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The O. Wayne and Grace
Crum Rollins Foundation recently pledged $4.2 million to help establish
the RSPH Office of Public Health Preparedness and Research. The office
gives structure and focus to ongoing work in the school relating to
terrorism prevention and preparedness and will encourage new collaborations
with state and local health departments, the CDC, and organizations
addressing the threat globally. Dr. Ruth Berkelman,
Professor of Epidemiology, is leading the new office and has been named
the Rollins Professor of Public Health Preparedness. She was formerly
an Assistant Surgeon General of the United States and the Deputy Director
of the CDC's National Center for Infectious Diseases, and she is now
a member of the Institute of Medicine's (IOM) Committee on Microbial
Threats to Health in the 21st Century. She recently served on an IOM
committee to evaluate the Department of Defense Global Emerging Infections
Surveillance and Response System. Philip Brachman,
Professor of International Health, served as chair of that committee.
I would like to thank the RSPH
faculty and staff who stepped up to the plate in the aftermath of September
11 and the bioterrorist events in Washington, New York, and Florida.
We saw the seamless integration of academic and institutional public
health, as Emory faculty and CDC employees worked together to contain
the damage. The following faculty members are among many who rose to
the occasion.
- Professor of International Health Philip Brachman,
who investigated the only other anthrax outbreak in US history during
the 1950s, served as chief press expert on anthrax during the crisis.
- Professor of International Health Stanley Foster,
a veteran of the smallpox eradication campaign, continues to teach
CDC and state and local health officials everything he knows about
smallpox diagnosis.
- Professor of International Health Keith Klugman
is investigating new drugs to combat antibiotic-resistant anthrax.
- David Stephens, Director of the Division of Infectious
Diseases for the Emory School of Medicine and Professor of Epidemiology
at RSPH, led the CDC clinical team managing the treatment of anthrax
patients and those exposed to anthrax.
A new group based at
RSPH will help states use millions of dollars received from the Master
Tobacco Settlement to create and implement effective smoking prevention
and cessation programs. The Tobacco and Technical Assistance Consortium
(TTAC) is the nation's resource center for information and training
on prevention and cessation of tobacco use. This past October, the American
Cancer Society, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the American
Legacy Foundation chose the RSPH to serve as TTAC's academic home. The
group is funded with $15.3 million in grants from the foundations over
the next three years. TTAC will consult with states on the nuts and
bolts of effective strategies to reduce tobacco use and train staff
to carry out proven programs. Dearell Neimeyer, the
former chief of the program services branch of the CDC's Office on Smoking
and Health, is the executive director. Kathy Miner,
Associate Dean for Applied Public Health, is the principal investigator.
Lisa Carlson, MPH93, is assistant director.
Please welcome 14
new faculty and staff members who have joined us from Aetna, Inc. These
highly accomplished health services researchers are the hub of the new
Emory Center on Health Outcomes and Quality, directed by Kenneth
Thorpe, Chair of Health Policy and Management. The group specializes
in outcomes research—the study of what works in health care. New
faculty members associated with the center include Julie Gazmararian,
PhD; Tracy Scott, PhD; Verna Lamar
Welch, PhD; Diane Green, PhD; and Kara
Jacobson, MPH.
Congratulations to three fellows
with the Emory Aids International Training and Research Program at RSPH
who recently won the prestigious Essay Contest on the Health of Developing
Countries sponsored by the Harvard University Center for International
Development. Erik Folch, Isabel Hernandez, and Carlos
Franco Paredes, will be awarded $4,000 for their first-place
essay titled Infectious Diseases, Non-zero Sum Thinking, and the Developing
World.
The RSPH will deeply miss several
much-loved staff members who recently retired after many years of dedicated
service. We wish them all the best!
- Dollie Daniels, Director of Graduate Studies for
the Department of Epidemiology, has been a key player in public health
at Emory for the past 23 years. She earned her MPH at RSPH in 1991,
winning the Charles C. Shepard Award for the outstanding thesis. During
her time at the school, she won the Emory University Award of Distinction
and published a history of the school titled A Shared Dream: The
Genesis of Academic Public Health At Emory University.
- Susan Daniel served the school for 17 years, most
recently as Director of Admissions. She shepherded thousands of students
through the admissions process with great care over the years, working
out of the little house at 1525 Clifton Road before construction of
the Grace Crum Rollins building. She proudly saw the program grow
and become a full-fledged school in 1990.
- Portia Griffin served public health at Emory for
20 years, most recently as a research associate in the Department
of Biostatistics and previously as a staff member in the Department
of Behavioral Sciences and Health Education. She has been a strong
organizational force behind the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Service
Awards ceremony since it began in 1993. This year, she received an
award herself in recognition of her dedication to the annual event.
Carol Gee,
Administrative Assistant for the Center for Public Health Practice,
has been a writer for many years, jotting down observations, impressions,
and thoughts about whatever moved her. She recently published her first
major work, a book of first-person essays titled The Venus Chronicles.
The book is now available on Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble online.
Many thanks to all faculty and
staff who participated in the 2002 Emory Gives United Way Campaign.
RSPH had a response rate of 13% and reached 99% of its goal this year,
significantly higher than last year.
Vicki Hertzberg
recently stepped down as chair of the Department of Biostatistics after
seven successful years. She will continue her research and teaching
activities, including the development of the department's new Public
Health Informatics Program. Michael Kutner, head of
the Biostatistical Consulting Center, is serving as interim chair while
a national search for a new chair is under way.
Congratulations to the following
faculty members who are distinguishing themselves on campus, nationwide,
and around the world.
- Jay Bernhardt, Assistant Professor of Behavioral
Sciences and Health Education, has been elected to the Executive Board
of the American Public Health Association.
- Philip Brachman, Professor of International Health,
recently received the Abraham Lilienfeld Award from the American Public
Health Association.
- Joyce Essien and other members of the ZAP Asthma
consortium recently received the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Partnership
Award for Campus-Community Collaboration, which includes a grant of
$10,000. The Carters, former Vice President Al Gore, Governor Roy
Barnes, and Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin attended the award ceremony.
Essien, Director of the Center for Public Health Practice at RSPH,
is a founding member of ZAP Asthma's Board of Directors.
- William Foege, Presidential Distinguished Professor
of International Health, has received the American Medical Association's
Dr. Nathan Davis Award in the category "Member of the Executive Branch
Serving by Presidential Appointment." He was nominated for the award
by Jeff Koplan, Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
- Reynaldo Martorell, Chair of the Department of
International Health, recently began serving as an expert adviser
for the Health Consequences of Population Change panel of the Wellcome
Trust, a foundation based in the United Kingdom.
- Eric Ottesen, Director of the Lymphatic Filariasis
Support Center at RSPH, recently won the Bernhard Nocht Medal, joining
an elite group of recipients including Albert Schweitzer. He was the
first to receive the award—given by the Bernard Nocht Institute
and the German Society for Tropical Medicine and International Health—since
1987.
- Marla Salmon, Dean and Professor of the Nell Hodgson
Woodruff School of Nursing and Professor in RSPH, serves on the IOM
Committee on the Future of Academic Health Centers.
- Aryeh Stein, Associate Professor of International
Health, has been named Director of the Nutrition and Health Sciences
Program at Emory. This program, part of the Division of Biological
and Biomedical Sciences of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences,
brings together faculty from RSPH, the School of Medicine, the Graduate
School, CDC, and the American Cancer Society to provide training and
research opportunities for doctoral students.
- I was recently invited by former President Bill Clinton to serve
on the Advisory Board of the International AIDS Trust. Also, I am
serving on the IOM Committee on the Future of Academic Health Centers
along with Marla Salmon.
James W. Curran, MD, MPH
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