Public Health, Summer 2000

Class Notes

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1986
1990
1991
1993
1994
1995
1996
Aun Lor
1997
1998
Heidi Michels Blanck
1999


Myrtle Turner, 86MPH, has received her doctoral degree from Georgia State's Higher Education Doctor of Philosophy program.
 
1986


As a District AIDS Advisor employed by UN Volunteers in Botswana, Bailo Ousman Sey, 90MPH, works with district authorities to respond to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Sey has three children: Sallimatta, born in 1994, Ismaila, born in 1 997, and Rohiatou, born in 1999.
 
1990


Suzanne M. Smith, 91MPH, is a 1999-2000 Kennedy Fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Following her fellowship, Smith will return to her position as chief of the health care and aging studies branch o f the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta.
 
1991


Karen Boone, 93MN/MPH, of Dahlonega, Ga., recently was appointed assistant professor of nursing at North Georgia College and State University.

Kathryn A. Evans, 83Ox, 85C, 93MPH, and Susan C. Casey, 84C, of Chicago, announce the birth of a son, Logan Carswell Casey, on July 15, 1999. Evans works as an environmental health scientist for the US Public Health Service.

Shamiram Ruth Feinglass, 93MPH, 97M, currently a medical resident at Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland, will begin a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Fellowship this July in Seattle.

A. Taylor Uhlhorn Laird, 92C, 93MPH, and David Laird, 93M, announce the birth of their second son, David Griffin, on June 22, 1999. The couple married in May 1993, and their first son, Walker Saucier, was born in February 1997.
 

1993



Kathryn Evans and Susan Casey with 
their son Logan Carswell Casey 



Laura A. Conn, 94MPH, and her husband Larry, of Suwanee, Ga., announce the birth of a son, Logan Avery, on Aug. 10, 1999. Conn is an epidemiologist with the CDC.

Astrid Kozel Dretler, 94MPH, and Dan Dretler, of Natick, Mass., became the proud parents of Halle Jordan in August 1999. Dretler works as a research associate for Join Together at the Boston University School of Public Health.

John P. Hoffmann, 94MPH, is an associate professor in the department of sociology at Brigham Young University, where he teaches courses in applied statistics, social problems, and criminology. He researches adolescent drug use and deli nquency as well as the long-term economic impact of drug use on individuals.

Recently funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, Hoffmann's study uses 20 years of longitudinal data to determine whether one's economic "life course" is affected by early and continuing experiences with illegal drugs. Hoffmann is married to th e former Lynn MacDonald and is the father of four young boys.

Alison Cohen Howard, 94MPH, and her husband, Dan, of Atlanta, announce the birth of their son, Matthew Benjamin, on July 10, 1999.

E. Anne Peterson, 94MPH, a public health physician, is the first woman to serve in Virginia's top health post as health commissioner. Peterson will oversee all aspects of the state's health system, including state and local public heal th services, environmental health, water quality, epidemiology, and emergency medical services. With a staff of approximately 3,700 employees, she will also supervise the office's technical details, such as keeping tabs on the state's health statistics re porting, its public health information network, and the licensing of its health facilities. Previously, she has worked in Kenya on AIDS prevention, in Zimbabwe on programs to address the health needs of street children, and in the United States in a varie ty of settings from a walk-in medical clinic to the CDC. Peterson and her husband, also a public health physician, have three teenagers: one son and two daughters.
 

1994



John P. Hoffmann 


Cam Escoffery, 92C, 95MPH, and her husband, Richard, 92C, 95L, announce the birth of Michael David Escoffery on Sunday, May 7, at 6:20 p.m. His stats at birth were: 7 lbs., 10oz., 21.5 in. long. Mikey even has his own website.

Mark S. Kashdan, 95MPH, earned his juris doctorate from the Georgia State University College of Law and passed the July 1999 Georgia bar examination. He has accepted a position as senior consultant with the legal management services gr oup at Ernst & Young, LLP, in Atlanta.

Hani Tamim, 95MPH, married Nisrine Dimachkie on July 17, 1999. Tamim is a PhD candidate at McGill University in Montreal.

Chepin Torner, 93C, 95MPH, of Atlanta, married David Hamilton on Sep. 5, 1998. Torner is a decision support analyst with BlueCross/ BlueShield of Georgia.
 

1995


Roger S. Moffat, 96MPH, is manager of the William Jacobs Fitness Center at the American University Health Promotion Program located in Washington, D.C.

Karen B. Seagraves, 93C, 96MPH, 99N, of Marietta, Ga., and her husband, Scott, announce the birth of their second child, Jessica Elizabeth, on Sep. 18, 1999. Jessica joins a brother, Jacob, born on July 28, 1995. Seagraves started the new year with a new job as a nurse in the neurosciences unit at Northside Hospital in Atlanta.

Roger Sherman, 96MPH, of San Antonio, Tex., is a resident in obstetrics/gynecology at Wilford Hall Medical Center and a captain in the US Air Force. Sherman married in 1998, and he and his wife announce the birth of a son, Andrew, on J an. 17, 2000.

Regina R. Whitfield, 96MPH, has been accepted to Rush Medical College in Chicago for fall 2000 matriculation. Currently, she is employed by the University of Illinois at Chicago as a researcher in HIV/AIDS education and prevention. She 's also the asthma education coordinator with the University of Chicago Hospital's Asthma Center.
 

1996



Regina R. Whitfield 

Promising young professional



Aun Lor, 97MPH, received the Jay S. Drotman Memorial Award this fall at the American Public Health Association Meeting in Chicago. This award is given to a promising young public health professional or student, 30 years of age or youn ger, who has demonstrated potential in the health field by challenging traditional public health policy or practice in a creative and positive manner.

According to Jeanne Alongi, who nominated him, Lor is everything public health should be: committed to justice, dedicated to life-long learning, a scholar, and an inspiration to others. Although Lor is a Khmer Rouge survivor, five of his family members were not. He turned that tragedy into inspiration for his work in public health.

Lor is currently a fellow in the first class of the Public Health Prevention Service, a three-year postgraduate program sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This fellowship brought him to Florida, where his work with the Florida Department of Health focuses on HIV/AIDS prevention programs for African-American youth.

Lor's ties with Emory and the Atlanta Alliance for Health and Human Rights (AHHR), which he co-founded, remain strong. He is the current advisor of the AHHR group on campus, which is working on a new health and human rights lecture series. He also rece ntly recruited students at Florida State in Tampa to organize into the newest chapter of the AHHR.

In addition, he serves on the Advisory Council for Doctors for Global Health.
 



Kristi Busico, 97MPH, and Brian Metzger, 97MPH, married on April 24, 1999, at the Houston Mill House in Atlanta. The couple currently resides in Augusta, Ga. Busico is a graduate student in epidemiology at Emory, and Metzger is pursuing his MD at the Medical College of Georgia.

Eunice Diane Franklin, 97MPH, married Noah Steven Becker on Aug. 28, 1999, in Philadelphia. Franklin is a project manager at the University of Pennsylvania Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics.

Christopher Hsu, 97MPH, and Elisabeth Preston, 97MPH, married in Chicago on May 29, 1999. Hsu is in his first year of medical school and third year of graduate studies in virology at the University of Illinois, Champai gn-Urbana.

Kim Koch, 97MPH, of Port Jefferson Station, N.Y., married Gabriel Rozengarten, 97MPH, on July 25, 1999.

Brian Metzger, 97MPH, see entry for Kristi Busico, 97MPH.

Stephen Nash, 97MPH, of Indianapolis, is a medical epidemiologist with the Indiana State Department of Health.

Elisabeth Preston, 97MPH, see entry for Christopher Hsu, 97MPH.

Thomas Prol, 89Ox, 91C, 97MPH, of New York, was elected to the Board of Governors of the American Bar Association Law Student Division. In that capacity, he serves as the representative of law students in the state of New York. Current ly, Prol works as an enforcement officer for the Environmental Protection Agency, and in his spare time, he is a third-year law student at New York Law School.

Seth Rosenblatt, 97MPH, of Marietta, Ga., works as a program analyst in the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), Office of the Inspector General, Office of Evaluation and Inspection. His main responsibility is to evaluate di fferent programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid, of various agencies within DHHS, such as the Health Care Financing Administration, the CDC, and the Food and Drug Administration. He conducts short-term management and program evaluations that focus on issu es of concern to DHHS, Congress, and the public. The findings of these reports focus on the efficiency, vulnerability, and effectiveness of departmental programs.

Gabriel Rozengarten, 97MPH, see entry for Kim Koch, 97MPH.

Mario Montrez Watkins, 97MPH, of College Park, Ga., married Tamla Sybrina Smith, of Decatur, Ga., in July 1999.
 

1997



Thomas Prol 


Swan Cheng, 98MPH, of Flushing, N.Y., works for the American Cancer Society as a project coordinator for the Queens Breast Health Partnership (QBHP). The partnership is part of the CDC's National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detec tion program, known as the "Healthy Women Partnership." QBHP provides low-cost or free breast and cervical screenings for women age 50 or older with no health insurance and low income.

Heather Christian, 98MPH, is a Global Health Leadership Fellow at the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva. The fellowship was established in 1998 to mobilize and recruit experts from around the world to WHO. Christian works in th e Department of Resource Mobilization (RMB) in the cluster of External Relations and Governing Bodies. RMB is responsible for mobilizing extra budgeting resources from donor governments, foundations, nongovernmental organizations, and the private sector.

Christian's responsibilities have included developing strategies to target traditional and new donors, particularly the German government and US foundations; creating new initiatives in support of mobilizing resources beyond donor government funding; s trengthening the capacity of staff members to build better partnerships, especially with foundations and the private sector; and maintaining accurate donor profile information.

Christian writes that "understanding a specialized UN agency has been a daunting task, but also a rewarding and fulfilling one. I have met and work with incredible people with truly exciting backgrounds from all over the world." After her fellowship en ds in March 2001, she hopes to continue working "on development assistance for health, especially concerning poverty reduction, and in the area of public-private partnerships for global health."

Holly Coutre, 98MPH, is a first-year medical student at the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine.
 

1998

Micronutrient malnutrition in Nepal



Heidi Blanck (back, center) with the team
of health survey workers in the
Beldangi 1 camp.


Heidi Michels Blanck, 99GDBBS, received her doctorate from Emory University's Graduate Division of Biological and Biomedical Sciences (GDBBS), Nutrition and Health Science program, in May 1999.

Blanck is now an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer in the Division of Nutrition and Physical Activity at the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion at the CDC -- a position that took her to Nepal last fall.

In October 1999, at the request of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the World Food Programme (WFP), the CDC conducted a survey of protein-energy and micronutrient malnutrition among adolescent Bhutanese refugees. The CDC team, whic h included Blanck, was asked to formulate recommendations for interventions to address any important nutritional problems discovered.

The biochemical results of the October 1999 survey confirmed that the nutrient status of the adolescent refugees is marginal and that surveillance measures need to be continued. In response to the survey findings, the WFP reinstated the fortified cerea l blend to the general ration in spring 2000.
 



Nicole Deggins, 99MN/MPH, of Washington, D.C., is a certified nurse midwife at the District of Columbia Birth Center.

Mary Elizabeth Hill, 99MSPH, married David Warren Harmon on Sep. 3, 1999, in Washington, D.C. Hill is an epidemiologist with the American Cancer Society in Atlanta.

Brian Midkiff, 99MPH, writes, "I'm attending Chicago Medical School, on my way to accomplishing my life's goal of becoming the world's first doctor/body builder. With MD and MPH degrees, every door will be open for me. What will I do? Don't know yet. Sadly, there's no specialty for 'meat medicine.'"

Jennie Elizabeth Nichols, 99MPH, of Medina, Ohio, is continuing her education at the Ohio State University College of Dentistry and plans to graduate with the class of 2003.

Parag Sanghvi, 99MSPH, is a first-year medical student at the Medical College of Georgia.

Lori Solomon, 96C, 99MPH, is the editor of WebMD's new regional Georgia website. The Georgia site is the first of a group of regional WebMD sites, located in large US cities, that will target health information to a regional audience. The site includes medical news, feature articles, consumer tips, physician-led live events, and physician-managed Q&A sites on medical specialties -- all catering to the interests of residents in Georgia and the Southeast.
 

1999


Summer 2000 Issue | Dean's Message
The Seeds of a School | A Sapling Takes Root
New Growth | Tree of Knowledge
Class Notes
WHSC | RSPH

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