Fall 2013
The road ahead
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Dean James W. Curran |
Rollins set new records this fall welcoming our largest entering class yet, 567 MPH students, and the largest number of international students, 116. This class represents the best of this year's applicants, and they come to us via a centralized service called SOPHAS (Schools of Public Health Application Service). Behind the scenes, the applicant pool that uses SOPHAS is changing, and I believe the change will benefit the public health education community.
As you probably know, Rollins is a member of the Association of Schools of Public Health (ASPH), which represents 50 accredited public health schools and eight associate members. In August, the ASPH changed its name to the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health (ASPPH), reflecting the addition of more than 30 accredited public health programs. Most members of ASPPH use SOPHAS to field their applicants. So with the addition of public health programs to the mix, our applicant pool may widen as students who consider entering a program will see the RSPH as a strong option.
Since 2011, Rollins has received the highest number of MPH applications among all U.S. schools of public health. The school also received the most applications for global health, epidemiology, and environmental health. These numbers are a testament to the outstanding quality of our research, teaching, and facilities and the dedication of our faculty, staff, students, alumni, and friends. Thanks to all who make Rollins the top-ranked school that it is today.
IOM elects Carlos del Rio
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Carlos del Rio became chair of the Hubert Department of Global Health in 2009. |
We congratulate Carlos del Rio on achieving one of the highest honors in health and medicine. The Institute of Medicine has elected him to its new class of members. Del Rio serves as Hubert Professor and chair of the Hubert Department of Global Health and professor of medicine. He is also director of the Emory AIDS International Training and Research Program and codirector of the Emory Center for AIDS Research, both based at Rollins.
Del Rio specializes in infectious diseases at Grady Memorial Hospital and Emory University Hospital. His research program, funded by the CDC and the NIH, focuses on decreasing barriers to care among HIV-infected persons, particularly among racial and ethnic minorities and other underserved populations, such as substance abusers. He also works to improve access to antiretroviral therapy for HIV patients and build human research capacity in countries and communities with limited resources. Read more.
Three epidemiologists honored as faculty emeriti
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John Carter, Jonathan Liff, and John Young all retired from the Department of Epidemiology. |
The Rollins community recently honored John Carter, Jonathan Liff, and John Young as newly retired faculty members in the Department of Epidemiology. Together they have contributed 65 years of service to the department and the school.
Carter 91MPH, who trained as a physicist, has been a senior faculty member working with the state of Georgia since 1992. He was instrumental in creating and maintaining a number of state databases, especially those pertaining to child welfare.
He also cotaught the course "Data Sources and Methods" with global health professor Roger Rochat.
Liff joined the school in 1984 and directed the Georgia Center for Cancer Statistics (GCCS) for several years. He also worked with Young to develop the Atlanta Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) program. Liff has studied numerous cancer trends over the years, often focusing on different cancer rates among white and African American populations.
Young served with the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the California Department of Health Services before joining Rollins in 1995. While at NCI, he cofounded the national SEER program, the primary source of U.S. cancer statistics. He joined Rollins as director of GCCS with an eye toward creating the Atlanta SEER, regarded today as one of the best cancer registry systems in the nation.
Congratulations to Young, Liff, and Carter upon their retirement and for their many contributions to teaching and research at Rollins and the epidemiology field.
Vaccarino named to endowed chair
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Viola Vaccarino |
Viola Vaccarino, chair of epidemiology, now holds the Wilton Looney Chair of Cardiovascular Research. The new endowed chair will help Vaccarino continue her research and teaching in cardiovascular epidemiology and health.
Established with a $2 million gift from the Rollins family, the chair is named for Atlanta business leader and philanthropist Wilton Looney, honorary chair of the Genuine Parts Company and a board director of Rollins Inc. In 1976, Looney helped establish the Carlyle Fraser Heart Center at what is now Emory University Hospital Midtown. Fraser founded the Genuine Parts Company, and Looney succeeded him as CEO.
The gift for the Looney chair is the most recent expression of the Rollins family's investment in the school that bears their name. In 2007, the family pledged the lead gift to construct the Claudia Nance Rollins Building, which more than doubled the physical size of the school when it opened in 2010.
New Rose Salamone Gangarosa Chair appointed
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Thomas Clasen |
Thomas Clasen joined Rollins as the Rose Salamone Gangarosa Chair in Environmental Health. He comes from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and through his studies there broadened understanding of the health impact of water and sanitation in developing countries. He currrently leads a major Gates Foundation-funded project in India and a national campaign in Rwanda.
After 20 years as an international corporate lawyer, Clasen obtained his doctorate at the LSHTM in 2006 and then remained on faculty. He has advised governments in Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa and undertaken research for the WHO, UNICEF, OXFAM, and USAID and has consulted and conducted research for private companies such as Unilever and Procter & Gamble.
The Rose Salamone Gangarosa chair was established by Rose Gangarosa and her husband, Eugene Gangarosa, professor emeritus of global health and a founding father of the school. Christine Moe holds the first chair created by the Gangarosas. She is the Eugene J. Gangarosa Chair of Safe Water and director of the Center for Global Safe Water. Read more.
New grants: HIV in women, first U.S. exposome core center, and more
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Gina Wingood |
Gina Wingood, Agnes Moore Professor of Behavioral Sciences and Health Education, and Igho Ofotokun (infectious disease, medical school) were awarded an $11.9 million grant from the NIH to study HIV in women.
The NIH award to Emory will create one of four new clinical research sites in the South. The sites will be part of the Women's Interagency HIV Cohort Study, established by the NIH in 1993 with clinical sites in the Midwest and on the West and East Coasts.
At Emory, investigators will focus on HIV/AIDS secondary prevention for women through immunological, clinical and translational, pharmacological, epidemiological, and behavioral research and clinical interventions.
The RSPH and Georgia Tech received a $4 million grant to establish the first exposome research center in the United States. It will be known as HERCULES, the acronym for its full nameāthe Health and Exposome Research Center: Understanding Lifetime Exposures. Gary Miller, Asa Griggs Candler Chair of Environmental Health and associate dean for research at Rollins, will direct the center, which will foster research on how the human body responds to the environmental pollutants in food, water, physical activity, medications, homes, and daily stressors.
The first of its kinds in the nation, the center will be comprised of 38 investigators at Rollins and Georgia Tech, where researchers will provide computational expertise to analyze and integrate large data sets. The center is funded by the NIH's National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Other exposome research centers are in Barcelona and London.
Qi Long, associate professor of biostatistics and bioinformatics, is leading a new project funded by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute. Long's team will develop, disseminate, and assess methods to account for missing data in large observational studies. Their study, which draws from the Paul Coverdell National Acute Stroke Registry, will identify often-missed factors, steps, and gaps in patient care to improve outcomes.
Rollins faculty also received more than 200 other grants for research and training from May through September. View the complete list.
Appointments and promotions
New faculty
- Thomas Clasen, Rose Salamone Gangarosa Chair in Environmental Health and Professor (with tenure), Environmental Health
Sophia Hussen, Assistant Professor, Global Health
Anna Rubtsova, Visiting Assistant Professor, Behavioral Sciences and Health Education
Amit Shah, Assistant Professor, Epidemiology
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Mary Beth Weber, Assistant Professor, Global Health
- Faculty promotions
- Ying Guo, Assistant Professor to Associate Professor, Biostatistics (with tenure)
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Eugene (Yijian) Huang, Associate Professor to Professor, Biostatistics
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Robert Lyles, Associate Professor to Professor, Biostatistics (with tenure)
Usha Ramakrishnan, Associate Professor to Professor, Global Health
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Jessica Sales, Assistant Professor to Associate Professor (research), Behavioral Sciences and Health Education
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New staff
Judy Andrews, Director, Registry Operations, Epidemiology
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Anna Chard, Public Health Program Associate, Environmental Health
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Richard Claxton, Assistant Coordinator, Epidemiology
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Kelly Dyer, Research Interviewer, Global Health
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Emily Halden Brown, Public Health Program Associate, Epidemiology
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Teri Hanekamp, Senior Quality Control Editor, Epidemiology
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Hua Hao, Data Information Specialist, Environmental Health
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Robin Harris Billet, Senior Quality Control Editor, Epidemiology
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Alex Klyshevich, Business Analyst, Student Services
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Emily Lakemaker, Assistant Director, Admission and Student Services
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Robert Laverock, Post Award Research Administrator, Research Administration
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Sahar Salek, Rollins Earn and Learn Program, Associate Director, Student Services
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Sheree Serrian, Senior Quality Control Editor, Epidemiology
Tyree Staple, Research Project Coordinator, Epidemiology
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Stephanie Tapscott, Research Administrative Coordinator, Health Policy and Management
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Wanda Stewart, Senior Quality Control Editor, Epidemiology
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Mary Wolfe, Data Analyst, Behavioral Sciences and Health Education
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