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IOM elects Carlos del Rio

Three epidemiologists honored as faculty emeriti

Vaccarino named to endowed chair

New Rose Salamone Gangarosa Chair appointed

New research grants

Appointments and promotions

 
   
 
 
Joseph Njau (Tanzania), Landry Tsague (Cameroon), and Asrat Amnie (Ethiopia) joined 18 of their colleagues this fall for the 10th anniversary of the William H. Foege Fellowships in Global Health, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Since 2003, there have been 24 Foege Fellows from 22 countries.

Mental health experts launch new center

The Department of Health Policy and Management introduced the new Center for Behavioral Health Policy Studies on Oct. 24 with an open house and reception for those interested in its focus on substance use and mental health disorders. Center members will conduct program evaluations and studies on mental health interventions. It also will train students in mental health and substance use research and policy. The center's director is Benjamin Druss, Rosalynn Carter Chair of Mental Health, who is joined by faculty from Morehouse School of Medicine, Georgia Tech, the University of South Carolina, and the Carter Center Mental Health Program.

Global Health establishes training program in humanitarian emergencies

The Hubert Department of Global Health received a $500,000 award from the CDC to establish the Emory Center for Public Health Training in Complex Humanitarian Emergencies. The center will develop a U.S.-based fellowship program for international candidates and establish an international summer practicum for U.S. graduate students. Rollins already offers a Graduate Certificate in Global Complex Humanitarian Emergencies. Read more.

 
Kris Valeriano, coordinator with the Center for Public Health Preparedness and Research, helps a student into a biosafety suit. Rollins welcomed 26 high school students this past summer for the inaugural Infectious Disease Institute, which introduces students to the study of deadly diseases. Read more.

A Rollins-teer thank you

Rollins-teer Day 2013 was the largest and most successful day of volunteer service in seven years. More than 500 students, staff, and faculty served 24 community organizations in the Atlanta area. A special shout-out to Kyle Tau, Rollins-teer Day coordinator, and Harisha Kadali of Student Services, who coordinated more than $6,000 in donations from local businesses.

 

Talk to the provost

This fall, Emory faculty are invited to talk to Provost Claire Sterk about their innovative academic ideas, to add their voices to the university's planning process, or to give feedback on faculty matters. RSPH faculty may join the university-wide session on Nov. 11, 12:30 - 2 p.m. at the Carlos Museum.


 
   
 

Mohammed Ali (global health) is a recipient of the 2013 Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health/Pfizer Faculty Award, which recognizes graduate public health faculty for teaching, practice, and research excellence.

Carlos del Rio (global health) was elected vice chair of the HIV Medicine Association.

Carolyn Drews-Botsch (epidem-iology) now serves as the RSPH representative to the University Faculty Council.

Raymond Greenberg, first dean of the RSPH, joined the University of Texas System as executive vice chancellor for health affairs. He previously served as president of the Medical University of South Carolina.

Debra Houry (emergency medicine/behavioral sciences) is president of the University Senate, while Kathryn Yount, Asa Griggs Candler Chair of Global Health, is president-elect.

Jeff Koplan (global health) received a 2013 Friendship Award from the People's Republic of China. The Friendship Award is China's highest award for foreign experts who have made contributions to the country's economic and social progress. Read more.

Gary Miller (environmental health) was named editor of Toxicological Sciences (ToxSci).

Justin Remais (environmental health) serves as the RSPH representative to the University Senate.

Viola Vaccarino (epidemiology) is the inaugural winner of the Tracey Faber Award for Women in Imaging Science and Engineering given by Emory's Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences. She also was named a member of the Biobehavioral Mechanisms of Emotion, Stress, and Health Study Section of the NIH.

Lance Waller (biostatistics) is serving as interim chair of the Department of Biomedical Informatics in the Emory School of Medicine and interim director of the Emory University Center for Comprehensive Informatics. Waller is Rollins Professor and chair of biostatistics and bioinformatics.


 
   
 

*View all Rollins events on our online calendar

Oct. 30: Mental Health Lecture Series, Yerkes researcher Kerry Ressler, 12 p.m., GCR Building, Rita Ann Rollins Room.

Oct. 31: Biostatistics & Bioinfor-matics Seminar, "Leveraging in Big Data Regression," 12 p.m., CNR Building, room 1000.

Nov. 5: Global Field Experience Brownbag Presentation, 12 p.m., CNR Building, room 1000.

Nov. 5: Health Organization of Latin America meeting, 12 p.m., CNR Building, room 1051.

Nov. 7: Biostatistics & Bioinformatics Seminar, "Integrated Methods Improve Detection of Risk Genes and Discover Hidden Associations for Complex Diseases," 12 p.m., CNR Building, room 1000.

Nov. 7: Association of Black Public Health Students meeting, 12 p.m., GCR Building, room L35

Nov. 7: Emory Mental Health Initiative meeting, 12 p.m., GCR Building, room 107.

 
 
 
Fall 2013

The road ahead

 
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

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

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

 
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

 
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

 
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 nameā€”the 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

  • Mary Beth Weber, Assistant Professor, Global Health

  • Faculty promotions
  • Ying Guo, Assistant Professor to Associate Professor, Biostatistics (with tenure)
  • Eugene (Yijian) Huang, Associate Professor to Professor, Biostatistics

  • Robert Lyles, Associate Professor to Professor, Biostatistics (with tenure)

  • Usha Ramakrishnan, Associate Professor to Professor, Global Health

  • Jessica Sales, Assistant Professor to Associate Professor (research), Behavioral Sciences and Health Education

  • New staff
    Judy Andrews, Director, Registry Operations, Epidemiology

  • Anna Chard, Public Health Program Associate, Environmental Health

  • Richard Claxton, Assistant Coordinator, Epidemiology

  • Kelly Dyer, Research Interviewer, Global Health

  • Emily Halden Brown, Public Health Program Associate, Epidemiology

  • Teri Hanekamp, Senior Quality Control Editor, Epidemiology

  • Hua Hao, Data Information Specialist, Environmental Health

  • Robin Harris Billet, Senior Quality Control Editor, Epidemiology

  • Alex Klyshevich, Business Analyst, Student Services

  • Emily Lakemaker, Assistant Director, Admission and Student Services

  • Robert Laverock, Post Award Research Administrator, Research Administration

  • Sahar Salek, Rollins Earn and Learn Program, Associate Director, Student Services

  • Sheree Serrian, Senior Quality Control Editor, Epidemiology

  • Tyree Staple, Research Project Coordinator, Epidemiology

  • Stephanie Tapscott, Research Administrative Coordinator, Health Policy and Management

  • Wanda Stewart, Senior Quality Control Editor, Epidemiology

  • Mary Wolfe, Data Analyst, Behavioral Sciences and Health Education

 
       
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