele Fallin, PhD, James W. Curran Dean of Public Health, has been elected as one of its newest members. Fallin is one of three individuals selected from Emory University for NAM membership this year. Igho Ofotokun, MD, professor of medicine, was also elected and holds a joint appointment at Rollins. Fallin’s globally-recognized research focuses on applying genetic epidemiology methods to studies of neuropsychiatric and to developing applications and methods for genetic and epigenetic epidemiology, as applied to mental health and development.  

Named:  Andrea Baccarelli, an eminent environmental health sciences scholar, will become the next dean of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard President Claudine Gay announced on Wednesday. Baccarelli is currently the Leon Hess Professor of Environmental Health Sciences and Epidemiology at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, where he also serves as chair of the Department of Environmental Health Sciences. He previously served as an associate professor at the Chan School of Public Health. He will become dean on Jan. 1, succeeding Michelle Williams, who served as dean through the 2022-2023 academic year.

Named:   The University of Virginia School of Medicine has named Matthew J. Gurka, PhD, a national leader in child health research, to chair its Department of Public Health Sciences. Gurka comes to UVA from the University of Florida, where he serves as vice chair of health outcomes and translational research and director of the Pediatric Research Hub in the Department of Pediatrics. Before that, he served as the founding chair of the Department of Biostatistics at West Virginia University’s School of Public Health. Gurka began his academic career in UVA’s Department of Public Health Sciences, where he rose to become an associate professor in the Div  of Biostatistics and Epidemiology.

Honored:   The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill awarded the 2023 Edward Kidder Graham Faculty Service Award to David J. Weber, MD, the Charles Addison and Elizabeth Ann Sanders Distinguished Professor of medicine and pediatrics at the UNC School of Medicine, professor of epidemiology at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, associate chief medical officer at UNC Health Care, and medical director in the Department of Infection Prevention at UNC Medical Center. It is fitting to recognize Weber’s service as an infectious disease physician and epidemiologist following the worst pandemic since the 1918 influenza pandemic, which caused the death of 42-year-old UNC-Chapel Hill President Edward Kidder Graham.

Honored:  Sarita Shah, MD, epidemiology professor at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University, has been awarded the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Midcareer Investigator Award in Patient-Oriented Research (K24).  Her research and public health work have focused on drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) and TB/HIV co-infection throughout sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. Shah’s K24 award, “Mentoring Multidisciplinary Patient-Oriented Research in TB, HIV, and Global Health,” will leverage an ongoing NIH R01-funded study investigating drug-resistant TB transmission in South Africa, including the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on social contact patterns that are a key factor in disease spread.

Passed:   Dr. David Shaffer, a psychiatrist who spent decades studying children and teenagers who died by suicide, constructing a framework for screening and laying the groundwork for modern prevention efforts, died in Mastic Beach, N.Y., on Long Island. He was 87.

In the 1970s, when Dr. Shaffer was a young doctor, most people saw the suicide of a child or adolescent as a random and unpredictable act. Trained as an epidemiologist, he undertook an investigation known as a “psychological autopsy,” gathering detailed information from adult caregivers of 31 children who had died by suicide. The research yielded surprises. In more than a third of the cases, the suicide had occurred in the midst of what he called a “disciplinary crisis,” as the child awaited consequences. Many of the children were described, not as depressed, but as aggressive or impulsive.

“He liked the detective work,” Dr. Charlie Shaffer said. “That’s why he loved being an epidemiologist. He loved detective stories.”   https://tinyurl.com/ymesp2wb
 

Named:  Austin Porter, Dr.PH., MPH, is an assistant professor in the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health Department of Health Policy and Management. Porter, who is also the Arkansas Department of Health’s deputy chief science officer, was recently named Arkansas’ deputy state epidemiologist. In this role, Porter — who has been with the Arkansas Department of Health since 2010 — will support and advocate for the state’s epidemiologists.

Named:  Rebecca Bartles, DrPH, MPH, CIC, FAPIC, will join the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) as Executive Director of APIC’s Center for Infection Prevention and Control Research, Practice & Innovation (CIPCRPI). Dr. Bartles begins on October 2. Dr. Bartles comes to APIC from Providence Health in Washington State, the second-largest non-profit health system in the United States, where she served as Executive Director of Infectious Disease Management and Prevention for the past eight years. She also teaches masters-level students at the University of Providence infection prevention degree program that she founded in 2016.

Honored: Nature Magazine has named Kofi Amegah, PhD to it’s list of People Who Are Changing the Environment One Community at a Time.  He is a professor of Environmental and Nutritional Epidemiology at  the University of Cape Coast in Ghana.  He shared his work in 2015 at a WHO meeting in Switzerland and discovered a huge gap in data on air pollution in Ghana.  Since that time he has founded Breathe Accra which is installing pollution meters in Ghana’s capitol to identify pollution hotspots.

Honored:  Charles Rotimi, Ph.D., was awarded the Academy Medal for Distinguished Contributions in Biomedical Science by the New York Academy of Medicine. This honor, established in 1929, recognizes investigators with sustained and impactful accomplishments in biomedical research and an interest in translating these findings to advance human health. Dr. Rotimi is the scientific director of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), a role in which he directs the institute’s Intramural Research Program. He is also the director of the Trans-NIH Center for Genomics and Global Health (CRGGH) and an NIH Distinguished Investigator.

Honored:   Victor Soupene (21MS, 21CER), PhD candidate in the Department of Epidemiology, recently received a 2023 Rising Star Award from the Safe States Alliance. This award recognizes the professional growth and leadership of students and newer professionals working in the field of injury and violence prevention (IVP) less than five years.

Passed:   Dr. Philip T. Cole, a cancer epidemiologist, died on September 6, 2023 in Shoal Creek, Alabama. He attended Michigan State University (B.A., 1960), the University of Vermont (M.D., 1965), and Harvard University (M.P.H., 1967). He earned a Dr.P.H. in 1970, also from Harvard.

He began his professional career in Epidemiology at Harvard in 1969 where between 1969 and 1979 he authored or co-authored more than 70 research papers relating to the epidemiology of cancer in human beings. In 1979 Phil relocated to Alabama where he assumed a position as Senior Scientist at the Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). He served as Chairman of the Department of Epidemiology at UAB from 1981 to 1994, and during that time he authored or co-authored more than 130 research papers on causality in Epidemiology, health policy and law, innovative approaches to smoking cessation, occupational and chemical carcinogenesis and the health effects of electromagnetic fields.  https://bit.ly/3LzePHy

Passed:  Sherri Oliver Stuver, ScD, of Quincy, MA, died at the age of 61 from a long illness with Multiple Sclerosis, on September 13th, 2023 at home with her loving family by her side. She was a Clinical Professor of Epidemiology and Director of Epidemiology Doctoral Program at Boston University. She was also the Senior Research Scientist in the Department of Quality and Patient Safety at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. She was a graduate of Harvard-Radcliffe College, AB, and Harvard University School of Public Health, ScD. She was born and raised on Nantucket Island with her three sisters and large extended family.  https://legcy.co/48phcXb

Named:  West Virginia University epidemiologist Brian Hendricks has joined the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy as a senior policy analyst. He  was appointed to the position in fall 2022 through the Intergovernmental Personnel Act mobility program—which provides for the temporary assignment of personnel between governments and eligible organizations—with plans of continuing in the role over the next year. With extensive expertise in spatial epidemiology and geographical analyses, Hendricks is supporting the use of spatial analyses and other methodological approaches to policy and priorities of the office.

Named:  Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health has appointed Jaime Madrigano, ScD, MPH, as a Bloomberg Associate Professor of American Health in the area of Environmental Challenges in the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering. She is an environmental epidemiologist committed to research that advances holistic, equitable solutions to protect the public from the growing threat of climate change. Her research examines how environmental pollution and extreme weather—alone and in combination with neighborhood and socioeconomic factors—impact population health.

Named: Meagan Helmick, the epidemiologist who oversaw COVID-19 responsibilities in Southwest Virginia, has been named the health director for the Mount Rogers Health District (MRHD). Meagan Helmick joined the Virginia Department of Health in 2020. In addition to serving as the deputy epidemiologist for the entire Southwest Virginia region, Helmick acted as a case investigator and supervisor during the pandemic. Helmick has also been an assistant professor at Radford University-Carilion, where she taught public health and health sciences courses at both the undergraduate and graduate level.

Appointed:  Dr. Puthiery Va will be the next Director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), starting August 28, 2023. Commissioner Jeanne Lambrew appointed Dr. Va following a national search, based on Dr. Va’s extensive range of experience in primary clinical care, epidemiology, and public health emergency response, having most recently led the successful COVID-19 response in the Navajo Nation. Dr. Va will be returning to Maine having received her medical degree from the University of New England.

Appointed:   Brown University has announced that Dr. Francesca Beaudoin will take on the role of Interim Academic Dean at the School of Public Health. In addition to her continued role as the Chair of the Department of Epidemiology, Francesca will assume responsibility for helping to guide the school's academic mission. She will serve as the school's chief academic officer, a thought partner to me, and a key member of the leadership team.

Appointed:  Brown University has announced that Brandon Marshall, PhD, has agreed to be Vice Chair of the Department of Epidemiology and Director of the Center for Epidemiologic Research. His work focuses on substance use epidemiology, harm reduction research, and the social, environmental, and structural determinants of health of drug-using populations. He received a PhD in epidemiology from the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia.

Honored:  Associate Professor Masaaki Kitajima of Hokkaido University, Shionogi & Co., and AdvanSentinel Ltd. were bestowed with the Minister of State for Health and Medical Strategy Award (健康・医療戦略担当大臣賞) of the 6th Japan Medical Research and Development Grand Prize (第6回日本医療研究開発大賞). The award was granted in recognition of their initiative “Implementation of Wastewater-based Epidemiology for Novel Coronavirus.” The award ceremony, held on August 23, 2023, was attended by Fumio Kishida, Prime Minister of Japan.

Honored:  Professor Katherine Kedzierska, Dr Oanh Nguyen and Dr Louise Rowntree – dubbed the Corona Queens – were recognised for their outstanding contributions to COVID-19 research. Responding to the global pandemic, they promptly established innovative and multi-disciplinary immune research programs to unravel the intricate immune responses to SARS-CoV-2, and they were the first in the world to report on immunity to SARS-CoV-2 infection in one of Australia’s first COVID-19 patients in March 2020.

Left to Right:
Katherine Kedzierska, Louise Roundtree, Qanh Nguyen

Honored: Dr. John Kaneene, East Lansing, Michigan won this award in recognition of his outstanding leadership and career contributions in animal health and human health, in the spirit of One Health. A 1972 veterinary graduate of the University of Khartoum in Sudan, Africa, Dr. Kaneene is a professor of epidemiology and public health and director of the Center for Comparative Epidemiology at Michigan State University College of Veterinary Medicine.

Honored: Dr. Jonna Mazet (California-Davis '92) won this award in recognition of her outstanding leadership and career contributions in animal health and human health, in the spirit of One Health. Dr. Mazet is vice provost for grand challenges and a professor of epidemiology and disease ecology at the University of California-Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. She founded the One Health Institute at the veterinary school, where she served as executive director.

Passed: Emeritus Professor Mary-Louise McLaws OA, an epidemiologist and world-renowned public health researcher, has passed away. A world-renowned public health advocate, Professor McLaws (nee Viney) understood that a health crisis needs experts as well as leaders. She became both for millions of Australians. Professor McLaws had a passion for public health early in her career, inspired by her mentor and immunologist the late Professor David Cooper AC. McLaws gained her PhD in Epidemiology in 1992, eventually becoming Professor of Epidemiology, Hospital Infection and Infectious Diseases Control at the School of Population Health at the University of New South Wales (UNSW).

Passed: The HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN) has announced the passing of Dr. Stephaun Elite Wallace, Director of External Relations for the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center’s (Fred Hutch) HVTN, on August 5, 2023. Dr. Wallace was a research epidemiologist and public health and social justice leader. In addition to serving as HVTN’s Director of External Relations, he had faculty appointments at Fred Hutch, the University of Washington, and Yale as a staff scientist, clinical assistant professor, and affiliate professor, respectively. Throughout all aspects of his work, he focused on increasing positive health outcomes for members of racial/ethnic and gender/sexual minority groups in the United States and internationally.

Honored:  Amanda Crowson, MPH, RN, CPU, CIC was honored by APIC with the esteemed New InvestigatorAware at the 2023 Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) Conference and Exhibition. Crowson started her professional journey at AdventHealth Tampa in Florida, where she completed her field experience while a Master of Public Health student at the University of South Florida. She has dedicated herself to the field of infection prevention and even returned to school to become a registered nurse during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Honored:  Henning Tiemeier, MD, PhD has been named one of the two recipients of the2023 Alzheimer Award by the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.  Dr. Tiemeier  received his Doctorate in Medicine and his sociology degree from the University of Bonn, Germany, and his PhD in Epidemiology from the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. He is Professor of Psychiatric Epidemiology at the Erasmus University Medical Center Rotterdam and in 2018, was appointed Professor of Social and Behavioral Science and Sumner and Esther Feldberg Chair in Maternal and Child Health at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health.

Honored: Roseanne Freak-Poli, PhD has been named one of the two recipients of the2023 Alzheimer Award by the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease. She  is a life-course epidemiologist. Her work is strongly driven by social justice, being the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society. She is a Senior Research Fellow at the School of Clinical Sciences at Monash Health, Melbourne, Australia. She has been awarded an NHMRC Early Career Research Fellowship and a National Heart Foundation of Australia Postdoctoral Fellowship.

Appointed:  The Philadelphia Department of Public Health announces the appointment of Dr. Landrus Burress as their new Director of the Division of Disease Control. Dr. Burress is an Air Force veteran and served as Chief of Public Health Operations for the Preventive Aerospace Medicine Division, US Air Force Central Command, 332nd Expeditionary Medical Group in Southwest Asia.  In that role, he directed public health operations which included disease reporting and surveillance, communicable diseases, population health, occupational health, and public health emergency preparedness to maintain health for three global Southwest Asian locations.  

Appointed:   Professor Marian Knight, who is Professor of Maternal and Child Population Health and Director of the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit at Oxford Population Health, has been appointed National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Scientific Director for Research Infrastructure. She will lead on the strategic development of the NIHR’s infrastructure, working in partnership with infrastructure leaders. As part of her role on the NIHR Board, Professor Knight will support the Department of Health and Social Care Chief Scientific Advisor and NIHR Chief Executive, and the Director of Science Research and Evidence to deliver against the NIHR’s mission to improve the health and wealth of the national through research.

Honored:  Dr. Joseph Pater has been recognized for a lifetime of work in cancer research with his appointment as an Officer of the Order of Canada. The honor acknowledges the impact of his dedication to clinical research which has improved the lives of Canadians with cancer. He is a Professor Emeritus at Queen’s, was the head of the Department of Community Health and Epidemiology, where he taught clinical trials courses and supervised graduate students and fellows. For over 40 years, he has advanced clinical trial research in Canada. “Dr. Pater is one of the most important individuals in Canadian cancer research, having built a network that has defined new standards of practice, improved patient outcomes, and is recognized globally as a centre for excellence," says Dr. Janet Dancey, Director of the Canadian Cancer Trials Group (CCTG).  He is sometimes called the “father” of cancer clinical trials research in Canada.

Named:  The University of Chicago has announced that Dan Nicolae has been named the Elaine M. and Samuel D. Kersten, Jr. Distinguished Service Professor in the Departments of Statistics and Medicine and the College. Nicolae joined the faculty at the University of Chicago in 1999. He has served as chair of the Department of Statistics from 2016-2022, section chief for the Section of Genetic Medicine from 2015-2016, and currently as faculty co-director of the Data Science Institute.  Nicolae’s research seeks to understand the role of genetic, genomic and environmental factors, and their interactions, in the development of common diseases. A statistical geneticist and a mathematical statistician, he specializes in developing methodological advances for large data problems in biology and medicine.

Appointed: President Biden has named Dr. Mandy Cohen, former state health secretary in North Carolina, to serve as the next leader of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Cohen, 44, is an internal medicine physician who has served in top positions in state and federal government and in the private sector. From 2017-2021, she served as health secretary in North Carolina, where she worked on expanding access to health care for low-income residents and became the face of the state's COVID-19 response during the public health emergency.

Named:  Dr. Kathryn Taylor has been named the Mississippi Interim State Epidemiologist, effective July 1, 2023.Currently serving as Deputy State Epidemiologist since 2019, Dr. Taylor has worked at MSDH for several years, previously District V Health Officer and Medical Consultant for the Office of Communicable Diseases. Dr. Taylor has been vital in providing direction for surveillance and surveillance systems to the agency, has led and been involved in numerous outbreak and reportable diseases investigations and in the responses to other diseases of public health significance.

Appointed: Dr. Julie Kornfeld will become president of Kenyon College, effective Oct. 1, 2023.  Kornfeld is currently vice provost for academic programs at Columbia University. She has also served as vice dean for education and associate professor of epidemiology at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health; and assistant dean and director of education at University of Miami's Miller School of Medicine. Kornfeld holds a bachelor’s in journalism from Boston University, a Master of Public Health from University of Miami, and a Ph.D. in epidemiology also from UMiami.

Appointed:  Saint Louis University has appointed Leslie McClure, Ph.D., as the next permanent dean of SLU’s College for Public Health and Social Justice (CPHSJ), effective Nov. 15. McClure is the associate dean for faculty affairs at the Dornsife School of Public Health at Drexel University. She also has served as the chair of the school's Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics since 2015 and previously served as the interim director of the Drexel Biostatistics Service Center.

Honored:   Professor David Hunter has been awarded a Companion of the Order of Australia in the 2023 King’s Birthday Honours list. is a world-renowned epidemiologist specialising in disease prevention and early detection now based at Oxford University in the UK. Joining the faculty at the Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health in 1989, he went on to establish the Harvard Center for Cancer Prevention in 1997 and later its Program in Molecular and Genetic Epidemiology. Occupying deanships at the T.H. Chan school from 2019 to 2016, he was made an Emeritus Professor in 2016.  

“Finally allowed to announce the coolest thing that’s ever happened to me,” Rapheal wrote in an Instagram post that showed her and host Mayim Bialik on the game show’s set.

To view the episode on YouTube click here:  https://bit.ly/3NtrziT

Passed: Susan Elizabeth Goodwin Gerberich (Mayo Professor of Public Health Emerita, University of Minnesota), died on June 4, 2023. she launched the first major comprehensive study of football injuries in Minnesota high schools in 1978, that included documentation of high rates of concussions and spinal trauma symptoms, among other injuries. Other major studies of sports-related injuries, including hockey, were subsequently developed and conducted by her with a research team. She joined the School of Public Health faculty full-time, 1983-2021, where she developed a major teaching and research program in injury epidemiology and prevention that included the first federally funded training program in occupational health and safety.  https://bit.ly/3Da2epL

Dr. John Richard Hebel, 87, passed away peacefully on June 1, 2023, in York, PA, after a long battle with Guillain-Barre disease. Rich began his career in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at the University of Maryland School of Medicine as Assistant Professor in 1966. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 1971 and to Professor in 1984. He participated in research concerning prenatal care for low- income women, blood pressure variability, smoking cessation during pregnancy, hospital mortality, hypertension screening, lead exposure, hip fracture recovery, dementia in nursing homes, alcohol abuse intervention, urinary tract infection, and health effects of exposure of pfiesteria. Rich was also the author or co-author of over 200 journal articles.  https://bit.ly/440E6RT

Awarded: Kathryn H. Jacobsen, PhD, MPH, received the 2023 Velji Global Health Award for Teaching Excellence from the Consortium of Universities for Global Health (CUGH).  Dr. Jacobsen is a professor of epidemiology and global health and holder of the William E. Cooper Distinguished University Chair at the University of Richmond (Virginia, USA).  She has authored more than 200 peer-reviewed journal articles as well as two widely used textbooks, Introduction to Global Health (now in its 4^th edition) and Introduction to Health Research Methods (currently in its 3^rd edition), both published by Jones & Bartlett Learning. 

Appointed:  Dr. Francesca Beaudoin, associate professor of epidemiology and of emergency medicine at Brown University, has been appointed chair of the Department of Epidemiology effective July 1, 2023. A clinical epidemiologist and practicing physician, Dr. Beaudoin began her academic career as assistant professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Warren Alpert Medical School in 2010. Conducting research at the intersection of pain, opioid use, and opioid use disorders, her work is widely recognized as impacting the landscape of pain management and improving post-overdose care in acute care settings.

Appointed: Nicole Deziel, associate professor of epidemiology (environmental health sciences), has been named a co-director of the Yale Center for Perinatal, Pediatric, and Environmental Epidemiology (CPPEE), starting July 1. She will share leadership duties with the center’s current director, Andrew DeWan, associate professor of epidemiology (chronic diseases).DeWan has been the lone director of CPPEE since Brian Leaderer, Susan Dwight Bliss Professor Emeritus of Epidemiology (Environmental Health Sciences), retired in June 2020. DeWan recently approached Deziel, who is on sabbatical this school year, about co-directing.

Awarded:  One of the recipients 2023 Harvard Alumni medals, Paula A. Johnson is an internationally recognized physician-scientist and educator, who has committed her career to advancing the well-being of women. As the president of Wellesley College, and the first African American in that role, Johnson has advanced inclusive excellence and STEM education for women, among other accomplishments. Johnson was also the Grayce A. Young Family Professor of Medicine in Women’s Health at Harvard Medical School — a professorship named in honor of her mother — and professor of epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Honored:   Michael Hudgens, PhD, is the winner of the 2023 Larsh Award from the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. Hudgens is a professor and associate chair of the Department of Biostatistics and serves as the director of the Biostatistics Core of the UNC Center for AIDS Research (CFAR). He has experience in collaborative research and statistical methodology development related to studies of infectious diseases.

Honored:   Lindsey Smith Taillie, PhD, is the winner of the 2023 McGavran Award from the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. Taillie is a nutrition epidemiologist who received her doctoral degree in nutrition from the Gillings School in 2014. She is a current associate professor in the nutrition department and the department’s associate chair for academics. She also co-leads the UNC Global Food Research Program.

Honored: Erin Haynes, Dr.P.H., Kurt W. Deuschle Professor of Preventive Medicine and Environmental Health and chair of the Department of Epidemiology and Environmental Health at the University of Kentucky College of Public Health, is one of 16 University Research Professors for 2023-24. The University Research Professorships honor faculty members who have demonstrated excellence that addresses scientific, social, cultural and economic challenges in our region and around the world. 

Appointed:  Texas Women’s University professor, Loan Van Auker, has been appointed to the team at LiquiTech, a leading provider of sustainable water treatment and management solutions for commercial and institutional customers. VanAuker brings more than 15 years of experience in disease outbreak surveillance, investigations, and prevention, most recently as an Infection Prevention Practitioner at Baylor Scott & White Health Systems.  

Appointed: LinKinVax, a clinical-stage biotechnology company, has announced the appointment of Anna R. Giuliano, Ph.D., to its scientific advisory board. Giuliano, a professor of epidemiology, is the founding director of the Center for Immunization and Infection Research in Cancer (CIIRC) at the Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute, Tampa, Florida. Early in her career, she worked on the links between human papillomavirus (HPV) infections and cervical cancer in women, before moving on to other HPV-related male and female cancers. Prof. Giuliano, currently leads a CIIRC research team at the Moffitt Cancer Center to accelerate the development and use of vaccines and compounds to prevent and treat cancer.

Passed: Kenrad E. Nelson, a professor of epidemiology and internationally recognized AIDS expert who spent nearly four decades on the Johns Hopkins faculty, died April 21 at the age of 89. In an email announcing his death and paying tribute to his memory Tuesday, Bloomberg School of Public Health Dean Ellen MacKenzie honored Nelson's "stellar record as a researcher, teacher, and mentor." Nelson joined the Johns Hopkins faculty in 1986 as a full professor in the Department of Epidemiology with joint appointments in International Health and the School of Medicine's Department of Medicine. He was an early investigator of HIV in blood donors and recipients and, with David Vlahov, co-investigator on a grant that would revolutionize AIDS research, The natural history of HIV infections in injection drug users in Baltimore: The ALIVE study     https://bit.ly/43cWdUy

Passed:   Malaria kills more than half a million people every year, mostly children under the age of five in Africa. Saving the lives of those children was the lifelong mission of Dominic Kwiatkowski, who has died suddenly aged 69. A professor at Oxford University, Dominic recognised that bringing the power of genomics to bear on malaria would need data from multiple studies in many countries. He saw that the only way to achieve that was in partnership with researchers based in the countries where malaria was endemic. In 2005 Dominic won funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust to set up the Malaria Genomic Epidemiology Network (MalariaGEN).   https://bit.ly/3MICmpe

Appointed: St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital has named Greg Armstrong, M.D., MSCE, the new chair of the Department of Epidemiology and Cancer Control, the department that has established the institution as a world leader in the study of childhood cancer survivorship. A physician-scientist, Armstrong is the principal investigator of the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study (CCSS), and is a co-program leader for the Cancer Control and Survivorship Program, one of the five major programs within the St. Jude Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Appointed:  Dr. Megan Todd has been appointed by the Philadelphia Department of Public Health as their new Chief Epidemiologist. Dr. Todd is a demographer and social epidemiologist who most recently served as the Director of the Data Lab for the Health Department’s Division of Chronic Disease and Injury Prevention. Dr. Todd’s work focuses on population health, health policy, and translating scientific findings for policy and general audiences. She holds a PhD in Demography and Public Affairs from Princeton University and an AB in economics from Harvard University.

Honored: Patricia A. Ganz, M.D. has been awarded the 2023 AACR-American Cancer Society Award for Research Excellence in Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention. The award recognizes outstanding research accomplishments in cancer epidemiology, biomarkers, and prevention. Dr. Ganz is a Distinguished Professor of Medicine at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, a Distinguished Professor of Health Policy & Management at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, and associate director for population science at the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Awarded: Third-year epidemiology PhD student Ahmed Soliman has been awarded an American Heart Association (AHA) Pre-Doctoral Fellowship. The prestigious award is designed to advance the research and clinical training of pre-doctoral or clinical health professional students who plan to conduct research or work in careers aimed at improving cardiovascular, cerebrovascular and brain health. Soliman’s research examines the impact of proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) on the cardiovascular health of postmenopausal women.

Honored:   Joseph Cavanaugh, PhD, professor and head of the Department of Biostatistics in the College of Public Health,  was honored with a 2023 Regents Award by the University of Iowa.  Cavanaugh is a methodological and collaborative researcher who leverages his expertise in statistics and biostatistics to investigate a range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary topics. He has published more than 170 peer-reviewed manuscripts and has made particularly important contributions in the areas of statistical model selection, time series analysis, infectious diseases epidemiology, and injury prevention. He played a significant role in the state of Iowa’s COVID-19 response, leading a team that partnered with the Iowa Department of Public Health to analyze data and develop predictive models to help the state respond to the pandemic.

Passed:   John Newton MacCormack passed on March 14, 2023.  Newton received a B.A. in Chemistry from Duke University. Upon completion of his undergraduate degree, he pursued his medical degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. After serving two years in the U.S. Navy as a Lieutenant, he obtained his Masters in Public Health from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Newton served the citizens of North Carolina with the State Board of Public Health. He served as the head of Communicable Disease as well as the State Epidemiologist. He retired in 2001 but returned after 9/11 to work for several more years.  https://bit.ly/40MOGJP

Passed: John Walker Poundstone, MD passed away on April 1, 2023 in Lexington, KY. John received his BA in Liberal Arts in 1962 from St. John's College in Annapolis, MD, and his medical degree in 1966 from the newly established University of Kentucky School of Medicine, followed by Board Certification in General Preventive Medicine and an MPH from the Harvard School of Public Health. John joined the US Navy in 1980 and served as Head of the Venereal Disease and Tuberculosis Control Division, Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, Washington DC; Chief of the Division of Epidemiology and Biometrics at the Navy Medical Research Unit, Great Lakes, IL; and Officer in Charge of the Navy Environmental and Preventive Medicine Unit in Naples, Italy.  https://bit.ly/40I0uwY

Honored:  Wayne D. Rosamond, PhD, professor of epidemiology at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, has been named the 2023 recipient of the American Heart Association’s (AHA) EPI Mentoring Award. The award highlights the importance of superior mentoring in cardiovascular epidemiologic research by honoring a person who has provided exceptional individual and institutional mentoring and advocacy for cardiovascular epidemiology researchers.

Appointed: Karina L. Walters, Ph.D., M.S.W., enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, has been appointed director of the NIH Tribal Health Research Office (THRO). Dr. Walters’ wealth of experience and deep commitment to engaging tribal leadership in health research efforts makes her ideally suited for the position. Her commitment to community-based participatory research is evident in her demonstrated ability to sustain collaborations with diverse Native communities and conduct successful randomized clinical trials in tribal communities. She succeeds David R. Wilson, Ph.D., who is on assignment to the White House Council on Native American Affairs.

Honored: Kristen Bibbins-Domingo, M.D. has been named to the STATUS List for the second year in a row.  As the editor in chief of JAMA, she became the first person of color to lead the prestigious medical journal and its network of publications. She is also the former chair of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. Her contributions to advancing cardiac science through population studies earned Bibbins-Domingo, who is trained in epidemiology and is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, the American Heart Association’s 2022 Population Research Prize.

Honored: Albert Ascherio, M.D., has been named to the STATUS List for 2023. He began his career as a young doctor treating tropical diseases in South American rainforests and parts of Africa. Over the next quarter-century, he made his way to what is now his wheelhouse: studying the links between viruses and neurodegenerative diseases. Perhaps none of his projects have generated as much attention as his 2022 paper, which offered strong evidence, through a 20-year study of more than 10 million people, that infection with the Epstein-Barr virus, most commonly known for causing mononucleosis, increased the likelihood of developing MS by more than 32-fold.

Honored:   Ashish Jha, MD, MPH the White House coronavirus coordinator and Brown School of Public Health dean (on leave), has been honored with a place on the 2023 STATUS List.  In March 2022, He signed on to  help the White House manage its pandemic response at a time when fast-spreading variants continued to pose a major public health threat even as many Americans moved away from restrictions. In Washington, Jha has focused on promoting Covid-19 countermeasures such as bivalent booster shots, free at-home tests, and free masks for use in crowded public settings.

Honored: Harvard epidemiology professor, John Marc Lipsitch DPhil, was named to the STATUS List for 2023. When Lipsitch observed the government’s lackluster pandemic response back in spring 2020, the Harvard epidemiologist helped fill the void by providing timely, accurate information to the public via social media and news outlets. Since then, Lipsitch has become one of the most trusted voices in the U.S. on Covid-19. Last year, he took the helm as inaugural director of science at the CDC’s new Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics, which has been likened to the National Weather Service, but for infectious diseases.

Honored: UCLA epidemiologist Anne Rimoin PhD, MPH, was named to the STATUS List for 2023.   Rimoin has spent two decades studying emerging infections in Central Africa, and has long advocated for surveillance systems that allow for their rapid identification and control. Last year, when mpox began to sweep the globe, Rimoin was an early, authoritative voice calling on public health officials to take the threat seriously. Although the threat of mpox has since waned, she urges continued vigilance against infections with the potential for global spread, including mpox.

Elected: Epidemiologist and biostatistician Maria Cervania, MPH was elected to serve in the North Carolina legislature.  She is one of the first two Asian-American women to serve in that body and the first Filipino elected to serve in any elected government office in North Carolina. Her new position follows 20 years of work in public health.

Named:  Jennie H. Kwon, DO,  an assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, has been named head of the Society of Healthcare Epidemiologists of America Research Committee. Kwon’s clinical and translational research is dedicated to infection prevention and combating antimicrobial resistance. 

Passed:  Dr. Mark A. Belsey died peacefully at home in Brooklyn Heights on March 2, surrounded by his family.  In 1965 he was the Director of Emergency, Immunization and Epidemiologic Surveillance following Hurricane Betsy in New Orleans. He taught epidemiology and pediatrics at Tulane and saw patients at Charity Hospital while pursuing research at the International Center for Medical Research and Training in Cali, Colombia. He joined the World Health Organization in 1972, and moved his young family to Geneva, Switzerland. In 1982 he was named Chief Medical Officer and Head of Maternal and Child Health and Family Planning at the WHO. His 2005 book for the United Nations, "AIDS and the Family" focused on the repercussions of HIV/AIDS on families in Sub-Saharan Africa.   http://bit.ly/3G1j7Vp

Passed: Corleen Jane Thompson PhD, 78, of Wilmington, NC died on February 26, 2023. She received her PhD in Epidemiology from UNC Chapel Hill after working in medical research for many years. Corleen pursued the field of Epidemiology in Georgia and resided in Albany, GA.

Appointed:  Inside Tracker, the leading personal health analysis and data-driven wellness guide that helps people increase their healthspan and live healthier longer, announced today that Dr. Kate Wolin has joined the company as a member of its Scientific Advisory Board. A leader in the field of behavioral epidemiology with a successful executive track record, Dr. Wolin brings an acclaimed expertise in the integration of evidence-based behavior change and personalization strategies into digital health products and platforms.

Honored: Dr. Calvin Booker of Okotoks, Alberta is the recipient of the 2023 Veterinarian of the Year Award presented by the Western Canadian Association of Bovine Practitioners (WCABP) and Boehringer Ingelheim Canada. He is recognized for his significant impact on feedlot veterinary medicine, groundbreaking research as an epidemiologist and several innovations that have transformed the cattle industry.

Honored: Tamarra James-Todd, the Mark and Catherine Winkler Associate Professor of Environmental Reproductive Epidemiology at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, received the 2022 Alice Hamilton Award at a ceremony on November 17 for her leadership in the area of environmental exposure and women’s health. She documents the impacts of harmful chemical exposures and related environmental health disparities—and her work does not end there. She also brings the science into the community to shed light on preventable risks and show people how to improve their health.

Honored: In June, Syracuse University’s Falk College Associate Dean of Research and Professor of Public Health Katherine McDonald will receive the 2023 Research Award from the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AAIDD).For nearly two decades, McDonald has led community-engaged research with people with developmental disabilities and advocated for the responsible inclusion of adults with intellectual disability in research. When she started, there weren’t many other researchers who were involved in that kind of work.

Passed:   PanCAN and the pancreatic cancer community mourn the passing of Gloria Petersen, PhD. Dr. Petersen was Consultant and Professor of Epidemiology at Mayo Clinic, where she held the Purvis and Roberta Tabor Professorship. Dr. Petersen was a longstanding member of PanCAN’s Scientific and Medical Advisory Board (SMAB) and also received a PanCAN Early Detection Targeted Research Grant in 2017. Dr. Petersen’s primary research interest was in understanding hereditary pancreatic cancer and the genetic changes that cause the disease.   http://bit.ly/3ZkxlHS

Passed:  Bruce Arthur Goodrow passed away on February 13, 2023. He served as a faculty member at State University of New York, University of Tennessee, Western Kentucky University, Minnesota State University, and spent the last 18 years of his career as a professor in the College of Public Health at East Tennessee State University. Upon retirement he was honored as Professor Emeritus. Dr. Goodrow earned undergraduate and graduate degrees from West Texas A&M and the University of Texas, a doctorate from the University of Tennessee, and completed postdoctoral studies in epidemiology at the University of Minnesota.   http://bit.ly/3SFXfnC

Passed: Epidemiologist and expert in infectious diseases and diagnostics Luis Cuevas. died of pancreatic cancer on Jan 2, 2023 in Wirral, UK. As an epidemiologist and expert in tropical medicine, he was driven by the question of how to make a practical difference in access to diagnostics and treatment for people in low-resource settings.  Although Cuevas’ research stretched across multiple diseases, speeding up the diagnosis and treatment of tuberculosis was a passion.  http://bit.ly/3ZpgqUF

Passed: Kenneth Gerald Johnson, M.D., passed away on January 28th, 2023. Dr. Johnson's distinguished career bridged the worlds of academic medicine and public health. He was a clinical professor of cardiology at Yale; director of medicine and epidemiology at the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission in Japan; associate professor of medicine at Cornell-New York Medical College, where he was director of epidemiological research; and a full professor of medicine at Dartmouth Medical School where he established the Department of Community Medicine, serving as its first chair.  http://bit.ly/3SGxCmv

Appointed:  Saad B. Omer, M.B.B.S, Ph.D., who currently directs the Yale Institute for Global Health, has been appointed the inaugural Dean of School of Public Health at UT Southwestern Medical Center. Dr. Omer has conducted studies in the United States, Guatemala, Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, South Africa, and Australia.  He has published more than 430 peer-reviewed papers that have been cumulatively cited more than 150,000 times. Dr Omer’s published workis consistently cited for policy recommendations and has informed legislative policy and clinical practice in many countries.

Appointed: Ubydul Haque, a geospatial epidemiologist who designs data- and technology-driven solutions for confronting global public health problems, has joined Rutgers Global Health Institute. Haque, who is an assistant professor of global health at the institute, has a joint appointment as an assistant professor of epidemiology in the Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology at Rutgers School of Public Health. Haque investigates factors related to physical space and time that can affect human health. His research has focused on infectious diseases, climate change, conflict and war and natural disasters.

Appointed: Nirav D Shah, an Indian-origin epidemiologist, has been appointed Principal Deputy Director at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, making him the second-in-command at the national public health agency. Shah is currently the Director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. He will assume the new role, second in leadership under US CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, in March. His appointment as Principal Deputy Director comes as part of a planned, broader overhaul of that agency announced by the US CDC Director in August of last year.

Passed: John Colley, who has died aged 92, was a pioneering epidemiologist and professor of public health medicine at Bristol University. He was among that early postwar cohort who expanded epidemiology to give it more dynamic clinical relevance. Their new measures of physical and mental function for use in population studies enabled research to show how illness and disease risk develop over long periods of life, and how ageing occurs. At the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (1964-76) John showed how childhood exposure to atmospheric pollution was a risk for adult onset of chronic respiratory disease.   http://bit.ly/3JrsBvI

Passed:  Dr Muireann Brennan, the Dublin-born doctor who had a long career in public health medicine in the developing world, has died suddenly at her home in Atlanta, Georgia. Dr Brennan worked for the American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) throughout the world, supporting emergency responses in Pakistan, Syria, Afghanistan, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. She also worked on a secondment from the CDC as an epidemiologist with Unicef in Switzerland, where she helped to co-ordinate staff in complex humanitarian emergencies.  http://bit.ly/3YcRr6B

Passed:  John David “Dave” Erickson of Gainesville, Georgia, passed away peacefully on Wednesday, October 26, 2022, after a brief illness. From 1972-1974 he was an Assistant Professor in the Dept of Epidemiology and International Health, School of Public Health and Community Medicine at the Univ of Washington. Dave was soon recruited by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta as an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer in the Birth Defects Branch. This marked the beginning of a remarkable 28-year career with the CDC. During Dave’s career at the CDC, he primarily studied risk factors for birth defects and how to prevent them.  http://bit.ly/3JqYqo9

Passed: Dr. Dawn Kristen Smith, a prolific and pioneering HIV/AIDS researcher, epidemiologist and public health professional at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, died of unknown causes at her Atlanta home on Monday, October 31, 2022. Smith was a a Medical Officer and Biomedical Prevention Activity Lead in the HIV Research Branch, within the Division of HIV Prevention, National Center for HIV, Hepatitis, Sexually Transmitted Infections and Tuberculosis, at CDC. She was also the lead of the Prevent Pillar Workgroup at CDC, one of the four pillars in the U.S. "Ending the HIV Epidemic in the US" initiative.  http://bit.ly/3DmTSLK

Passed: Harold “Hal” Margolis died on November 25, 2022, at home in Tucson, Arizona. Dr. Margolis began his 34-year medical career at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), first serving in Alaska. He relocated to Phoenix, Arizona, serving in the CDC Hepatitis Branch. He orchestrated the complex move of that Branch to the CDC headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia and served as the Director of the Hepatitis Branch for over 20 years. Under his leadership, Hepatitis A and B infections and deaths were greatly reduced in the United States and globally due to systematic implementation of vaccine use.    http://bit.ly/3jjOgLC

Honored: JoAnn E. Manson, MD, MPH, DrPH, Chief of the Division of Preventive Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Professor of Medicine and the Michael and Lee Bell Professor of Women’s Health at Harvard Medical School, and Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, received the Alma Dea Morani Renaissance Woman Award in October 2022 for her pioneering contributions to women’s health, especially in the prevention of cardiovascular disease.

Stepping Down: Michelle Williams has announced that she is stepping down as Dean of the Harvard Chan School at the end of the 2022-23 academic year. Williams, a renowned epidemiologist who has published widely on maternal and child health, will remain on the faculty. After a year-long sabbatical, she plans to resume the research, teaching, and mentoring that have long been at the center of her academic career.

Honored: Jennie H. Kwon, DO, an assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, has received the 2022 Mid-Career Scholarship Award from the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA). The award honors clinicians and scientists who have been in practice for less than 15 years while also demonstrating “dedication and excellence in infection control and hospital epidemiology.”

Honored: Stephanie Shiau, PhD, MPH, an assistant professor in the Rutgers School of Public Health’s Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, received the 2022 Abraham Lilienfeld Award from the American Public Health Association Epidemiology Section. The award, which recognizes excellence in the teaching of epidemiology, was presented to Shiau at the organization’s annual meeting in Boston.

Honored: Greg Rhee, PhD of the UCONN School of Medicine has been named a fellow of the American College of Epidemiology (ACE). Rhee is an interdisciplinary pharmaco-epidemiologist and health services researcher in the fields of aging and mental health. His current research interests are interrelated and consist of mood disorders, dementias, and suicidality as well as cannabis and opioids. Methodologically, his expertise is grounded in population-based comparative effectiveness and cost-effectiveness research using large databases and also systematic reviews and meta-analyses of existing studies. 

Honored: Andrea Z. LaCroix PhDhas been named one of the 1,000 best researchers in the world.  She is Distinguished Professor of Epidemiology and director of the Women’s Health Center of Excellence in the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health & Human Longevity Science. Her work identifies modifiable factors associated with living longer and with intact mobility and cognition in older women and men. She also studies biomarkers of healthy longevity, such as epigenetic age acceleration. She leads several long-term, large prospective studies and both preventive and treatment-focused randomized controlled trials.

Awarded: Lisa Chasan-Taber MPH, ScD, chair of  the University of Massachusetts Amherst Department of Epidemiology, has been awarded a five-year, $2.1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to continue research that aims to understand how physical and mental health during pregnancy can help predict cardiovascular and mental health disorders in middle age. Chasan-Taber will lead the project, collaborating with UMass Amherst neuroscientists Rebecca Spencer and Jerrold Meyer, professor and professor emeritus, respectively, of psychological and brain sciences.

Passed: Lewis Kuller MD  Dr. Kuller, a top epidemiologist and a leading figure in preventive cardiology, could trace his interest in the field to when he was a medical resident in Brooklyn in the early 1960s, responding by ambulance to emergency calls when people had died suddenly of heart attacks at home or in the street. Appointed chairman of the epidemiology department at the University of Pittsburgh in 1972, he was also a professor there and a frequent investigator in clinical trials, as well the author of many journal articles. http://bit.ly/3OIPmLU

Passed:  Tom Meade, who has died aged 86, pioneered the field of cardiovascular epidemiology. His research, spanning five decades, gave medical science a vastly improved understanding of the biology of blood and the circulatory system, opening the door for targeted new heart disease treatments. In 1970, he became director of the newly created MRC Epidemiology and Medical Care Unit at Northwick Park in Harrow, north-west London. In 2001 he became an emeritus professor of epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.  http://bit.ly/3XGHvCD

Profiled: Growing up on free school meals at one of the lowest performing state schools in the country, Dr. Raghib Ali went on to become a leading epidemiologist and OBE awardee. He’s determined to improve the life outcomes of children from poor backgrounds so that they too can reach their full potential.  https://bit.ly/3DB6b7I

Awarded:  The WKU College of Health and Human Services (CHHS) recently hosted a 20th anniversary celebration and recognized alumni for their achievements with the first annual CHHS Alumni Achievement Award.  A 2003 graduate of CHHS with a Master of Public Health (MPH), one of the recipients, Mr. Jason Cummins, is the Director of Tennessee Department of Health TB Elimination Program, and was the first recipient of the CHHS Outstanding Graduate Student award. 

Awarded: Dr. Katelyn Jetelina, author of Your Local Epidemiologist and editor & publisher of the EpiMonitor, with the National Academies top award for: Research Scientist: Early Career for her communications work.  In awarding the prize the Academy stated: “Jetelina offers very concise and clearly written explanations from the unique (and invaluable) perspective of an early career epidemiologist who deals with the nuances  relating to COVID infection, vaccination, and public health issues in an extremely effective way.  The breadth of her influence and the importance of her work to many members of the public over the last two years…”

Honored: Wafaie Fawzi, Vikram Patel & John Quackenbush  Three faculty members from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health—Wafaie Fawzi, Vikram Patel, and John Quackenbush—have been elected to the National Academy of Medicine (NAM).  Fawzi is the  Richard Saltonstall Professor of Population Sciences and professor of nutrition, epidemiology, and global health. Patel is professor in the Department of Global Health and Population at Harvard Chan School as well as Pershing Square Professor of Global Health in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Quackenbush is the Henry Pickering Walcott Professor of Computational Biology and Informatics and chair of the Department of Biostatistics at Harvard Chan School, as well as professor in the Channing Division of Network Medicine, and professor at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
https://bit.ly/3U23gdN

Passed:  Dr. Genevieve E. ‘Gene’ Matanoski an epidemiologist and the longest-serving faculty member at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who was internationally known for her work in toxic exposure research, died of a heart attack Oct. 2 at Sinai Hospital. The Reisterstown resident was 92. Dr. Matanoski began her career at Hopkins in 1958 as a research associate in epidemiology and in 1976 became the ninth woman at Bloomberg to be appointed full professor with tenure. In 1978, she was the founding director of the occupational and environmental epidemiology training program, which she headed until 2010.  https://bit.ly/3FpdQHL

Passed:  Dr. Paula Braitstein passed away in Eldoret, Kenya. She was a Professor of Epidemiology at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and cross-appointed to the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology in the Faculty of Medicine as well as an Adjunct Professor at Indiana University and Visiting Professor at Moi University. She started her career as an HIV treatment educator and activist in the community-based HIV/AIDs movement. She was a CIHR Applied Public Health Chair and renowned expert in epidemiology, population health and planetary health.  https://bit.ly/3TZItHD

Passed:  Paul Wilkinson  director of the British National Institute for Health and Care Research health protection research unit in environmental change and health, repeatedly urged his colleagues to “think big.” There was no time to waste, and he was hugely energetic. During his career, he led or was the co-investigator on over 70 research projects, covering subjects ranging from energy efficient buildings and air and noise pollution to the impact of flooding on health, and speed restrictions on road injuries.  https://bit.ly/3SDToFV

Honored Posthumously : The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) has recognized the late epidemiologist Ms. Carla Gabriela Romero Pérez, from Bolivia, with the PAHO Award for Health Services Management and Leadership. Ms. Romero Pérez worked at Bolivia’s Ministry of Health and oversaw vector control programs.  Conferring this year’s honour, the President of the 30th Pan American Sanitary Conference, Michael Pearson recognized the tireless work of Ms. Romero Pérez to strengthen efforts to combat arboviruses.  https://bit.ly/3TH27Zk

Appointed: Dr. Michael Cappello, MD, a professor of pediatrics at the Yale School of Medicine and a board-certified infectious diseases clinician, has been appointed chair of the Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases (EMD) Department, effective September 1, 2022. In addition to his position as a professor in the Department of Pediatrics, Cappello holds a secondary appointment in EMD and serves as an associate director of the Yale MD-PhD Program. He also serves as attending physician in the Pediatric Infectious Diseases section at the Yale-New Haven network of affiliated hospitals in Connecticut and Rhode Island.

Named: The National Academy of Medicine (NAM) today announced that Columbia Mailman School’s Dustin Duncan , ScD, associate professor of epidemiology, has been named a 2022 Emerging Leader in Health and Medicine Scholar. Duncan is a social and spatial epidemiologist, studying how neighborhood characteristics and mobility across geographic contexts influence population health and health disparities. His research focuses on Black gay, bisexual and other sexual minority men and transgender women of color.

Awarded: In recognition of her outstanding accomplishments in teaching and scholarly activities, Christa Lilly, associate professor in biostatistics, has been selected to receive the Academic Scholar Award, and will be honored during the upcoming Chancellor’s Outstanding Achievement Awards ceremony. The Chancellor’s Awards celebrate faculty members “who have been recognized by their peers for their outstanding accomplishments at WVU Health Sciences.”

Awarded: Professor Raina MacIntyre, Head of the Biosecurity Program at the Kirby Institute at UNSW (Univ. of New South Wales), has received the Eureka Award for her leadership in science and innovation. The Australian Museum Eureka Prizes are the country’s most comprehensive national science awards, honouring excellence in the fields of research and innovation, leadership, science engagement and school science.  As a public health physician, epidemiologist and researcher, Professor MacIntyre has had a significant leadership role in the international response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Passed: Leslie Bernstein, PhD, a trailblazing cancer epidemiologist, died July 28. She was 82. Bernstein, who joined City of Hope in 2007, was a distinguished pioneer in breast cancer research spanning 40 years. In her decades-long career, her work as a biostatistician and cancer epidemiologist transformed the way researchers, clinicians, and others perceive the ability to modify cancer risk
https://bit.ly/3dFvOu9

Passed:  Richard B. Warnecke, a longtime member of the University of Illinois Cancer Center and a national leader in cancer control research, died Friday, Aug. 19. He was 84. Warnecke, professor emeritus of epidemiology, public administration and sociology at the University of Illinois Chicago, sustained a continuous and high level of funding from the National Cancer Institute. He was particularly skillful in conducting large-scale, multiple-component, community-based investigations, consisting of two program projects — Community Interventions for Cancer Prevention (1986-1992) and Strategies for Smoking Cessation Among Low Educated Women (1993-1998). https://bit.ly/3fmn3pc  

No Photo
Available

Passed:  William S. Burnett, 92 of Albany, N.Y. and Williston, Vt., passed away peacefully July 19, 2022, after a short illness. Dr. Burnett spent his career working for the State of New York Department of Health, retiring as the assistant director, Cancer Control Bureau. He later shared that one of the many reasons he loved his work was the opportunity to travel the world to learn, explore and to increase visibility into patterns of disease to identify public epidemics by sharing research at international conferences.  https://legcy.co/3xWuAS5
 

Passed: The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) is saddened by the passing of Professor Dame Valerie Beral at the age of 76. She served on the IARC Scientific Council and was a contributor to the IARC Monographs programme. She was a renowned cancer epidemiologist who spent almost 20 years working in the Department of Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. In 1988, she became the Director of the Cancer Epidemiology Unit in Oxford, focusing her work on the role of reproductive, hormonal, and infectious agents in cancer risk.  https://bit.ly/3C93LMW

Hired: West Virginia University has named Tyler Quinn to the faculty. Dr. Quinn graduated with his Ph.D. in exercise physiology with an emphasis in epidemiology and biostatistics from the University of Pittsburgh in 2020. Since graduation, he has worked as an Associate Service Fellow at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (NIOSH, Pittsburgh). Dr. Quinn’s current research focuses on the relationship between occupational physical activity exposure and cardiovascular health. 

Published: Mya Brady (Univ of Pittsburgh SPH ’21G) is marking her first publication as first author (and second to date) with a study in Antimicrobial Stewardship & Healthcare Epidemiology, “Transmission Visualization of Healthcare Infection Clusters: A Scoping Review,” Brady and colleagues analyzed 30 publications to ascertain the most common elements used to map infectious disease outbreaks and spread in institutional settings. Of the more than three dozen data visualizations studied, the team found none they felt included all the factors most useful to determine likely transmission pathways.

Awarded: Brooke Staley, a doctoral candidate in epidemiology at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health and former co-chair of the Minority Student Caucus, was selected as one of 38 awardees in the 2022 Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship competition. Selected from more than 600 applicants, she is the first Gillings student to receive this distinction, which is rarely awarded to public health trainees.

Named: President Biden named Dr. Demetre Daskalakis as the White House National Monkeypox Response Deputy Coordinator. FEMA’s Robert Fenton and Daskalakis will lead the Administration’s strategy and operations to combat the current monkeypox outbreak, including equitably increasing the availability of tests, vaccinations and treatments. Dr Daskalakis is currently Director of the CDC Division of HIV Prevention. Widely known as a national expert on health issues affecting the LGBGQIA+ communities, his clinical practice has focused on providing care for the underserved LGBTQIA+ communities. He previously oversaw management of infectious diseases for the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

Awarded: David Waltner-Toews, Toews is a veterinarian and epidemiologist, researcher and teacher and the founding president of Veterinarians Without Borders. Waltner-Towes, a retired Guelph University professor, has been made an Officer of the Order of Canada. He was recognized for his “leadership and expertise in ecosystem approaches to health, and for supporting development worldwide,” the Governor General of Canada said in a recent statement.

Resigned:  Chief Epidemiologist of Iceland Þórólfur Guðnason has resigned. Þórólfur is leaving the job both for personal and professional reasons. According to the Directorate of Health, the main reason for Þórólfur’s resignation is that the current wave of COVID-19 infection has mostly subsided and a new chapter is beginning in the Chief Epidemiologist’s role. “This new chapter includes, among other things, a review of the response to the COVID pandemic with the aim of improving response to future pandemics,” the notice from the Directorate states. The Chief Epidemiologist will also be shifting focus back to the routine projects that were largely put on hold due to the pandemic.

Awarded:  The Government of Japan has awarded the Fourth Hideyo Noguchi Africa Prize for Medical Research to Columbia faculty members Salim S. Abdool Karim, CAPRISA Professor for Global Health in the Department of Epidemiology and director, Center for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA) and to Quarraisha Abdool Karim, professor of epidemiology  and associate scientific director of CAPRISA.

Passed: Neal Nathanson who served as Chair of Microbiology for 15 years, Associate Dean for Research, Vice Provost for Research, and Director of the Global Health programs at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. He spent 22 years at Johns Hopkins University, in the School of Public Health, where he was a Professor of Epidemiology, head of the Division of Infectious Diseases in the Department of Epidemiology and founding Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Epidemiology. Dr. Nathanson also spent two years as an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer at the Centers for Disease Control, where he headed the Polio Surveillance Unit.

Passed: Peter Boyle known for his work in tobacco control, bringing orthodoxy and truth to interpretation of scientific data, his forecast of a cancer epidemic in the developing world, his advocacy of cancer prevention and his mentorship of young scientists. He was a former member of the faculty at of the Harvard School of Public Health in the Departments of Biostatistics and Epidemiology. Later he joined the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the United Nations cancer agency.

Passed: Peter Schantz who served as Chief of the Laboratory of Parasitology for the Pan American Zoonoses Center/World Health Organization in Buenos Aires, Argentina from 1970-1974. He was a consultant on hydatid disease control to public health authorities in Argentina, Uruguay, Peru, Bolivia, and Brazil. In 1974 Peter joined the Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) as a Commissioned Officer in the Division of Parasitic Diseases. Peter served the division as epidemiologist until his retirement in 2008. Afterwards he served as an Adjunct Professor, Department of Epidemiology, Emory University School of Public Health.

Passed: Eugene "Gene" J. Gangarosa the former head of CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service who spent his career serving institutions for the public good, including: the U.S. Army Medical Corps at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, the University of Maryland School of Medicine, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)—where he received the William C. Watson Jr. Medal of Excellence, CDC's highest honor—American University of Beirut and Emory University’s School of Medicine. He played a key role in the evolution of Emory’s graduate program, now known as the Rollins School of Public Health.

Passed: James “Jimmy” Beecham who was a member of the Epidemic Intelligence Service in  ’76-’78.  He was involved in the 1976 Legionnaire’s Disease investigation and was a subject of the book “Inside the Outbreaks”.  He practiced medicine in both Maryland & Pennsylvania.  In 1982 joined the US Navy as an infectious disease doctor and served in 15 different countries with a focus on Southeast Asia.   He initiated the Navy’s collaboration with Dr. Jonas Salk in the early days of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and was awarded the Navy’s Legion of Merit for his work.

Named:  Penn State has named Jason Rasgon, professor of entomology and disease epidemiology, as the  Dorothy Foehr Huck and J. Lloyd Huck Chair in Disease Epidemiology and Biotechnology. A member of the Huck team since he arrived at Penn State in 2011, he was previously an associate professor at Johns Hopkins.

Stepping Down:  New Mexico State Epidemiologist, Dr. Christine Ross, has left her position effective July 10, 2022.  In the announcement of her departure it was stated that Dr. Ross was looking forward to spending the summer with her family after countless weekends of work during the pandemic.

Hired:  Michael Stevens, M.D. has been announced as the inaugural epidemiologist for the West Virginia University Health System. Most recently he held a number of concurrent positions including the associate chairmanship of the Division of Infectious Disease at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine.

Appointed:  Infectious disease epidemiologist, Dr. Utpala Bandy, as the interim director of the Rhode Island Department of Health.  In announcing her appointment the governor praised her three decades at the center of public health in Rhode Island.

Apppointed:  CIDRAP  (Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy)  has announced the appointment of Eve Lackritz, M.D. as their new deputy director. Dr. Lackritz was previously with CDC for 23 years in addition to several years with the Global Alliance to Prevent Prematurity and Stillbirth located at Seattle Children's.

Appointed:  L. Joseph Su, Ph.D., M.P.H., a nutritional epidemiologist who researches links between diet and contaminants in food to cancer and health has been appointed an Associate Dean  at UT Southwestern. Dr. Su is Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the Peter O’Donnell Jr. School of Public Health, which will enroll its first class of students in late 2023. In this new role, Dr. Su will work with faculty to establish a solid foundation of innovative curriculum backed by evidence-based research and to attract a diverse student body.

Passed:  Joyce C. Lashof, M.D. was the first woman to  head a state health department and the first woman to  serve as dean of the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley.  Dr. Lashof was a leader in the battle for health equality for decades and is well known for her work  in fighting discrimination against AIDS patients.   https://nyti.ms/3S12vS5

Passed:  Carol Clarke Hogue of Chapel Hill, NC, an epidemiologist  nationally known for her research on the health and social support needs of  the elderly.  Her work for the U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on Aging contributed to the 1981 White House Conference on Aging.

Awarded:  Lauren Anne Wise won the SER 2022 Noel Weiss and Tom Koepsell Excellence in Education Award. Dr. Wise is a Professor of Epidemiology at Boston University School of Public Health and her research involves the study of benign gynecologic conditions, delayed conception, and adverse pregnancy outcomes. 

Awarded:  Stephen Cole won the SER 2022 Marshall Joffe Epidemiologic Method Research Award. Dr. Cole is a Professor of Epidemiology at UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health and focuses on study designs and analyses that accurately estimate parameters of central interest to health scientists.

Awarded:  Maya Mathur won the SER 2022 Brian MacMahon Early Career Epidemiologist Award. Dr. Mathur is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Assistant Professor at Stanford University’s Quantitative Sciences Unit.

Awarded:  Whitney Robinson received the Carol J Rowland Hogue Outstanding Mid-Career Achievement Award. Dr. Robinson is an instructors in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Core Faculty Member at the Center for Health Policy at Duke University. She explores why rates of health and disease vary across groups.

Awarded:  Beate Ritz was awarded the SER 2022 Kenneth Rothman Career Accomplishment Award. Dr. Ritz is a Professor of Epidemiology at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. Her research focuses on the health effects of occupational and environmental toxins such as pesticides, ionizing radiation, and air pollution on chronic diseases including neurodegenerative and neurodevelopmental disorders (Parkinson's disease, autism cognition), cancers, and adverse birth outcomes and asthma. 

Awarded:  Saad Omer was recently appointed the Harvey and Kate Cushing Professor of Medicine (Infectious Diseases) at the Yale School of Medicine.

Died:  Dr. Gerardo Heiss, MD PhD, the W.R. Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor at UNC, passed away peacefully on Saturday, June 11, in Chapel Hill. He was internationally known for his work in noninvasive studies of subclinical atherosclerosis, socioeconomic status over the life course, women’s health, minority health, modifiable predictors of cardiovascular disease outcomes and applications of electronic health records in population research. Read more here.

Victoria Kamilar

Awarded:  Victoria Kamilar and Amelia Wallace, two students at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, won the 2022 Dorothy and Arthur Samet Student Support Fund in Epidemiology. This award recognizes student accomplishments in respect to the enrichment of the community.

Amelia Wallace

Awarded:  Jill M. Norris, MPH, PhD was the recipient of the 2022 Kelly West Award for Outstanding Achievement in Epidemiology from the American Diabetes Association. This award recognizes significant contributions to the field of diabetes epidemiology. She delivered a lecture on June 5 entitled, Type 1 Diabetes and Diet: Moving from Epidemiology to Opportunities for Precision Prevention. She is currently Professor and Chair of the Department of Epidemiology in the Colorado School of Public Health.

Named: Anne Rimoin, as chair of the newly established Gordon-Levin Endowed Chair in Infectious Diseases and Public Health at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. According to UCLA, Dr Rimoin is an internationally recognized expert on emerging infections, global heath, surveillance systems, and vaccinations.

Appointed: Ronald Aubert, as Interim Dean of the Brown University School of Public Health. Dr. Aubert serves currently as interim associate dean for diversity and inclusion at the School of Public Health and faculty director of Brown’s Presidential Scholars Program. He also has faculty appointments in the Department of Health Services, Practice and Policy, and at the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America. Aubert obtained a PhD in epidemiology at the Gillings School of Public Health in 1990 and worked at the Centers for Disease Control in the Epidemic Intelligence Service. He replaces Dean Ashish Jha, MD, MPH, on an interim basis while Jha serves as White House coronavirus response coordinator.

Named: Karen Brust, as hospital epidemiologist at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. Dr Brust served previously at Baylor Scott & White Health in Texas where she was an infectious disease clinician and director of infection prevention and control.

Named: Brian King, as FDA’s new Center for Tobacco Products Director, effective July 3, 2022. According to the FDA Director Robeert Califf, “Dr. King brings extensive and impressive expertise in tobacco prevention and control and has broad familiarity with FDA from his more than 10-year tenure at CDC.” Dr King served as the deputy director for research translation at the Office of Smoking and Health at CDC.

Appointed: Melinda Pettigrew, as Interim Dean at the Yale School of Public Health, effective July 1, 2022. Dr. Pettigrew is currently deputy dean of the Yale School of Public Health and Professor of Epidemiology (Microbial Diseases). According to Yale, Dr Pettigrew is an internationally recognized infectious disease epidemiologist doing research on the global health threat of antibiotic resistance. Current Dean Sten Vermund is returning to full time teaching and research on June 30, 2022.

Presenter: Zuo-Feng Zhang, of the 15^th annual Saxon Graham Lecture at the University of Buffalo. Dr Zhang lectured on the “Challenges and Opportunities of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Non-communicable Disease Epidemiology.” Zhang is currently distinguished professor and chair of the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health Department of Epidemiology. Interestingly, he suggested in his lecture that when daily mortality from COVID drops to 0.3 per million (99 deaths per day) then we might consider COVID endemic. Recently, US deaths have averaged approximately 300 per day.

Honored: Philip Kass, as honorary diplomate of the American Veterinary Epidemiology Society. The status is awarded in recognition of significant contributions to veterinary epidemiology, public health, and One Health. Dr Kass is currently vice provost of Academic Affairs and a professor of analytic epidemiology at the University of California Davis.

Appointed: Heather Britt, as executive director of Wilder Research, the research unit of the Amherst H. Wilder Foundation in St Paul Minnesota, effective June 13, 2022. The foundation partners with nonprofits, government agencies and policymakers across the country to develop data-informed policy. Dr Britt is an epidemiologist who recently was senior director of analytics with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota.

Named: Amanda Simanek, as founding director of the Michael Reese Research and Education Foundation Center for Health Equity Research at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science. The University is a private graduate school in North Chicago, Illinois. According to Dr. Simanek, a priority for her is ensuring future research projects are responsive to community needs and contribute to more equitable health outcomes among local communities that have been marginalized, disadvantaged, and underserved.

Named: Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, as the next editor-in-chief of the Journal  of the American Medical Association (JAMA) and the JAMA Network. Dr Bibbins-Domingo is professor and chair of the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine. She called the position a “dream job” and pledged to restore the journal as a “trusted voice” in medicine following a recent controversy over a podcast on systemic racism.

Named: Newsha Ghaeli, to Time’s 100 Most Influential Companies list. She co-founded Biobot, a company that is a pioneer in wastewater epidemiology. Her company collects data from over 700 sites representing over 100 million people. “ "Think sort of like a 23 and me kit, but instead of a saliva sample, it gets a stool sampling of sewage samples. It’s like a 23 and me kit , but for cities,” said Ghaeli. She has a degree in Architectural Studies and did a fellowship at MIT where she met her co-founder.

Honored: Quarraisha Abdool Karim, with a Doctor of Science [honoris causa] from Rhodes University in South Africa. Dr Abdool Karim is well known for her research on preventing HIV infection in adolescent girls and young women. She is co-founder of the Center for AIDS Program of Research in South Africa.

Died: Cynthia Jean Berg, on March 6th, 2022 after a brief battle with cancer. She began her federal career as an Epidemic Intelligence Officer at CDC in 1985. According to CDC, Cindy was often referred to as the “Godmother of Maternal Mortality Research” and was known nationally and internationally for her work to advance maternal health. During her time in the Division of Reproductive Health, Cindy was a key contributor to the development of the first standardized data system to track pregnancy-related deaths in the United States. The surveillance system, CDC’s Pregnancy Mortality Surveillance System (PMSS), is now used widely across the nation to better understand and prevent pregnancy-related deaths.

Profiled: Adele Houghton, an architect and Doctor of Public Health student at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, in a Harvard News publication. Houghton is pioneering a new field of practice called “Architectural Epidemiology”. She started exploring ways to bring health into the building development process from the beginning. In the article, she describes architectural epidemiology as a framework for “turning small scale real estate decisions into large-scale action on climate change and chronic disease.” She has started a green building company and written a book that lays out her methods.

Elected: Tom Talbot, as Vice-President of the Society for Healtcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA). Dr Talbot is currently professor of Medicine and chief hospital epidemiologist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Dr Talbot will serve as president-elect next year and as President in 2024 and past president in 2025.

Profiled: Ban Majeed, assistant professor of epidemiology in the Department of Population Health Sciences of the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University in Jagwire, the University news publication. Dr Majeed was interviewed about the process she used to successfully obtain a grant for a longitudinal study to identify the determinants of  successful smoking cessation. Dr Majeed is also a painter and has a dream to have her own cessation program. “ I want to incorporate art in tobacco treatment because we need to surround ourselves with beauty because the ugliness is everywhere.”

Moving: Peter Jüni, Director of the Applied Health Research Centre at the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute of St. Michael’s Hospital, and Professor at the Department of Medicine and the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto, to a tenured professorship in clinical trials and medicine at the University of Oxford. He is also resigning as the scientific director of Ontario’s COVID-19 Science Advisory Table to take the Oxford position.

According to the Toronto Star, “Juni developed a reputation for straight talk, providing blunt, sometimes politically inconvenient commentary about what the data was telling his team about the direction of the pandemic.” Commenting on the science advisory role, Dr Juni stated “The science table’s job is really about bringing in the scientific perspective, what does Ontario’s data tell us, what does the clinical evidence say, and what is happening internationally. The expectation was never that elected decision makers would always follow what we said.”

Donor: Amy Greer, of a hand knit scarf to be added to a museum collection of objects created during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to media accounts, Greer color-coded her yarn to reflect the progress in getting people vaccinated. The scarf ended up being a “seven foot story of one of the biggest mobilization efforts in the province’s [Ontario] history…She was shocked at the idea that a museum might want it.” However, museums have been collecting objects of various kinds to help future generations better understand the happenings during the pandemic. Greer is Associate Professor at the Ontario Veterinary College, Department of Population Medicine, University of Guelph.

Died: Jeremiah Stamler, age 102, at his home in Sag Harbor Long Island New York. The American Heart Association called Dr Stamler, “the father of preventive cardiology.” His obituary in the NY Times quotes many colleagues, including Lawrence Appel from Johns Hopkins saying “Many colleagues, including myself, believe that he is largely responsible for the remarkable decline in coronary heart disease and stroke that occurred in the US over the past few decades.” Another Donald Lloyd-Jones at Northwestern states “He was part of a generation of scientists who put the traditional risk factors for heart disease on the map.” His obituaries contain multiple inspiring and interesting facts at:
 https://nyti.ms/3gNCUKW            https://bit.ly/34KmnoB

Resigned: Dawn Comstock, on February 7, 2022 as the Jefferson County Colorado Public Health Director. According to news reports, she transitioned about one year ago from being an epidemiology professor at the University of Colorado Anschutz and had felt motivated use her epidemiologic skills to help fight the COVID pandemic. The resignation took place after a special board of health meeting and the exact reasons for the resignation were not made public at the time of publication. According to Colorado Public Radio, Comstock’s predecessor Dr Mark Johnson said he’s sorry for Comstock and Jefferson County and wishes Comstock the best. He also acknowledged how the pandemic has made the job more difficult. “Public health has never been more stressed than it has been over the past two and half years, and much of this stress has fallen directly and unfairly on local public health department directors,” Johnson said. 

Elected: Sten Vermund, as Vice President/President Elect of the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering. Dr Vermund is an infectious disease epidemiologist and currently Dean of the Yale School of Public Health until later this year. The Academy’s President said “Dean Vermund’s leadership will ensure the Academy continues well into the future the celebration of our state’s rich and diverse science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medical talent, and our commitment to informing about and promoting science and engineering for the benefit of the state.” Vermund said the Academy is “a rare resource, almost unique across US states and territories.” 

Appointed: David Hayman, to the Percival Carmine chair in epidemiology and public health at New Zealand’s Massey University. According to media accounts, the chair has been newly funded by Massey alumni with $3.5 million for the next ten years. Dr Hayman is a world expert in infectious disease ecology and has a particular expertise in emerging bat infections. He is involved in a research project exploring what factors allow pathogens to jump from animals to humans. 

Profiled: Quynh Nguyen and Thu Nguyen, as twin sisters working side by side in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of Maryland. According to Maryland Today, “…they’ve been on the same path almost their entire lives, earning their undergraduate and master’s degrees from the same schools in the same major.” According to Quynh, “sometimes (siblings) feel like ‘I need to be as good or better than my sibling. Our relationship’s more collaborative’.” The fraternal pair do not look more alike than other siblings do, however, their research is similar though not identical.

Winner: Emily Smith, of a 2021 Distinguished Alumni award from Wayland Baptist University. She is a research scholar at the Duke Global Health Institute where her research interests include children’s global surgery, strengthening health systems in low-income countries, health economics and global health policy. The University’s public relations director stated “We have watched Dr. Smith’s career blossom and have been so proud of the impact she has had both on academia and on global public health. When she became a voice of research and reason during the COVID pandemic, we were even more proud to see her temper her experience with her faith and grace in the public forum. She is an excellent choice for a distinguished alumnus and we are beyond honored to recognize her in this way.”

Profiled: Emmanuel Opada, Victoria County Texas Public Health’s new epidemiologist as of November 2021. Prior to taking this position Opada started his career in public health in Nigeria and pursued his master’s degree in epidemiology in the U.S. at St. Louis University. Opada told local media “This is a great opportunity to pursue my passion,” noting that he feels it’s his calling in public health to provide analytic support to health professionals.

Died: Zena Stein, age 99, emerita professor of Columbia Mailman School of Public Health.  As reported by Columbia, Stein advanced public health science while integrating social justice into every aspect of her work. She and her late husband Mervyn Susser, chair of epidemiology at Columbia Mailman School from 1966 to 1978, were seminal figures in the establishment of the discipline of epidemiology, said the school. According to a remembrance by her three children, including her son Ezra, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia, “She was a brilliant and extraordinary woman whose warmth, caring and insights illuminated the lives she touched at home and thousands across the world.” A full biography is available at:  https://bit.ly/3G0Q1T9

Appointed: Una Grewal, as Director of the Division of Population Health Research (DiPHR) at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) at the National Institutes of Health. Dr Grewal had been serving as the acting director since February 2020 and previously served as Deputy Director of DiPHR from 2013 to 2020.

Died: Stanley Music, age 82, in Tbilisi Georgia following onset of severe COVID symptoms. Dr Music was a highly regarded epidemiologist who served in a variety of governmental roles at the state, federal, and international levels. According to a bereavement notice from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr Music was most notably known for his work with the World Health Organization on smallpox eradication from 1973-1975 in Bangladesh. To read a full obituary describing his varied career, visit:  https://bit.ly/3u0cwVO

Appointed: Tom Inglesby, as the White House Covid testing director, according to White House spokesperson Jen Psaki. Inglesby is currently Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in Baltimore, and has held multiple positions related to infectious diseases and public health preparedness. US testing capacity has grown from 50 million in September 2021to 300 million now. Inglesby told Bloomberg “We’re going to keep moving at this speed and faster.” The federal government will release a plan for shipping 500 million tests to US households.

Retiring: Kris Ehresmann, on February 2, 2022, as Infectious Disease Director from the Minnesota Department of Health, according to the Associated Press. Dr Ehresmann has served for more than three decades at the Health Department. She is a leading national expert on influenza and played leading roles in controlling the measles outbreak in 2017 and the swine flu pandemic in 2009.

Diagnosed: Mary-Louise McLaws, professor of epidemiology at the University of New South Wales and advisor to the World Health Organization, with a brain tumor according to her Twitter account. She told followers, “After a severe headache Thursday, I was diagnosed with a brain tumor. I will now be on a month’s sick leave from UNSW and WHO.” News reports indicated that Dr McLaws had become a recognizable public figure in Australia for her guidance and commentary on the COVID-19 pandemic.

Died: Jennifer Kelsey, on October 13, 2021 at age 79 from complications following a stroke. Dr Kelsey was former head of the Division of Epidemiology at Stanford Medicine and earlier at Columbia. Before that she taught at Yale for more than a decade. According to the Stanford news release reporting her death, Dr Kelsey was known for her detailed methodology. Her research focused on the incidence and causes of musculoskeletal disorders. She was also known for her teaching skills as well as her love of golden retrievers.

Appointed: Bruce Dye, Department Chair for Community Dentistry and Population Health and the Delta Dental Endowed Chair of Early Childhood Caries Prevention at the University of Colorado School of Dental Medicine. Dr Dye comes to Colorado from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research. He is Scientific editor and Co Project Director of Oral Health in America, a soon to be released NIH report on Oral Health in America, the government’s first retrospective and comprehensive report on oral health in 20 years.

Honored: Salim Abdool Karim, with an honorary Doctor of Science degree from Rhodes University in South Africa. Dr Abdool Karim is widely recognized for his scientific and leadership contributions in AIDS and COVID-19. His primary academic appointments are as Director of the Center for AIDS Program of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA) and CAPRISA Professor for Global Health in the Department of Epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. In remarks about his degree, Dr Abdool Karim said “…In the course of both the HIV and COVID-19 pandemics, I have personally witnessed the importance of staying true to science and evidence.”

Protest: by Cesar Victora refusing the Grand Cross of the National Order of Scientific Merit granted by the government of Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro. The award is one of the highest for scientists. According to Victora, Professor Emeritus at the Federal University of Pelotas and winner of the Doll prize in epidemiology in 2021, the government “not only ignores but actively boycotts the recommendations of epidemiology and collective health.” In a published letter Victora states  “as a scientist and epidemiologist I have made public, through lectures and scientific articles, my complete opposition to the way the COVID-19 pandemic has been faced by this government.”

Profiled: Vidya Maharaj, in Browngirl magazine as a research scientist and chef at Diya Miami restaurant. She told the magazine, “When we immigrated, my parents like most Indian parents, wanted me to be a doctor. I didn’t end up going to medical school, but got my degree in epidemiology and was interested in the lucrative business of pharmaceuticals.” When the opportunity arose she began cooking in her family's Indo-Caribbean restaurant and has since advanced her career both in pharmaceuticals and as an executive chef.

Died: Randall Todd, on October 7, 2021 from inoperable anaplastic astrocytoma. He was Director, Division of Epidemiology and Public Health Preparedness for Washoe County Nevada for 14 years of his forty year career. He also had served as an adjunct faculty member teaching epidemiology at the University of Nevada Reno. His obituary notes his frequent struggle to provide good public health services in the face of political opposition. His family called him the “Dr Fauci” of Nevada.

Honored: Raman Gangakhedkar, with a 2021 Padma award in India. The Padma awards are one of the highest civilian honors of India given annually on the eve of Republic Day. The award for distinguished service seeks to recognize achievements in all fields of activities or disciplines where an element of public service is involved. Dr Gangakhedkar is a former scientist at the Indian Council of Medical Research. He is currently a member of the WHO expert group tasked with probing the origins of COVID-19.

Named: Paul Glasziou, as top researcher in epidemiology by the Australian’s 2021 Research Magazine. Dr Glaziou is a clinical epidemiologist and Bond University Director of the Institute for Evidence-Based Healthcare. The Australian's 2021 Research magazine names the top researcher and top research institution in each field of research, based on the number of citations for papers published in the top 20 journals in each field over the past five years. According to the magazine, Dr Galsziou’s research mainly focuses on what he calls “big neglected problems – like antibiotic resistance and antibiotic stewardship, non-drug therapies and overtreatment and overdiagnosis”. The causes of research wastage is another major field of study.

Died: Robert Rinsky, at age 70, after an extended illness. Dr Rinsky was formerly a research epidemiologist at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.  A recent testimonial for Dr Rinsky written by Laurence Reed, former editor of Public Health Reports, focused on his research showing that the risk of death from leukemia rose with increasing workplace exposure to benzene. Dr Rinsky was a former editor of Public Health Reports where he was credited with enhancing the journal’s scientific rigor and respect in the public health field.

Profiled: Ana Diez Roux, Dean and Distinguished Professor of Epidemiology at Drexel University’s Dornsife School of Public Health in AL DIA news media. Born in Argentina and educated in both her native country and in the US,  Dr Diez Roux became very interested in understanding how social and economic things affect health. During her time at Johns Hopkins, according to AL DIA, she told the media “So epidemiology is a perfect tool for that because you can study differences in health across different population groups and… what we can do to [create] change”. She described her work as very interdisciplinary. “It integrates things from sociology, from psychology, from medicine, from biology…to understand what the main drivers of health are.”

Appointed: Theoklis Zaoutis, as the new president of EODY, The Hellenic National Public Health Organization. It is responsible for surveillance and control of infectious diseases in Greece and functions under the supervision of the Ministry of Health and in  close collaboration with the local public health authorities. Dr Zaoutis is Professor of Pediatrics at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and Professor of Epidemiology at the Perelman Medical School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Retiring: William Knowler, after 46 years at the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK). Since 1979, Knowler has served as chief of the Diabetes Epidemiology and Clinical Research Section in NIDDK’s Phoenix Epidemiology and Clinical Research Branch. He has devoted decades of research into the behavioral, genetic, and environmental factors for type 2 diabetes and its complications, particularly among Southwestern American Indian populations. To read more about Dr Knowler’s career, visit The NIH Record click here: https://bit.ly/2Y0d2pi

Honored: Reiko Kishi, with the John Goldsmith Award given by the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology. This award was created to honor the legacy of Dr John Goldsmith, one of the organizers, early leaders, and constant supporter of the ISEE. This award is given to investigators for "sustained and outstanding contributions to the knowledge and practice of environmental epidemiology." Recipients have typically contributed in substantive and innovative fashion to the methods and practice of epidemiology over many years. According to ISEE, Dr Kishi was a trailblazer in the elucidation of various health impacts of developmental exposure to low-level environmental chemicals in birth cohort studies. She is currently a Distinguished Professor of Hokkaido University, Center for Environmental and Health Sciences, Sapparo Japan.

Winner: Cesar Victora, of the 2021 Richard Doll Prize in Epidemiology. The prize is awarded by the International Epidemiological Association for a body of scientific research in epidemiology that has advanced understanding of conditions that are important for population health. Dr Victora is Emeritus Professor of Universidade Federal de Pelotas, Brazil, and Director of the International Center for Equity in Health.

Honored: Jaime Hart, with the Tony McMichael Mid-Career Award given by the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology. This award was created in the memory of Dr Tony McMichael, a world renowned epidemiologist known not only for his scientific work, but also for has compassionate mentoring of junior colleagues. According to ISEE, Dr. Hart has been dedicated to supporting the scientific dissemination and translation of environmental epidemiology research. She is currently Assistant Professor of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital Harvard Medical School.

Hired: Sam Byrne, as assistant professor of biology and global health at Middlebury College in Vermont. Dr Byrne’s interest is in health disparities. He will teach epidemiology at Middlebury. He formerly taught at St Lawrence University.

Honored: Colin Soskolne, with the Research Integrity Award given by the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology. The ISEE Research Integrity Award honors those in environmental epidemiology who have demonstrated exceptional integrity in the face of pressure from special interests. According to ISEE, Dr. Soskolne pioneered the development of ethics guidelines for the profession. He has had leadership roles in supporting the International Network for Epidemiology in Policy’s mission of integrity, ethics, and evidence in policies impacting health. Dr. Soskolne has finally retired, according to "self reporting", after 28 years at the University of Alberta and multiple years of additional volunteer service.

Honored: Gauri Dasai, with the Rebecca James Baker Award given by the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology. This award is in memory of Rebecca James Baker, a young investigator with a commitment to environmental epidemiology as a tool for improving public health and quality of life. She worked on many international studies with people from different cultures and backgrounds, and was an active member in the Society. The award is given to new investigators who embody her approach to epidemiological research.  According to ISEE, Dr Desai’s research interests are primarily in the area of environmental epidemiology, focusing on understanding the impact of environmental toxins on children’s growth and development. She is also interested in understanding the role of diet in mitigating the toxicity of environmental exposures. Her recent research work has been among Uruguayan schoolchildren and Puerto Rican women. Dr Desai is currently clinical assistant professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Environmental Health at the University of Buffalo.

Hired: Michael Osterholm, as Senior Advisor for Beacon Global Strategies, a strategic advisory firm focusing on global public policy, government procurement, and geopolitical risk analysis. Dr. Osterholm is Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, at the University of Minnesota. "I am excited Dr. Osterholm is joining the BGS team at such a critical time," said Andrew Shapiro, Partner and Managing Director at Beacon. "As the ongoing pandemic has demonstrated, the intersection of global health and national security has never been stronger. Dr. Osterholm's expertise and breadth of experience will be a tremendous asset for BGS and our clients.

Resigned: Caitlin Pedati, State Medical Director and Epidemiologist at the Iowa Department of Public Health (IDPH) which announced Dr Pedati’s plans to leave the agency effective late October. She plans to pursue new career opportunities, according to IDPH. “I want to thank Dr. Pedati for her outstanding service to the people of Iowa, especially throughout the pandemic,” Gov. Kim Reynolds said in a released statement. “She has been instrumental to our state’s strong COVID-19 response and a valued member of my team. I wish her much success and happiness in all that she pursues.”

Recognized: Field epidemiologists on World Field Epidemiology Day on September 7. On this day in 1854, John Snow took his findings from his investigation of the Broad Street cholera outbreak to local officials to help lead them to take action to remove the handle on the offending water pump. September 7 has been set aside to recognize and raise awareness of the vital role played by the world’s disease detectives. The Day is sponsored by TEPHINET, the global network of 75 Field Epidemiology Training Programs in more than 100 countries which have graduated more than 14,000 disease detectives.

Threatened: Gili Regev-Yochay, by death messages sent to her anonymously in reaction to her statements about Covid vaccines. Dr Regev-Youchay is director of the Infectious Disease Epidemiology Unit at Sheba Medical Center in Israel. The Times of Israel described the messages as “Kill yourself before you recommend another person inject [a vaccine] and “May you suffer from paralysis until your last day.” A second member of the Sheba staff has also received equally worrisome threats, according to the Times.

Appointed: Chen Chien-jen, epidemiologist in Taiwan who served as vice-president of Taiwan from 2016 to 2020, to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences at the Vatican. The role of members of the Academy is to advise on matters involving science. Chen is currently professor and researcher at Taipei’s Academic Sinica.

Appointed: Margaret Daniele Fallin, as a Bloomberg Centennial Professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Dr Fallin is currently chair of the Department of Mental Health and holds joint positions in the School’s departments of Biostatistics and Epidemiology and in the School of Medicine at Hopkins. Dr Fallin’s research focuses on neuropsychiatric disorders, primarily autism, and developing applications and methods for genetic and epigenetic epidemiology.

Winner: Gabby Thomas, of a bronze medal in the 200 meter race at the Tokyo Olympics. Thomas is currently a graduate student in epidemiology at the University of Texas.

Elected: Onyebuchi Arah, in June as president-elect of the Society for Epidemiologic Research. Dr Arah is professor of epidemiology at the University of California—Los Angeles Fielding School of Public Health and the founding associate dean for global health at UCLA.

Knighted: Albert Hofman, in the Order of the Lion of the Netherlands for exceptional service to the community. This is the oldest and highest civilian order of chivalry in the Netherlands. Hofman is chair of the Department of Epidemiology at Harvard’s Chan School of Public Health. Harvard News described Hofman as the most highly cited scientist in the Netherlands and an internationally recognized leader in the epidemiology of common neurologic and vascular diseases, in particular dementia and stroke.

Died: Ralph Katz, age 77, on May 26, 2021 after a brief illness. According to his obituary, Dr. Katz had a long career as an epidemiologist and professor at Walter Reed, the University of Minnesota, the University of Connecticut, and as chair of the Department of Epidemiology and Health Promotion at the New York University College of Dentistry. About Dr Katz as a person, his obituary states “His enthusiasm in life extended well beyond academics. He navigated life with unbridled optimism, good humor, and balance. He was compassionate, saw potential in everyone, and, even in his last days, he showed great positivity, strength, and thoughtfulness.” 

Winner: Lauren De Crescenzo, of the 208 mile Unbound Gravel endurance cycling race in Emporia Kansas in early June 2021. De Crescenzo, age 30, is an epidemiologist at CDC and a pro cyclist. After winning the race she was asked by the publication Bicycling how she is able to train working forty hours a week. She answered, “Keeping things as simple as possible is the way to go. At this point, I’m just doing what’s going to get me through the day, what absolutely needs to be done today. I’m just trying to continue this lifestyle for the moment, but I know this pace is ultimately unsustainable.”

Selected: Vasan Ramachandran, as winner of the 2021 Louis and Artur Lucian award to one researcher from around the world who has made outstanding contributions to the field of circulatory diseases, especially for his work on hypertension and cardiovascular risk. Dr Ramachandran  is a professor at the Boston University School of Medicine, professor of epidemiology at the BU School of Public Health, and is also Director of the Framingham study.

Named: Raynard Washington, as Director-designee of the Mecklenburg County North Carolina  Health Department. Washington has been serving as the Deputy Public Health Director for the county. He previously was chief epidemiologist and deputy commissioner with the Philadelphia Department of Public Health.

Appointed: David Shoham, as Chair of the East Tennessee State University Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics in the College of Public Health. Dr Shoham was formerly with Loyola University Chicago as an associate professor and director of the Institute of Public Health, Public Health Programs, and the Master of Public Health program. “We are pleased to welcome Dr. Shoham to the ETSU College of Public Health,” said Dr. Randy Wykoff, dean. “He is a widely regarded researcher in his field and also brings strong leadership and vision that will guide and continue to grow our Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology.

Filing Lawsuit: Jennifer Smith, former Hawaii  Department of Health epidemiologist, against the state and the Director of the Department of Health. Smith was terminated from her job in May according to media accounts.  Smith alleges that she was terminated because she spoke out publicly last year to criticize the state’s contact tracing program practices and reporting.

Hired: Victoria Zigmont, to join the faculty at the School of Applied Sciences at the University of Mississippi. She comes to Mississippi from the Department of Public Health at Southern Connecticut State University. She currently works as a clinical data scientist consultant for the Department of Data Science for OhioHealth. Zigmont is described by the associate dean at the University of Mississippi as possessing strong leadership capabilities, enthusiasm for working with students, and knowledge in the field of epidemiology that will enhance the school’s undergraduate and graduate programs in public health.

Selected:  Gabby Thomas, UT Austin epidemiology student, to represent the U.S. at the Tokyo Olympics. She posted the 3rd best time in the U.S. history for the 200 meters at the USOC qualifying event in Michigan this year and just below the record set by Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988.  She is enrolled to earn a graduate degree in epidemiology and health care management.

Named: Jessica Malaty Rivera, an infectious disease epidemiologist and the science communication lead for the COVID Tracking Project, to the list of Fortune magazine’s 2021 list of the World’s 50 Greatest Leaders. According to Fortune, she regularly answers ask-me-anything Q&As via her Instagram stories, where she dispels common misconceptions and empathetically shares how her young family is adapting. She was 45^th on the list with Ellie Murray included below. Both were named as "social media epidemiologists".

Named: Ellie Murray, associate epidemiology professor at Boston University, to the list of Fortune magazine’s 2021 list of the World’s 50 Greatest Leaders( #45). According to Fortune, Ellie Murray a.k.a.@EpiEllie a.k.a. @EpiEllie, is known for animating simple illustrations in her educational videos. Throughout the past year-plus, she has, among other activities highlighted by Fortune, outlined a #ContactBudget points system that individuals can use to assess exposure risk.

Named: Seth Berkley, American epidemiologist who has led the Global Alliance Vaccine Initiative since 2011 to  Fortune magazine’s 2021 list of the World’s 50 Greatest Leaders (#14).  During the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Fortune, Berkley has championed the COVAX partnership to bring vaccines against the SARS-CoV-2 virus to every corner of the planet, not just the wealthy ones. As of mid-May, the COVAX partnership had already delivered 59 million vaccines to more than 120 countries, and it has raised nearly $7 billion so far to secure some 2 billion doses.

Newsmaker: Alvina Chu, Orange County Florida infectious disease epidemiologist, called “one of my secret weapons,” by Raul Pino, director of the Orange County Health Department. Pino told local media, Chu is someone he can trust, often tapping her to help lead the coronavirus weekly briefings for the county. Reflecting on the recent attacks on Asian Americans during May, which is Asian American Pacific Islander heritage month, provoked by reactions to the pandemic, Chu said harmful rhetoric toward the Asian community has made battling the pandemic tougher, personally.

Appointed: Jasmine Zapata, pediatrician and public health physician as Wisconsin’s new chief medical officer and epidemiologist for community health at the Wisconsin Department of Health Services.  Dr Zapata told Madison 365. “What really excited me about this position was that the vision of DHS is ‘everyone living their best life,’ and their mission is to protect and promote the health and safety of the people of Wisconsin…I felt like every aspect of my medicine and public health training, every person I ever connected with, everything just lined up for me to fit in well for this role. I was so excited because I felt like this was the next right step in my purpose.”

Newsmaker: Emily Smith, assistant professor of epidemiology in Baylor's Department of Public Health, and founder of Your Friendly Neighbor Epidemiologist page on Facebook which now has close to 100,000 followers, approximately half of whom are Evangelical Christians. Her surprising and frightening challenges with the Facebook page during the pandemic in the form of threats and pushback were the subject of an article by Interfaith America entitled “Meet the Friendly Neighbor Epidemiologist Encouraging Her Fellow Christians To Get Vaccinated”. Speaking about her view of what it means to “love thy neighbor”, she said “Hopefully, it can give people hope there’s more to Christianity than what is being shown on Fox News.”    https://bit.ly/3yNGjRG

Elected: Johanna Ravenhurst, to the South Hadley Massachusetts Board of Health. Ravenhurst is a doctoral candidate in epidemiology at UMass and the lead epidemiological data analyst for the UMass Amherst Public Health Promotion Center. She told Inside UMass “My training has inspired me to seek opportunities to complement my ongoing academic work with practical public health work in my own community…. I look forward to leading and supporting initiatives that will improve the health and wellbeing of people living locally.”

Died: George Seage III, on January 2, 2021 at age 63 from acute myeloid leukemia. Dr Seage was professor of epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health and was particularly well known for his work on behavioral aspects of HIV transmission and in investigating the effects of antiretroviral therapy on the long-term health of children with perinatal HIV infection. In a statement from Michelle Williams, Dean at Harvard, she said “George leaves a remarkable legacy not just in infectious disease epidemiology, but also in the great love he shared with his family and the indelible imprint he left on so many dear friends and colleagues. It was an immense privilege to work with and know him.”  A memorial recounting his professional and personal life will be published in May 2021 in Epidemiology by his wife Ann Aschengau, professor of epidemiology at Boston University School of Public Health.

Moving: Angela Dunn, state epidemiologist in Utah is quitting her job at the state level to take a position as executive health director of the Salt Lake County Health Department. Dunn was a prominent spokesperson during the COVID1-19 pandemic and drew strong supporters as well as detractors for her focus on wearing masks and maintaining restrictions on businesses and gatherings, according to local media accounts. The governor praised her as one of his most trusted advisers  and the Utah Department of Health said “ it’s hard to overstate the truly lifesaving contributions Dr Dunn has made to Utah’s COVID-19 response. Whether it was her steady voice at the press briefing podium, or her capable leadership at the table where decisions are made, Dr Dunn was always a champion for the health and well-being of Utah residents.”

Named: Jennie H Kwon, as vice chair for the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America Research Committee.  Dr Kwon is an assistant professor of medicine at Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis. She is also an associate hospital epidemiologist and the associate medical director for infection prevention at Barnes-Jewish hospital.

Resigned: Mario Fafangel, as an advisor on the panel providing advice to the government on measures to contain COVID-19. Dr Fafangel is head of the center for communicable diseases at the National Institute of Public Health in Slovenia. This is Dr Fafangel’s second resignation from the panel, according to local media accounts. He reportedly resigned because decisions made were often in disagreement with the opinions and protocols of epidemiologists. According to Fafangel, when he received the invitation to rejoin the expert team, “…I honestly believed things would be different this time around. They are different indeed, worse.”

Debuted: Kate Q Johnson, postdoctoral fellow and outcomes health researcher using epidemiology methods at the University of Washington, has been published with her first historical romance novel entitled “Daughter of Carthage, Son of Rome”. According to her publisher Bellastoria Press, the romance novel reveals the similarities between ancient Rome and today.

Elected: Christian Abnet, to the American Epidemiological Society. Dr Abnet is Chief of the Metabolic Epidemiology Branch in the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics at the National Cancer Institute. According to the NCI, Dr Abnet is an international expert in the etiology of esophageal and gastric cancers. His studies have focused on the effects of diet, environmental exposures, and genone-wide association studies of common genetic variation and cancer risk.

Died: Stanley Foster, of bone marrow disease on March 14, 2021. Dr. Foster was a former CDC Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer with a colorful and varied career in smallpox eradication, international health, and as faculty member at the Rollins School of Public Health. CDC’s principal deputy director Anne Schuchat noted “Stan’s frontline leadership in the eradication of smallpox made the virus history.”

Elected: Lindsay Morton, to the American Epidemiological Society. Dr Morton is Deputy Chief of the Radiation Epidemiology Branch in the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics at the National Cancer Institute. According to NCI, Dr Morton is internationally recognized for groundbreaking research on hematologic malignancies and multiple primary cancers. Speaking of her and Dr Abnet  above, NCI Division Director Stephen Chanock said “this prestigious honor was bestowed upon two very fitting leaders in epidemiology.”

Profiled: Syra Madad, in Aljazeera News as “The epidemiologist and her fight to prevent the next pandemic”. Dr Mada is Senior Director of the System-wide Special Pathogens Program at NYC Health + Hospitals. In the article, Dr Madad’s appearance in Netflix’s docuseries “Pandemic: How To Prevent an Outbreak” is highlighted. 

Michael Osterholm, in the Minneapolis Star as “Pandemic predictor Michael Osterholm gives us science and the hope to cope with it.”Osterholm is Director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy. In the profile, Osterholm says “This isn’t a pandemic of just a virus…This is a pandemic of emotion. This is a pandemic of pain and suffering that has to do with lost jobs and lost persons…This is not just a public health journey. This is a personal journey for all of us.”

Newsmaker: Jennifer Dillaha, described on local media in Arkansas as someone who went from being "an everyday epidemiologist to a health hero". Dr Dillaha is Arkansas State Epidemiologist and Medical Director for Immunizations and Outbreak Response for the Arkansas Department of Public Health. Reflecting on  the past year of pandemic challenges, Dillaha told KNWA “ Some of us were reflecting today on the gratitude we have for being able to play a role that we’re trained for, were prepared for…It hasn’t always been fun. Sometimes it’s been really hard work.”

Resigned: Marcel Salathé, from the Swiss National COVID-19 Science Task Force. Salathé is currently associate professor at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne He is the director of the Lab of Digital Epidemiology in Geneva. According to media reports, Salathé was appalled by Switzerland’s shortcomings in the digital field. He said, “Medical data exchanged by fax, codes for the SwissCovid application sent with an immense delay, computer systems deficient for vaccination…In a few weeks, we have seen how much the country is behind in digitization.” Salathé is launching a new organization CH++ to advance digital skills policy, taking action with the administration, and helping citizens to forge a digital future, according to the media report.

Died: Jane Murphy, at age 91, on February 9, 2021 after a stroke. Dr Murphy was a former professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, a faculty member at Massachusetts General Hospital, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and an adjunct professor of psychiatry at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia. She served as Director of the Stirling County study in psychiatric epidemiology, the longest running study of its kind seeking to understand the prevalence and types of mental illness across generations in a cross-cultural community.

Resigned: Karthik Kondapally, an epidemiology investigator with the Ohio Department of Health. The resignation came after it was uncovered that the health department had undercounted Ohio’s COVID-19 deaths by 34%. Kondapally was responsible for reconciling two mortality data sets (real time death data and death certificate data) which led to omitting approximately 4,000 deaths, according to Stephanie McCloud the Director of the Ohio Health Department. She told the media, “If there is any solace to take from this, I was glad we were not overreporting the deaths. That through that manual verification , we had not inadvertently overreported and exaggerated the problem. At the time, deaths went up from 12,000 to 16,000.

Actions taken recently by the Ohio Health Department which appear to be related to this incident include reassignment of Sietske de Fitjer, Ohio state epidemiologist, from chief of the Bureau of Infectious Diseases to the Bureau of Health Improvement and Wellness. Also, Kristen Dickerson, formerly Manager for Statewide Health, Wellness, and Special Programs at the Bureau of Workers’ Compensation has been appointed Chief of the Bureau of Infectious Diseases.

Honored: Mike Ryan, WHO epidemiologist and Head of WHO’s Health Emergencies Program, with the 2020 Romero award from Trocaire, an Irish non-governmental organization, for “consistently highlighting the threat of COVID-19 in the developing world and the need for global solidarity in our response to the virus.” The award is named in honor of Saint Oscar Romero who was assassinated in 1980. (See related article in this issue.)

Died: John Boring, at age 90, at his home in Decatur Georgia on January 10, 2021. He was a former CDC Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer in Atlanta and eventually became a professor of epidemiology at the Emory Rollins School of Public Health which he helped to create. He served as the first Epidemiology Department Chair. At Rollins, according to his obituary, he brought in acclaimed faculty, developed new curriculum and programs, and taught generations of doctors and public health students the value of evidence-based medicine.

Appointed: Dawn Comstock, as Executive Director of Jefferson County Public Health (JCPH) in Colorado. Comstock was previously affiliated with the Colorado School of Public Health and Environment at the University of Colorado Anschutz. In naming her to the position, the JCPH Board President said, “Her passion, vision, and zeal for public health equity will inspire the Jefferson County team to great achievements. Said Comstock, “I am adamant that we must identify innovative methods to address equity issues…While a physician cares of the health of an individual, we in public health care for the entire population.”

Died: Pierre Claquin, age 74, in Paris on February 4, 2021 as a result of diabetes and kidney disease according to the Daily Star in Bangladesh. Dr Claquin was a former CDC Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer who worked for many years in Bangladesh for small pox and poliovirus eradication. He spent much of his professional career in Bangladesh working for primary health care, maternal-child health and expanded programme on immunization projects. He was also an internationally renowned photographer who loved to portray the life of marginalised people and their livelihoods

Hired: Jodie Guest, infectious disease epidemiologist, as advisor for the 2021 Iditarod team and its COVID-19 mitigation plan for the race scheduled for March 2021. Dr. Guest is research professor and vice chair of the Department of Epidemiology at Emory University. She told the Iditarod newsletter, “Being able to provide epidemiology expertise to a sport I love is an exciting opportunity as we ensure this race will continue safely in 2021 and beyond.”

Appointed: Sean Hennessy, as Interim Director of the Division of Epidemiology in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the Perlman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr Hennessy is currently Professor of Epidemiology and of Systems Pharmacology and Translational Therapeutics at Penn. He also directs Penn’s Center for Pharmacoepidemiology Research and Training (CPeRT).

Died: George Schmid, of Stone Mountain Georgia, on January 14, 2021 at age 73. The cause of death was neuroendocrine cancer. Dr Schmid worked with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and at the World Health Organization in Genev As described in his obituary, his initial work at the CDC focused on zoonotic diseases, but his epidemiological skills quickly led to him being tasked to leadership roles in ground breaking research on Lyme Disease and the toxic shock syndrome. Within a few years, he began his work on control and prevention programs for sexually transmitted infections and associated diseases. His expertise was widely recognized, and, over the years, he was involved in many projects on six continents.

Died: Daniel Wartenberg, on August 21, 2020 at the age of 68. He contributed for many years as an environmental epidemiologist at the Rutgers Medical School Occupational Health Sciences Institute. He was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s disease at age 61 and became an Alzheimer’s advocate and teacher. An especially appreciative memorial recounting his professional and personal life was published in November 2020 in Environmental Health Perspectives by colleagues and family.

Honored: Michael Baker, as a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for his services to public health science. Dr Baker has been professor of public health at the University of Otago in Wellington since 2013 and is director of the Health Environment Infection Research Unit. He helped promote the strategy to eliminate COVID from New Zealand rather than focus on mitigation and flattening the curve. He told local media, “I guess it symbolizes the fact that the population approach that we all practice—and it’s a big team of us doing this—really can make a difference, I think, particularly when the country is confronted with a new poorly-understood threat like the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Newsmaker: David Dausey, Duquesne University epidemiologist who specializes in the performance of public health systems, told WITF broadcasting services that “The leadup and development of vaccines, that was fantastic. But you know, just to absolve yourself of responsibility after that—saying that it’s the state’s issue—that’s patently absurd…the whole point of the federal government is that they are supposed to be the maestro here.” He compared the current vaccine distribution to a “train wreck in slow motion.”

Died: J Michael Lane, at age 84, of colon cancer in October in Atlanta Georgia. He was a leader of CDC’s smallpox eradication program which helped eliminate smallpox from the world in 1977. According to his obituary in the NY Times, he joined the C.D.C. and, starting in 1964, devoted his entire working life to the crusade against smallpox and other infectious diseases, and against famine in impoverished countries.

Honored: JoAnn Manson, with the American Heart Association 2020 Research Achievement award for outstanding contributions to cardiovascular research. In giving the award, the AHA President recognized Dr Manson for “…pivotal contributions to our understanding of the role of menopausal estrogen therapy in cardiovascular disease, particularly related to estrogen’s overall risk-benefit profile. Much of what we know today about women’s health and cardiovascular disease is a result of Dr. Manson’s pioneering efforts.” Dr Manson holds appointments as Professor at Harvard Medical School and the School of Public Health and is Chief of the Division of Preventive Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Died: Diane Elizabeth Bennett, at age 72, in Atlanta Georgia on September 10, 2020. Dr Bennett was an alumna of the Epidemic Intelligence Service at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She held multiple positions during her public health career including at NIOSH in Cincinnati, OH, the Indian Health Service in Arizona, in Sierra Leone to direct the Lassa Fever Project, with the WHO Global Program for AIDS in Geneva, in London with the Communicable Disease Surveillance Center on tuberculosis, and with CDC coordinating standards for TB testing in Russia. In 2002 she resumed work on HIV, specifically surveillance of drug resistant HIV-AIDs and with the WHO Global AIDS Program in 2006-2009.

Honored: Meghan Winters, with the Trailblazer Award from the Canadian Institute of Health Research. Dr Winters is an epidemiologist and associate professor at Simon Fraser University. The award recognizes her achievements within the field of active transportation either on foot or bicycle and studying how city infrastructure can make these forms of exercise more accessible for people.

Died: Alan Bisno, at age 84, in Miami Florida on August 10, 2020. Dr Bisno was an alumnus of the Epidemic Intelligence Service at CDC and had a long career as a physician, infectious disease researcher, and educator. During his long career he was affiliated with the University of Tennessee and the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. He led classical investigations of the epidemiology of rheumatic fever and glomerulonephritis as well as other aspects of streptococcal infections ranging from pathogenesis through descriptions of clinical syndromes of disease.

Died: Rebecca Shadowen, age 62, following a four month battle with COVID-19. She was an infectious disease specialist with the health care provider Med Center Health in Bowling Green Kentucky and a fellow in the Society of Hospital Epidemiologists of America and the American College of Physicians. She worked with the Bowling Green-Warren County Coronavirus workgroup. The governor of Kentucky called her a “front line hero who worked tirelessly to protect the lives of others.” According to media accounts, Shadowen was a vocal proponent of social distancing, face masks, and other guidelines meant to keep Americans healthy.

Profiled: Caitlin Rivers, in Science magazine, as a “clear-eyed, tactful narrator of the unfolding pandemic” and someone on Twitter who has “made an art of giving a big picture, 280 character view to her followers who now number more than 140,000.” Rivers trained at Virginia Tech in genetics, bioinformatics, and computational biology, with a specialization in computational epidemiology and is currently Senior Scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Her research focuses on improving epidemic preparedness and response through the use of modeling and forecasting, data standards and data sharing, and public health policy. She has called for creating a National Infectious Disease Forecasting Center akin to the National Weather Service that would put modeling experts inside the government, according to Science.

Hired: Madison Riethman, as the COVID-19 response coordinator and health project manager at Reed College. With a master’s degree in epidemiology from St Louis University, Reed hired her to collaborate with the school’s COVID Risk Assessment Group and Response Team and support ongoing testing and contact tracing efforts. According to Reed, she is expected to develop and evaluate systems for tracking and reporting data and provide her public health expertise to Reed’s ongoing infectious disease prevention efforts.

On Leave: Jennifer Smith, Hawaii Department of Health virologist and COVID case investigator, with pay effective September 4, 2020. Smith brought attention to deficiencies in Hawaii’s contact tracing program which led to the departure of the state health director and placing the state epidemiologist on paid leave. Media reports are asking if Smith can be legally protected as a whistleblower. According to Hawaii’s governor, “No one in Hawaii should ever have to fear retaliation if they express their concerns about how people are acting. This is America for god sake.”

On Leave: Sarah Park, Hawaii state epidemiologist, has taken a paid leave of absence according to the Hawaii Star Advertiser following criticism of the COVID 19 testing and contact tracing program under her leadership. The State Health Director Bruce Anderson retired just before Park went on leave. Hawaii has seen a surge in cases in the past two months and the issuance of a second stay-at-home order which has caused “untold economic damage”, according to the Star Advertiser. A leading health professional in the state told the paper, “The removal of both Bruce Anderson and Sarah Park was an essential move to begin a new process at the executive level in the state of Hawaii…It is clear that aggressive use of testing, contact tracing and quarantine is the only way our state will be able to follow the best practice leads of the rest of the world and begin to stop the surge of COVID in Hawaii and the numerous deaths that are avoidable.”

Ailing: Margot Gage Witvliet, Associate Professor of Social Epidemiology at Lamar University, with persistent COVID-19 symptoms. Dr Witvliet traveled to Europe in March and started having flu-like symptoms 10 days after returning to the US. She described her plight as being one of the COVID "long-haulers", that is, persons who have symptoms of the illness but never recover completely. At one point she felt like she was dying and has not felt well for over four months as described in a recent account published at The Conversation.

Regretful: Linda Bell, South Carolina state epidemiologist, about not speaking out more forcefully about the right measures to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, according to The Center Square. The report was based on internal email correspondence obtained by The State newspaper. In one email, Bell wrote “I will not ‘stand next to the governor’ anymore without speaking to what the science tells us is the right thing to do, particularly as his staff intend to portray that as my complicity with his position.” (See story in this issue)

Resigned: Eileen White, city of Fishers Health Department epidemiologist, because of perceived political interference by the mayor in the decision-making of the health department around coronavirus. “This is a level of interference I had never seen before in a public health agency,” White told the Indianapolis Star. (See story in this issue).

Sidelined: Sarah Park, Hawaii state epidemiologist, reportedly for not having implemented a state plan to hire a large number of contact tracers to be on hand in case of an upsurge in coronavirus cases. The management of these tracers has been handed over to other Health Department officials but Park will remain to conduct other activities. (See story in this issue)

Honored: Zhong Nanshan, Chinese epidemiologist, with the Medal of the Republic. He was the only recipient of this highest award this year. “He bravely treated [patients] and bravely spoke out, raising human-to-human transmission [to the public], and emphasized strict prevention and control measures,” read the nomination for Zhong, according to state news agency Xinhua.

Newsmaker: Harvey Risch, Yale epidemiologist, for his views on the use of hydroxychloroquine in combination with the antibiotic azithromycin in the treatment of COVID-19. According to Yale News, more than 20 Yale colleagues expressed their concerns in a letter stating “As his colleagues, we defend the right of Dr Risch, a respected cancer epidemiologist, to voice his opinions…But he is not an expert in infectious disease epidemiology and he has not been swayed by the body of scientific evidence from rigorously conducted clinical trials, which refute the plausibility of his arguments.” Yale News reports Dr Risch did not respond to requests for comments.

Profiled: Marie-Roseline Belizaire, a World Health Organization epidemiologist assigned to the Central African Republic (CAR) to set up the organization’s COVID-19 response. She worked previously to slow the spread of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and is seeking to apply lessons learned from DRC to the CAR. Among them was this one from working with the community. “I sat down and ate with them. If you eat with them, they will trust you.”

Appointed: Erica Pan, as California’s new state epidemiologist. Dr. Pan had been Alameda County’s health officer since July 2018. She was director of the division of communicable disease control and prevention and deputy health officer for the Alameda County Public Health Department since 2011.The state public health officer, Sonia Angell, told the local media that extensive experience in public health, infectious diseases and emergency response is exactly what California needs right now in our continued response (to) the COVID-19 pandemic. Pan was trained as a pediatric infectious disease specialist and will be a co-leader of California’s response to the coronavirus.

Interviewed: Ali Khan, epidemiologist and dean of the College of Public Health at the University of Nebraska Medical Center by Democracy Now! Khan was also former director of the Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response at the CDC. He told interviewer Amy Goodman “So, this, without a doubt is the greatest public health failure in our nation’s history, and it just continues to be in freefall.” He called for integrated, whole-of-government leadership, contact tracing and isolation, mask wearing, hand washing, social distancing, and effective treatment of hospitalized patients.

Interviewed: Larry Brilliant, an epidemiologist and now CEO of Pandefense Advisory by WIRED magazine. Speaking of the pandemic, Brilliant was asked “how do we get out of this mess?” He called for finding a way to deal with clusters in nursing homes and other special populations, testing, contact tracing and isolation, and keeping bars, indoor restaurants, churches and other potentially super-spreader places closed.

Profiled: Ajay Sethi, Associate Professor of Population Sciences at the University of Wisconsin in Madison by the Wisconsin State Journal. Sethi gives a course on “Conspiracies in Public Health” to teach that we are all capable of conspiracy thinking and to impart skills on how to converse with persons holding different views. When asked to identify the most troubling conspiracies regarding COVID-19 he singled out accounts that public health workers and hospital staff in Florida and Georgia have been asked to manipulate or underreport data on COVID cases.

Appointed: Caitlin Pedati, Iowa state epidemiologist, to President Trump’s White House Coronavirus Task Force. Pedati, a 34 year old pediatrician by training, has become a very public figure during the pandemic. She recently visited President Trump in the Oval Office with Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds and was asked to join the Task Force after that meeting, according to press accounts.

Profiled: Chen Chien-jen, Vice President of Taiwan, epidemiologist, and expert on viruses in the New York Times on May 9, 2020. Calling him Taiwan’s weapon against coronaviruses, he navigates both the world of politics and science. He told the Times, “Evidence is more important than playing politics.” Because of his experience with SARS in 2003, he helped prepare Taiwan for the next outbreak. So far, in a population of almost 24 million people next to China, Taiwan has recorded only 441 cases and 7 deaths.

Volunteer: Sanjiv Baxi, with a New York City hospital to help treat COVID-19 patients. Baxi is an infectious disease physician, and adjunct professor who teaches epidemiology at University of California, San Francisco. He is a member of the Air Force Reserve and volunteered to help New York meet the surge of patients. He told a military publication, “One can read about how bad it is and see the numbers, but witnessing the amount of suffering is a different experience.”

Profiled: Linda Bell, South Carolina state epidemiologist, by the Greenville News. Bell, a physician and a former CDC EIS officer, has served as state epidemiologist for about 8 years. Her role during the coronavirus pandemic is said to be on a much bigger stage with a much bigger audience. According to the paper, she’s answered hundreds of questions, punctuated with a signature style that is both polite and direct.”

Resigned: Neil Ferguson, UK epidemiologist, from his country’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies. Ferguson helped create a model of the coronavirus pandemic which influenced both the UK and the US to take drastic social distancing measures to save lives. According to media accounts, he resigned because he violated social distancing rules he helped bring about by allowing a reported lover to visit his home.

Died: Sefik Pasagic, epidemiologist in Bosnia-Herzegovina, age 60, of COVID-19 complications. He was a former World Health Organization liaison in Sarajevo, according to the NY Times. The paper reports his wife has written that his death was caused by the poor health services in his country and a local journalist agreed by saying ““All over the world people stay home to protect their public health care system, only we are staying home to protect ourselves from ours.” https://nyti.ms/2ROWeeD

[Editor’s Note: Medscape has been keeping In Memoriam: a list of healthcare workers who have died of COVID-19. In addition to Sefik Pasagic above, it includes the following epidemiogists. Readers who know of other colleagues affected by COVID-19 are asked to send the information to editor@epimonitor.net]

Luigi Ablondi, 66, Epidemiologist, Former General Manager of the Crema Hospital, Cremona, Italy   https://bit.ly/2xxJPoC

Nasrim Kodin, 72, Professor of Epidemiology, Depok West Java Indonesia  https://bit.ly/3crgr1W

Bambang Sutrisna, 71, Professor of Epidemiology, University of Indonesia, Jakarta Indonesia   https://bit.ly/2Vilpbt

Appointed: Pauline Mendola, as chair of the Department of Epidemiology and Environmental Health at the School of Public Health and Health Professions located at University at Buffalo. Jean Wactawski-Wende, dean of the school, said about Dr Mendola, “Her dedication, hard work, and impeccable scholarship have led to remarkable success. Her body of work fits perfectly into our mission and adds to the department’s research portfolio in several areas, including maternal and child health.”

Interviewed: Deborah Morton, California State University San Marcos chronic disease epidemiologist for her views on the pandemic. She told the interviewer “Many epidemiologists are being consulted and living in the spotlight as experts for how to proceed and predict the future of the pandemic. A highly unusual and historic situation.”

Recovered: W Ian Lipkin, John Snow Professor, Epidemiology at Columbia University and Director of the the Center for Infection and Immunity. He had traveled to China to assist with the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak. Lipkin told CNBC in late March it was after his self-quarantine was over that he became ill, developing symptoms that include a “terrible headache” and a “persistent cough that I still have to this day…It takes your breath away…It’s 12 days into this illness for me and my voice is abnormal. I’m still coughing and I don’t have the usual energy level. But I did not require hospitalization, and I’m grateful for that.”

Interviewed: Wendy M. Bamberg, on COVID-19 lessons and challenges by Contagion Live. Dr Bamberg is principal and medical epidemiologist with Medical Epidemiology Consulting. She provided a useful description of the phases of the current outbreak and how strategies need to adapt. She used an analogy to clarify the difference between mitigation and containment strategies. She said, “For football fans, this might be analogous to zone defense instead of man-to-man.”

Recovered: Michael Saag, age 64, an epidemiologist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, became ill with COVID-19 in mid-March and recovered. He was interviewed on National Public Radio, and he wrote very descriptively about his experience in the Washington Post. He told NPR “Everything broke loose. I ended up with fever, chills, headache. By the time the morning arrived, I was better and I could function and think clearly, but then cruelly and relentlessly, the symptoms came back every single day in the late afternoon. And it just repeated itself. It felt a lot like "Groundhog Day." I didn't know if each night I would deteriorate and have to go in the hospital or whether I would survive the night. “

https://n.pr/3anDfya       https://wapo.st/2RQmiGd

Died: Raoult Ratard, Louisiana state epidemiologist at age 75 of causes unrelated to COVID-19, although he was fighting but not leading Louisiana’s outbreak as the state epidemiologist, according to a Louisiana State Health Department spokesman. The Department said “Dr Ratard was a force withing the Department of Health and our whole region. He trained future generations of epidemiologists and set Louisiana on the path forward to respond to public health outbreaks.”  https://bit.ly/3cuNPoG

Honored: Zhong Nanshan, epidemiologist and head of the Chinese National Health Commission’s expert panel investigating COVID-19, as the inaugural winner of the 2020 Being Edinburgh Award. The award highlights positive news about members of the Edinburgh alumni community.

Interviewed in the New Yorker: Justin Lessler, associate professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Topics covered are the ways in which our understanding of the pandemic has improved, what we can learn from different governments’ responses, and why older adults seem to be more at risk of serious illness. “I would definitely say that what China has been able to accomplish has been quite impressive,” said Lessler. 
LINK:  http://bit.ly/2J1wXco

Quoted in PC Gamer: Eric Lofgren (Washington State University) and Nina Fefferman (University of Tennessee, Knoxville) on the lessons learned from the “Corrupted Blood” outbreak in the game World of Warcraft. Both epidemiologists have written a paper on this topic published in Lancet Infectious Diseases in 2007 and are now working on coronavirus. "For me, it was a good illustration of how important it is to understand people's behaviors," Lofgren says. "When people react to public health emergencies, how those reactions really shape the course of things. We often view epidemics as these things that sort of happen to people. There's a virus and it's doing things. But really it's a virus that's spreading between people, and how people interact and behave and comply with authority figures, or don't, those are all very important things. And also that these things are very chaotic. You can't really predict 'oh yeah, everyone will quarantine. It'll be fine.' No, they won't." 

Fefferman’s perspective from her earlier work is "It led me to think really deeply about how people perceive threats and how differences in that perception can change how they behave," she writes. "A lot of my work since then has been in trying to build models of the social construction of risk perception and I don't think I would have come to that as easily if I hadn't spent time thinking about the discussions WoW players had in real time about Corrupted Blood and how to act in the game based on the understanding they built from those discussions."
LINK: http://bit.ly/2Uoeqfp

Interviewed: Nigel Paneth, Michigan State University epidemiologist, in East Lansing Info, a non-profit citizen-run local news cooperative, about coronavirus. Asked if current responses to the pandemic are hysteria and overreaction, Paneth said the risk of COVID-19 cannot be overblown, stating that he had never seen such a public health threat in his life. He urged more social distancing and added that proactive communities can implement interventions that will spare them the worst outcomes of this pandemic. In this sense, local communities are in control of their level of success.  LINK:  http://bit.ly/2U2c3A4

Point-Counterpoint: John Ioannidis Stanford professor of epidemiology and statistics and Marc Lipsitch Harvard professor of epidemiology recently showcased different perspectives on the COVID-19 epidemic in opinion pieces published in STAT.

Ioannidis’ article was entitled “A fiasco in the making?  As the coronavirus pandemic takes hold, we are making decisions without reliable data”. He raised concerns about decision making without good information. Lipsitch quickly contributed an opinion article whose title encapsulates his view, namely “We know enough now to act decisively against COVID-19. Social distancing is a good place to start.”  LINKS:  http://bit.ly/3a4dvHZ       http://bit.ly/3be7JDQ

Honored: Robert W Haley, with the inaugural Laurance Nickey Lifetime Achievement Award from the Texas Medical Association, for his career-long dedication to public health. Dr Haley is the Director of the Division of Epidemiology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. He formerly worked for 10 years in infectious diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Running: Anna Kelles, a University of North Carolina trained nutritional epidemiologist, for a seat in the New York State General Assembly. Kelles has been a legislator in Tompkins County NY since 2015. Prior to that, she served as a public health educator, director of an environmental non-profit, and a human rights activist.

Nominated: John Vena, for the Lenna Endowed Visiting Professorship at St Bonaventure University by the School of Health Professions at St Bonaventure. Vena will deliver academic and public lectures during his visit March 9-19, 2020. Vena is currently professor and founding chair of the Department of Public Health Sciences at the Medical University of South Carolina.

Interviewed: Michael Mina, for a Facebook Live event sponsored by The Forum at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and PRI’s “The World.” Mina and “The World” reporter Elana Gordon discussed the latest updates about the coronavirus situation. Mina is assistant professor of epidemiology at the Harvard School. Read the report in the Harvard Gazette at:  http://bit.ly/38SQO93