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STUDENTS

Three Gillings students are among 11 UNC-Chapel Hill graduate students and recent graduate alumni who have received The Graduate School’s 2022 Impact Awards, in recognition of research that contributes to the educational, economic, physical, social or cultural well-being of North Carolina communities and citizens. They are:

• ‍Caitlin Biddell, a doctoral student in health policy and management, for her work in financial assistance processes in cancer care;‍
• Jeliyah Clark, a doctoral candidate in environmental sciences and engineering, for her research on drinking well water during pregnancy and the effects of dietary interventions on birth outcomes; and‍
• Lindsay Savelli, a master’s student in health equity, social justice and human rights, for her studies of environmental racism and asphalt plant pollution in Caswell County.

Master of Public Health (MPH) student Morgan Cooper, RD, received one of UNC-Chapel Hill’s 2021 Public Service Awards, the Office of the Provost Engaged Scholarship Award, alongside preceptor Ryan Lavalley, PhD, assistant professor of occupational science and occupational therapy, for innovative work in partnership with the Orange County Partnerships for Home Preservation, the Orange County Department on Aging and the Marian Cheek Jackson Center, in support of home preservation and repair and aging-in-community.

Five master’s students from Gillings were in the most recent cohort of the E(I) Lab Program, an entrepreneurship and innovation lab that encourages UNC-Chapel Hill graduate students across various disciplines to collaborate to solve challenges in health care. Three teams participated:

• First place: Mental Health Matchmakers, which included Gillings students Kayla McKiski and Noah Hammes, designed a project to test the feasibility of matching mental health services with students coping with substance use disorders.
• Second place: Trashbusters, which included Shauna Fraser-Kim from Gillings, worked to resolve the increase of medical waste brought about by the current global pandemic.
• Third place: Jane Tandler and Victoria Tetteh from the Gillings were part of Tetteh Back Pocket, which created a platform with resources to help people manage their chronic back pain.

Two Gillings students were among 14 UNC undergraduates selected as Phillips Ambassadors for Summer, Fall and Academic Year 2021 study abroad programs in Asia. Caroline Le of Raleigh, a health policy and management major, and Skyler Noble of Chapel Hill, an applied mathematics and biostatistics double major, studied through the Yonsei University international summer school program. Ambassadors are selected twice a year and receive $6,000 each.

Takhona Hlatshwako, a senior from the Kingdom of Eswatini in Southern Africa (formerly Swaziland) studying health policy and management, has been named a Rhodes Scholar to pursue a fully funded postgraduate degree at the University of Oxford in Fall 2022. She plans to pursue a master’s in international health and tropical medicine through the Oxford Centre for Tropical Medicine and Global Health within the Nuffield Department of Medicine.

Gillings student Aneesha Tucker, a double major in health policy and management and women and gender studies, received the 2021 Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship from UNC-Chapel Hill. Amy Lo, a junior from Cleveland, Ohio, who studies public health nutrition with minors in chemistry and food studies, was one of two runners-up.

Three Gillings students received the inaugural Gillings School Graduate Teaching Assistant (TA) Award: Dane Emmerling, graduate teaching assistant and doctoral student in health behavior; Lee Doyle, graduate research assistant and MPH student in health behavior; and Hanna Huffstetler, graduate teaching assistant and doctoral student in health behavior.

EXAMPLES OF GRANTS & CONTRACTS

Audrey Pettifor, PhD, professor in the Department of Epidemiology, is co-leading a $15 million state-funded surveillance effort to facilitate and enhance genomic sequencing capabilities of the SARS-CoV-2 virus across N.C. The CORVASEQ (Coronavirus Variant Sequencing) Surveillance Network is a partnership between the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services Division of Public Health and the N.C. Policy Collaboratory. CORVASEQ includes several academic institutions and health care systems. An online dashboard will be created as part of the information sharing and epidemiological tracking aspects of the program.

The Rapidly Emerging Antiviral Drug Development Initiative (READDI), a nonprofit drug research and development organization that was founded by the UNC School of Medicine, Gillings School of Global Public Health, Eshelman School of Pharmacy and the Eshelman Institute for Innovation, won RTI International’s Forethought Research Collaboration Challenge and received $5 million in seed funds to produce antiviral drugs that can block many viruses at once, in an effort to prevent future pandemics.

Jason Surratt, PhD, professor of environmental sciences and engineering, will be UNC’s principal investigator on a $12 million National Science Foundation project to determine the content of airborne particulate matter, which has significant effects on health and climate change. He will work with Georgia Institute of Technology Professor Nga Lee “Sally” Ng, PhD, the lead principal investigator. The project will establish a network of 12 sites around the United States outfitted with state-of-the-art instruments to characterize the properties of aerosols. Surratt will lead a group at the site in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park at Look Rock, Tenn. Surratt also received the 2021 Kenneth T. Whitby Award from the American Association for Aerosol Research (AAAR) in recognition of outstanding technical contributions to aerosol science and technology by a young scientist.

The Improving Provider Announcement Communication Training (IMPACT) Program Project, led by Noel Brewer, PhD, Gillings Distinguished Professor in Public Health, has received $11.7 million in funding from the National Cancer Institute to study ways that health care providers can contribute to vaccine recommendations, what motivates providers to recommend human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines, who should facilitate training and what kind of communication interventions are most cost-effective. IMPACT research project leads include Melissa Gilkey, PhD, associate professor of health behavior; Justin Trogdon, PhD, and Stephanie Wheeler, PhD, MPH, professors of health policy and management; and Sachiko Ozawa, PhD, associate professor from the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy and adjunct associate professor of maternal and child health. Nisha Gottfredson, PhD, assistant professor of health behavior, will co-lead the data core with Trogdon. One of the world’s top researchers in risk beliefs and communication, Brewer was named Gillings Distinguished Professor in Public Health in 2021 and was appointed to the Commission for Vaccine Refusal, Acceptance and Demand in the USA by The Lancet, one of the world’s foremost publications on health research, to design a plan for public policy to support high acceptance of safe and effective vaccines in the U.S.

UNC’s Center for Environmental Health and Susceptibility (CEHS), led by Melissa Troester, PhD, Gillings professor of epidemiology, will work with North Carolina State University (NCSU) researchers on a multi-institutional project funded by a $17 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The Southeastern Liver Health Study will follow 16,000 people in N.C. and Georgia for up to five years to explore a potential link between environmental contaminants and liver cancer. Michael Sanderson, MPH, associate director of the CEHS, will work with NCSU on project administration and evaluation.

The UNC Nutrition Obesity Research Center (NORC) has received a $5.6 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to fund another five years of support. This award is the fifth time the NIH has provided five-year funding for the center, allowing for continuous work in the field of nutritional sciences and obesity since the center’s establishment in 1999. Led by co-directors Elizabeth Mayer-Davis, PhD, RD, Cary C. Boshamer Distinguished Professor of nutrition and medicine and chair of the Department of Nutrition, and Raz Shaikh, PhD, associate professor and associate chair for research in the Department of Nutrition, NORC is one of 11 centers in the country funded by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) that is specifically designed to enhance the efficiency, productivity, effectiveness and multidisciplinary nature of nutrition and obesity-related research.

Gillings faculty will lead two new centers as part of the NIH study Nutrition for Precision Health, powered by the All of Us Research Program (NPH), a five-year effort that will develop predictive algorithms and generate new data to advance personalized nutrition and improve public health. Mayer-Davis is the principal investigator for the $13 million Clinical Center, which will enroll more than 2,000 study participants. Susan Sumner, PhD, professor of nutrition, is the principal investigator for the $19 million Metabolomics and Clinical Assay Center (MCAC), which will analyze metabolomics data to measure tens of thousands of compounds in biospecimens to provide a more comprehensive view of an individual’s health and wellness. Sumner is based at the Nutrition Research Institute (NRI) in Kannapolis. The NRI is home to the Eastern Regional Comprehensive Metabolomics Research Core, one of six U.S. centers that work together to establish national standards for metabolomics and increase national metabolomic capacity in clinical and translational research.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of N.C. has dedicated $3.2 million for a new, large clinical study to investigate how to best help people who are food insecure achieve better health through nutrition. Study co-leaders are Darren DeWalt, MD, MPH, director of the UNC Institute for Healthcare Quality Improvement at the UNC School of Medicine and a 2004 MPH Gillings graduate; Alice Ammerman, DrPH, the Mildred Kaufman Distinguished Professor of nutrition at Gillings and director of the UNC Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, and Seth Berkowitz, MD, MPH, assistant professor of medicine and member of the UNC Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research.

With a $2.8 million grant from the NIH, Gillings nutrition researchers are studying what types of personalized digital messages and guidance can best help people modify their behavior to meet their goals, such as eating more healthful foods, getting active and keeping tabs on their weight. Carmina Valle, PhD, assistant professor of nutrition; Deborah Tate, PhD, professor of nutrition and health behavior; assistant professors of nutrition Brooke Nezami, PhD, and Heather Wasser, PhD; and Nisha Gottfredson, PhD, associate professor of health behavior, are co-investigators.

The Department of Maternal and Child Health (MCH) has received a $1.97 million award from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA)’s Maternal and Child Health Bureau, which will renew funding of the department’s National MCH Workforce Development Center led by Dorothy Cilenti, DrPH, associate professor of maternal and child health, for another five years. The Center was established in 2014 as the national training hub for workforce development in maternal and child health.

GILLINGS NEWS

Andrew Olshan, PhD, Barbara S. Hulka Distinguished Professor of epidemiology, will serve as the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health’s interim associate dean for research. Olshan fills the position left by Penny Gordon-Larsen, PhD, Carla Smith Chamblee Distinguished Professor of Global Nutrition, who served in the role since September 2018 and has been named interim Vice Chancellor for Research at UNC-Chapel Hill

For the third consecutive year, leadership at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health was honored with the Health Professions Higher Education Excellence in Diversity (HEED) Award from INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine for outstanding commitment to and ongoing promotion of inclusive excellence. As the COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the urgent need for racial justice, the Gillings community is dedicated to dismantling the systems of racism that create barriers to equitable health.

SELECTED FACULTY/STAFF HONORS

Ralph Baric, PhD, the William R. Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor in the Department of Epidemiology, recently received several honors and recognitions for his coronavirus research:

• The 2021 Oliver Max Gardner Award, the highest honor the UNC System confers on faculty members. Established by the will of former N.C. Gov. O. Max Gardner, the award recognizes faculty who have “made the greatest contribution to the welfare of the human race.”
• Induction into the National Academy of Sciences, one of the highest distinctions for a scientist or engineer in the U.S., recognizing distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.
• The North Carolina Award, the state’s highest civilian honor. Governor Roy Cooper presented Baric with the award, which was created by the General Assembly in 1961 to recognize significant contributions to the state and nation in the fields of fine arts, literature, public service and science.

Shelley Golden, PhD, associate professor and vice chair for academic affairs for the Gillings School’s Department of Health Behavior, received The Graduate School’s 2021 Faculty Award for Excellence in Doctoral Mentoring. The annual award recognizes a faculty member who encourages students to establish their own record of scholarly activity, provides a supportive environment, and achieves a successful record of graduate degree completion among the students they have advised.

Sandra Greene, DrPH, professor of the practice in the Department of Health Policy and Management and senior research fellow and co-director of the program on health care economics and finance at the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research, was recently appointed as chair of the N.C. State Health Coordinating Council (SHCC) by Governor Roy Cooper’s office. The SHCC oversees health planning in the state and develops the annual State Medical Facilities Plan to guide expansion of health care services in this state.

Stephen Hursting, PhD, MPH, the American Institute for Cancer Research/World Cancer Research Fund Distinguished Professor at Gillings, has been named director of the UNC NRI, following the retirement of Steve Zeisel, MD, PhD, professor of nutrition Based in Kannapolis, N.C., the NRI advances precision nutrition by investigating how genetics, gut microbiota and environment affect an individual’s requirements for and responses to nutrients.

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) named David Martinez, PhD, postdoctoral researcher at UNC Gillings, as part of a cohort of 21 early career researchers who were named 2020 Hanna H. Gray Fellows.

Benjamin Mason Meier, JD, LLM, PhD, professor of global health policy, received the 2021 Mid-Career Award in International Health from the American Public Health Association (APHA). This award recognizes an outstanding mid-career professional with demonstrated achievement and commitment to international health promotion and development.

Beth Moracco, PhD, associate professor of health behavior and associate director of the UNC Injury Prevention Research Center, received the University’s 2021 Edward Kidder Graham Award, which is given to those who fulfill Graham’s ambition “to make the campus co-extensive with the boundaries of the state” in the context of UNC’s mission to extend knowledge-based service around the world.

Aunchalee Palmquist, PhD, MA, IBCLC, assistant professor of maternal and child health, received the Gillings Faculty Award for Excellence in Health Equity Research, which recognizes faculty who demonstrate excellence in research that has made a substantial impact on improved equitable outcomes or sustained reduction in inequities in a pressing public health issue.

Susan M. Smith, PhD, has been named the inaugural holder of The Dickson Foundation-Harris Teeter Distinguished Professorship in nutrition. Smith, who joined the faculty in 2016, is a professor of nutrition at the Gillings School of Global Public Health and serves as deputy director for science at UNC’s NRI.

Courtney Woods, PhD, associate professor of environmental sciences and engineering, received a UNC-Chapel Hill Public Service Award for outstanding contributions to the campus and broader communities. She received the Office of the Provost Engaged Scholarship Award in the category of research, recognizing her collaborative environmental justice research projects and establishment of the Environmental Justice Action Research Clinic.

Two researchers from the Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering were named to committees convened by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to tackle some of the country’s most pressing environmental health challenges. Barbara Turpin, PhD, professor and chair of environmental sciences and engineering, is part of the committee to study the chemistry of urban wildfires in the wildland-urban interface (WUI), the area where urban homes transition into undeveloped wildland. Glenn Morrison, PhD, professor of environmental sciences and engineering, has been named to the committee that will study the emerging science on indoor air chemistry, focusing on under-reported chemical science discoveries that show a link between chemical exposure, air quality and human health.

Nine Gillings faculty members were named to Clarivate’s 2021 Highly Cited Researchers list, which recognizes significant influence in their fields through the publication of multiple highly cited papers during the last decade. Their names are drawn from the publications that rank in the top 1% by citations for field and publication year. The faculty members are:

• ‍**Ralph S. Baric, PhD**, William R. Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor of epidemiology.‍
• Noel T. Brewer, PhD, Gillings Distinguished Professor in Public Health and professor of health behavior.‍
• Stephen R. Cole, PhD, professor of epidemiology.‍
• Kelly R. Evenson, PhD, professor of epidemiology.‍
• Hans W. Paerl, PhD, professor of marine and environmental sciences and engineering and William R. Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor at UNC’s Institute of Marine Sciences.‍
• Barry M. Popkin, PhD, William R. Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor of nutrition.‍
• Bryce Reeve, PhD, adjunct professor of health policy and management at Gillings, and professor of population health sciences and Pediatrics within the Duke University School of Medicine.‍
• Timothy Sheahan, PhD, assistant professor of epidemiology.‍
• David J. Weber, MD, professor of medicine, pediatrics and epidemiology, and associate chief medical officer of UNC Health Care.

Five Gillings faculty members were recognized by Expertscape as some of the top experts in their fields, based on scientific publications since 2010 from the National Institutes of Health’s PubMed journal database:

• ‍**Adaora Adimora, MD**, professor of epidemiology at Gillings and the Sarah Graham Kenan Distinguished Professor of Medicine;‍
• Cynthia Bulik, PhD, FAED, professor of nutrition and the Distinguished Professor of Eating Disorders in UNC’s Department of Psychiatry;‍
• Myron Cohen, MD, professor of epidemiology and is the Yeargan-Bate Eminent Distinguished Professor of Medicine, Microbiology and Immunology in the School of Medicine;‍
• Joseph Eron, MD, adjunct professor of epidemiology and the Herman and Louise Smith Distinguished Professor of Medicine; and‍
• Ralph Baric, PhD, the William R. Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor in the Gillings School’s Department of Epidemiology and a professor of microbiology and immunology with UNC’s School of Medicine.

The student-nominated Teaching Excellence and Innovation Awards honor Gillings faculty members who inspire students; enhance student learning through creative, engaging and innovative teaching methods; and/or support student success in the classroom and student growth as public health professionals. The 2022 award winners are:

• ‍**Jamie Crandell, PhD**, associate professor of biostatistics and nursing;‍
• Brian Wells Pence, PhD, professor of epidemiology;‍
• Julia Rager, PhD, assistant professor of environmental sciences and engineering;‍
• Patsy Polston, PhD, assistant professor of health behavior;‍
• Katie Meyer, ScD, assistant professor of nutrition; and‍
• Jennifer Medearis Costello, MS, adjunct faculty for academic affairs.

‍**Clare Barrington, PhD**, associate professor of health behavior and director of the doctoral program in health behavior, received one of the School’s most prestigious awards, the Bernard G. Greenberg Alumni Endowment Award for teaching, research and service.‍

Andrew Olshan, PhD, Barbara S. Hulka Distinguished Professor of epidemiology and interim associate dean for research, received the John E. Larsh Jr. Award for Mentorship, one of the School’s most prestigious awards, which recognizes the faculty member who best exemplifies the qualities of mentoring and commitment to students.

Daniel Westreich, PhD, professor of epidemiology, received the Edward G. McGavran Award for Excellence in Teaching, which recognizes career-long excellence in teaching by a faculty member at the Gillings School.

ALUMNI

Dilshad Jaff, MD, MPH, Gillings Humanitarian Fellow, received the 2022 Harriet Hylton Barr Distinguished Alumni Award, which honors an alumnus or alumna for outstanding achievements and contributions to public health.

Celette Sugg Skinner, PhD — alumna, adjunct professor of health behavior at Gillings and member of the Gillings School’s Public Health Foundation board — has been selected as the first dean of a new school of public health to be launched at the University of Texas (UT) Southwestern in Dallas, on an interim basis. The UT System Board of Regents approved plans for the new school in February 2021.

M. Katherine Banks, PhD, was chosen by the Texas A&M University System Board of Regents as president of the system’s flagship institution, Texas A&M University. A member of the National Academy of Engineering and a fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers, she earned a Master of Science degree in environmental sciences and engineering from Gillings in 1986, followed by a doctoral degree from Duke University. Banks had previously served as Texas A&M Engineering Vice Chancellor and Dean, and as Vice Chancellor of Engineering and National Laboratories and College of Engineering dean.

Ronald Aubert, PhD, was appointed interim dean of the Brown University School of Public Health while the dean is on short-term leave for a temporary special assignment as the White House coronavirus response coordinator. Aubert, who received his doctoral degree in epidemiology from Gillings, had been serving as interim associate dean for diversity and inclusion at Brown’s School of Public Health and faculty director of the university’s Presidential Scholars Program.

Michael “Trey” Crabb III, MHA ‘01, MBA, was named senior vice president and chief business development officer at Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare, which operates health care facilities across the Mid-South region. Crabb earned a Master of Healthcare Administration (MHA) degree in health policy and management and holds a Master of Business Administration degree from the Kenan-Flagler Business School. For nine years, Crabb served on the Public Health Foundation Board.

Alex Gertner, PhD, a 2020 doctoral alumnus in health policy and management, has received two honors for his dissertation for research into the use of effective treatments for opioid use disorder (OUD) in Medicaid beneficiaries: The Dean’s Distinguished Dissertation Award from The Graduate School at UNC in the field of social sciences, and the Annual Outstanding Dissertation Award from AcademyHealth, a professional organization for health services researchers, health policy analysts and health practitioners. Gertner’s dissertation research was published in a June 2020 study in Health Services Research and an August 2020 study in Health Affairs.

Jessica Melton, MHA, was named president and chief operating officer of Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, Md. Suburban is nationally recognized for excellence and is a member of Johns Hopkins Medicine. Melton graduated with an MHA degree from Gillings in 2007 and serves on the Public Health Foundation Board.

Jennifer Mundt, MSPH, was named the N.C. Department of Commerce’s first assistant secretary of clean energy economic development and will lead the state’s efforts to develop opportunities in the clean energy industry. Mundt earned a Master of Science in Public Health (MSPH) degree from the Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering in 2007.

Sharon Phares, PhD, MPH, was named the chief scientific officer for the National Pharmaceutical Council (NPC), where she directs NPC’s research strategy and oversees research related to policy that affects the pharmaceutical industry. She received an MPH from the Gillings School’s Public Health Leadership Program in 2010.

William Ray, MPH, was appointed as North Carolina’s director of emergency management and the deputy homeland security advisor at the N.C. Department of Public Safety. Ray earned an MPH from the Gillings Public Health Leadership Program in 2010 and a graduate certificate in Community Preparedness and Disaster Management from the Department of Health Policy and Management.

Sara Roszak, DrPH, has been named senior vice president, health and wellness strategy and policy for the National Association of Chain Drug Stores (NACDS), and president of the NCADS Foundation, which seeks to improve patient health through research, education and philanthropy. An adjunct professor of clinical education at the Eshelman School of Pharmacy, she earned a Doctor of Public Health degree from Gillings’ executive program in health leadership in 2019.

Vilma S. Santana, MD, PhD, was inducted into the Academia de Medicine da Bahia (Bahia Academy of Medicine). This honor recognizes her dedication to a career of education, research and forming partnerships to advance public health globally. She earned a doctoral degree from the UNC Gillings Department of Epidemiology in 1994.

Kevin Tate, MHA, was named UNC Family Medicine’s new vice chair for administration. An alumnus of the UNC Gillings School for Global Public Health, he earned a MHA degree from the School’s Department of Health Policy and Management in 2005.

The following Gillings alumni have received appointments in the Biden-Harris administration:

• ‍Mayra Alvarez, MHA ’05, serves on the Biden-Harris COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force.‍
• Chip Hughes, MPH ‘82, was named Deputy Assistant Secretary for Emergency and Pandemic Response in the U.S. Department of Labor.‍
• Anne Reid, MPH ’08, was appointed deputy chief of staff at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Paula Brown Stafford, MPH, was named Triangle Business Journal’s 2022 Women in Business Lifetime Achievement Award winner. A biopharmaceutical executive and leadership consultant with more than 35 years of industry experience, she is currently the president, chief executive officer and chairperson of the board of directors of Novan, Inc., a clinical development-stage biotechnology company. She is an adjunct professor in the Gillings Public Health Leadership Program.

Five Gillings alumni were named in the Triangle Business Journal’s 2021 40 under 40 list, which highlights the Triangle’s best and brightest business and community leaders younger than 40 years. The 40 under 40 list highlights people who will shape the Triangle for years to come. The list includes three alumnae of the Department of Health Policy and Management — Morgan Jones, MSPH ‘07, Randi Towns, BSPH ‘15, and Dharmi Tailor, JD, BSPH ‘10; and alumna of the Department of Health Behavior, Rachel Page, MPH ‘11; and Andrew Herrera, MPH ‘17, MBA, an alumnus from the Public Health Leadership Program.

IN MEMORIAM

Frederic Karl Pfaender, PhD, emeritus professor of environmental sciences and engineering at Gillings, passed away in March 2022 at age 78. After earning his doctoral degree at Cornell University in 1971, Pfaender taught environmental sciences and microbiology at the Gillings School for more than four decades. A loyal member of the American Society for Microbiology for 56 years, he travelled internationally in service of his chosen science and proudly mentored graduate and doctoral students. In addition to being a dedicated educator and mentor, Pfaender also contributed to the building and renovation plans for Rosenau Hall and Michael Hooker Research Center. When he and his wife Sheila, former assistant director for program and resource development at the N.C. Institute for Public Health, retired to Alleghany County in the late 2000s, Fred refocused his passion and energy on several community-oriented committees and initiatives.

David Steffen, DrPH, who was a clinical assistant professor in the Public Health Leadership Program (PHLP) until 2017, passed away in July 2021. Steffen, who worked as district public health director for the State of New Mexico Department of Public Health, earned his Doctor of Public Health degree in 2000 and, in 2001, was recruited by the N.C. Institute for Public Health to run the National Public Health Leadership Institute, which trained senior leaders in governmental agencies, academia, health care, associations, nonprofit organizations, foundations and other partner organizations. His influence in health leadership extended into the UNC School of Medicine, where he co-directed the Academic Career Leadership Academy in Medicine program, which provides leadership education to junior faculty members at the School, with an emphasis on those underrepresented in medicine. The Steffen family has established the David Steffen and Jill Kerr Family Scholarship to support PHLP students who demonstrate a commitment to improving public health practice.

William T. “Bill” Small Jr., MSPH, former associate dean and senior advisor for multicultural affairs, passed away in April 2021 at age 82. He earned an undergraduate degree in chemistry from North Carolina Central University and a MSPH degree from the Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering at Gillings. After working as an occupational health chemist for the state, Small joined Gillings in 1971 as coordinator of minority affairs. During his tenure moved into the roles of assistant dean for students, associate dean for students, and associate dean and senior advisor for multicultural affairs. Small helped shape the Minority Student Caucus and supported the foundation of the Minority Health Conference, which features the “Annual William T. Small Jr. Keynote Lecture.” In 2010, he and his wife, Rosa, endowed the William Thomas Small Jr. and Rosa Williamson Small Scholarship, which focuses on enhancing the social, economic and cultural diversity of the student body.

Produce programs like RPRx offer patients prescriptions that provide up to $40 per month in electronic benefits to buy fruits and vegetables without additives. These programs have been associated with improved diet and health, but few studies explore their cost implications.

Thanks to a grant from The Duke Endowment, Shu Wen Ng, PhD, Distinguished Scholar in Public Health Nutrition at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, and her colleagues aim to determine exactly that: how — and by how much — increasing access to fruits and vegetables can reduce health care costs and improve outcomes, and whether that return on investment justifies expanding these programs.

The United States Department of Agriculture funds prescription produce programs for households and individuals considered low income through their Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive program. Ng believes a more financially sustainable approach could be within reach — if these programs prove effective in reducing health care utilization and medication costs.

"Our hope is that this could be one way to start pushing the dialogue around how to better support patients, particularly those who face financial barriers."

— Shu Wen Ng, PhD

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“If we can prove a good return on investment and that these programs can lower health care costs, it might be smart for both private insurers and public programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Tricare to cover the costs of produce prescriptions,” she says. “Our hope is that this could be one way to start pushing the dialogue around how to better support patients, particularly those who face financial barriers.”

The $765,000 grant will help Ng and her team survey clinicians and patients, analyze health records and pursue other workstreams to find out whether patients in RPRx see better health outcomes and lower health care costs, compared to patients who are not in the program. The researchers are working with health clinics in North Carolina.

“The idea of using produce prescriptions to reduce health care costs and improve outcomes is a promising one, and deserves further study,” said Chris Collins, associate director of health care for The Duke Endowment. “We are proud to support UNC’s effort to evaluate this important question.”

A lack of access to healthy food is associated with a host of health issues. Ng notes that while low-income, Black, Indigenous and other people of color are more likely to experience food insecurity and related health impacts, improving access to healthy food is just one component of addressing health equity.

Nancy McGee, DrPH

DrPH, 2011. San Francisco, California. Principal in Healthcare and Life Sciences Practice at Heidrick & Struggles.

“Giving to Gillings can offer people who are interested in public health the opportunity to get an excellent education. The Doctor of Public Health remote program — where you could engage a diverse set of executives and allow them to pursue their careers while getting one of the best public health educations in the country, from their homes — was an amazing gift.”

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Carl Yoshizawa, PhD

Biostatistics, 1984. San Ramon, California Retired. Former VP of Biostatistics and Data Management at Genomic Health, a company (since acquired by Exact Sciences) that developed genomic laboratory tests to help guide treatment decisions for patients with cancer.

“I am grateful for the education I received, which enabled me to enjoy a career that was meaningful and leveraged my talents. I value the good work that the School continues to do, and am proud to be an alumnus.”

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Emily Newman, MPH, and Kathryn Carpenter, MPH

Both are MPH, Health Behavior, 2020. Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Co-founders of Newman Carpenter, a creative agency impacting health behavior change.

“We want to support the students who run the Minority Health Conference as they work to grow and evolve the conference, and highlight the efforts of practitioners and community members who work to improve the health of all communities.”

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Deborah (Debbie) Winn, PhD

Epidemiology, 1980. Silver Spring, Maryland. Retired in 2021 after serving in several leadership roles with the federal government, particularly the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Cancer Institute.

“As the oldest of 12 siblings, having financial support was essential for me to be able to attend graduate school. Gillings provided me that support through a training grant and other resources during graduate school. I am still grateful and want as many students as possible to have the opportunities that I did.”

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Amir and Asra Firozvi

Raleigh and Littleton, North Carolina. Asra, an ophthalmologist who specializes in glaucoma, is president of the ophthalmology division of North Carolina Eye Ear Nose & Throat in Durham. Amir is an internal medicine physician.

“Each of us had a parent who recently passed away. Both of them were involved in their local communities and were immigrants from developing countries. Public health and epidemiology are vital to the developing world. We wanted to honor them by donating to a cause that would have effects locally and internationally.”

Premier scholarship will train tomorrow’s dental public health workforce

Epidemiology alumni Martha Ann Keels, DDS, PhD '91, and Dennis Clements, MD, PhD '91, have made a $1.25 million pledge to endow a premier fellowship to fully cover tuition, fees and other expenses for students who are interested in pediatric dentistry to obtain a public health degree. Students will be Adams School of Dentistry students who then can come to Gillings and study in any of the School’s departments.

Martha Ann Keels (DDS ‘84, PhD ’91) and Dennis Clements (MPH ’88, PhD ’90).

“My experience at Gillings opened up the doors to my career, and I am still doing research and treating patients through collaborations that all tie back to there,” says Keels, a pediatric dentist who has been affiliated with Duke Children’s Hospital for more than 30 years. “I’m so grateful for my experience, and I think one of the ways you can thank your teachers is to give them great students to teach — that’s what we’re doing with this fellowship. We’re giving thanks backward by paying it forward.”

Clements and Keels — who first met in graduate school at Gillings while she was a teaching assistant in one of his epidemiology courses, kept in touch and got married about five years later — are longtime collaborators both in life and in dental public health. The couple travels to Honduras — often with students from both Duke and UNC — to provide medical and dental care for children on the island of Roatán.

“The biggest infectious disease problem is oral disease, and in a lot of countries, the only solution is to pull a tooth,” says Clements, a pediatrician and professor at Duke University, where he is interim director of the Duke Global Health Institute. “It’s worth trying to do something about it — that’s why we want to support and encourage people who want to do this kind of work.”

Improving access, honoring a trailblazer

The Gillings School is launching the Dental Public Health Initiative in Teaching, Research, and Practice — which will combine cutting-edge classroom instruction with industry-leading, evidence-based research on prevention and clinical and policy solutions to the state’s most pressing problems in oral health care. Recent major gifts from friends and alumni will strengthen the Gillings School’s partnership with the UNC Adams School of Dentistry as the two schools work to train tomorrow’s dental public health workforce and reduce dental health disparities.

For Bill Milner, DDS, MPH ’84 (health policy and management), and his wife Susan, supporting oral public health at Gillings is a natural extension of Bill’s work to improve access to dental care for those who do not have access to traditional dental clinics. He is the founder of Access Dental Care, a nonprofit, mobile onsite provider that for more than 20 years has brought comprehensive dental services to residents in retirement communities, nursing homes, group homes and other facilities. Access Dental Care serves patients in 33 counties.

Longtime supporters of the School, the Milners recently designated a substantial amount of their estate to fund a professorship in dental public health to help build a more robust educational program on the importance of dental care, particularly for marginalized or underserved communities.

“This gift is an opportunity for us to help continue the oral health program within Gillings, and hopefully to leverage our gift and convince others with an interest in dental public health to give as well, so that we can continue to build on the positive programs that Gillings has and has always had."

— Bill Milner, DDS, MPH

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“This gift is an opportunity for us to help continue the oral health program within Gillings, and hopefully to leverage our gift and convince others with an interest in dental public health to give as well, so that we can continue to build on the positive programs that Gillings has and has always had,” Bill Milner says.

Ross Vaughan, MD, retired neonatologist and professor of pediatrics, is supporting the program in honor of his late wife Bettie R. McKaig, DDS, MPH ’84 (health policy and management), a trailblazer in her field. She earned a bachelor’s degree in dental hygiene, a dental degree and a master of public health — all from Carolina. Bettie’s background in public health and the couple’s friendship with Leah McCall Devlin, DDS, MPH ’84 (health policy and management), a professor who is helping to lead the Dental Public Health Initiative in Teaching, Research, and Practice (DPHI), helped inspire the gift.

“She believed strongly in the University that made her life and career,” Vaughan says, “so I want to support future generations in her honor.”

For more information about opportunities to support the Gillings School’s oral health program, please contact Matt Cain at giving.sph@unc.edu and 919-966-0198.

Reaching a milestone

Regular gifts from generous members of our community go a long way. In fact, they helped UNC achieve a historic milestone that saw $4.25 billion raised during the Campaign for Carolina.

Annual giving provides crucial support for public health research, education and practice at the Gillings School. Contact giving.sph@unc.edu to learn more.

The Lisa Morrisey LaVange Scholarship in Biostatistics

Lisa LaVange, PhD, professor and chair of biostatistics, first thought of establishing a scholarship fund during the capital campaign in the 1990s and is finally making it happen. She has had a broad biostatistics career with leadership roles in industry, government and academia and is enjoying being back at Gillings leading the department, where she was once a graduate student. In 2019, LaVange put her long-held idea into motion to support up-and-coming public health leaders.

The Lisa Morrisey LaVange Scholarship in Biostatistics is available to all qualified graduate students. Particular attention is given to enhancing the social, economic and cultural diversity of the Gillings student body — for example, by supporting applicants who demonstrate the qualities of enhancing diversity and leadership and show a commitment to advancing the role of women in statistics.

“Every job I’ve had in my career has tied back to Gillings — not just in knowledge and skills but in friendships and connections and professional networks,” LaVange says. “I have supported the School in other ways, but I really wanted to support students who want to become leaders in biostatistics. One of my goals in creating this fund was to connect with alumni and with people who have worked with me over the years, in hopes that they might think of doing something like this, too.”

The Geni Eng Community Equity Award and Lecture

Geni Eng, DrPH, professor of health behavior, is retiring June 30 after 40 years at the School. The former Peace Corps volunteer and renowned expert in community-based participatory research believes communities can come together to solve public health challenges through cultural changes. A new endowment in her name will support students and community partners who are working together to make systemic changes.

The Geni Eng Community Equity Award and Lecture will support a student in the School’s Health Equity, Social Justice and Human Rights Concentration; the Department of Health Behavior; or the Cancer Health Disparities Training Program who has demonstrated equitable collaboration and enhanced understanding and actions toward achieving health equity. It also will fund an honorarium for the community lecturer presenting in partnership with the student awardee.

“I am so grateful for the many years of being a student and then working with students and communities in North Carolina,” Eng says. “The communities have been like my co-instructors. They are just so key to what our students are producing, and I wanted to recognize their contributions to training the future workforce in public health.”

The Carolina Home State Public Health Scholars Program

For Anna Schenck, PhD, director of the Public Health Leadership Program, investing in the next generation of public health leaders hits close to home. She grew up in Rockingham, N.C., earned her degrees in Chapel Hill, and worked for a local health department and the state before joining a nonprofit focused on improving the quality of care for Medicare patients in the Carolinas.

Schenck serves on the scientific advisory committee for America’s Health Rankings and laments N.C.'s below-average rankings despite boasting a top-tier school of public health. To help train leaders who could bridge that disconnect, she and her husband, Jim, established the Carolina Home State Public Health Scholars program to support North Carolinians seeking a Master of Public Health degree.

“As we train the next generation of public health leaders, I’m particularly interested in ensuring some of them are from N.C. and will use those skills in their home state — because we can and should do better,” Schenck says. “And because we think that’s really important, Jim and I wanted to step up to the plate.”

Gillings friends and alumni are already contributing to these faculty-started funds. If you’d like to add a donation, please contact giving.sph@unc.edu.

One of those solutions is LiRA, a lipreading technology startup formed in January 2020 by five UNC graduate and professional students. The company is gaining marketplace momentum after consistently finishing in or near the top spots in competitions both at UNC and in outside innovation challenges. Nga Nguyen, a Master of Public Health student and medical student from Fayetteville, North Carolina, is LiRA’s chief operating officer.

“We want to develop technologies that build a world where each voice, every bond and all communication is realized,” Nguyen says.

"We want to develop technologies that build a world where each voice, every bond, and all communication is realized."

— Nga Nguyen

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LiRA, which stands for “Lip Reading Assistant,” is developing technology called LipTrain that will improve communication for voice-impaired patients by tracking and translating their lip movements. Their goal is to transform how health care professionals interact with voiceless patients and to provide voiceless patients with the ability to self-advocate. The company is inviting volunteers to record themselves reading as part of a study designed to improve the technology’s tracking ability.

LiRA was a finalist in the 2020 Gillings Pitch Competition, finished in first place in the 2020 E(I) Lab hosted by the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, received a 2021 NCIDEA MICRO grant, won first place at the 2021 Big Launch Challenge Pitch Competition, and was named a co-winner of the 2021 RIoT Your Reality Challenge. Most recently, LiRA won the $25,000 top prize in the Covintus Tech Tank Pitch Competition, a technology-focused accelerator designed to groom startup founders. The company plans to collaborate further with Covintus in developing machine learning, natural language processing and computer vision resources.

To learn about how you can support innovation at the Gillings School, contact Advancement: giving.sph@unc.edu or (919) 966-0198

We were the nation’s fourth school of public health and first public school. We still are the top public school and proud of it. In this issue, we highlight ways that our Master of Public Health classes deliver value to communities through practice — one of Gillings’ strengths, even as students are being trained. We focus on big contemporary challenges, such as climate impact, where it is imperative that solutions are found soon. We highlight our collaborative research across North Carolina on PFAS, a class of chemicals that harms life and the environment. Read on for much more.

As SARS-CoV-2 evolved from a virus with pandemic potential to a global pandemic, our focus, research, education and practice tracked with it. Early on, we created a COVID-19 working group to coordinate activities across our school. In the early stages, our faculty members focused on understanding the novel coronavirus and developing new methods to study and find it. Water research experts developed innovative methods to detect SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater — an early warning system for congregate living and working sites. Air-quality experts contributed to understanding how droplets function as disease promoters indoors. Health behavior faculty members advised how to motivate people to follow essential practices to reduce viral spread. Health policy experts and others advised state, national and global governments, and non-governmental organizations. Several epidemiology faculty members leveraged their experience with Ebola in 2016 to fast-track development of vaccines for COVID-19 in partnership with clinical and pharmaceutical colleagues. One faculty member was asked to serve on the leadership committee that designed treatment trials for COVID-19 worldwide, known as ACTIV and another is on the leadership team for vaccine trials under the umbrella of Operation Warp Speed.

As SARS-CoV-2 evolved from a virus with pandemic potential to a global pandemic, our focus, research, education and practice tracked with it.

During what should have been spring break in 2020, Gillings faculty members, like others across UNC-Chapel Hill and around the country, pivoted from in-person classroom teaching to remote teaching—in under two weeks! They and our students adapted—with some challenges. We have lived in a Zoom world for more than a year.

COVID-19 cases continued to rise throughout summer 2020, accompanied by increasing hospitalizations and death rates around the state, country and world. Students did internships and practica helping organizations deal with the consequences of viral spread. Faculty members rose to meet the pressing needs of the public, especially underserved populations, for information regarding SARS-CoV-2. Health equity was always front and center. One of our faculty members created a new webinar series on Emergency Preparedness, Ethics and Equity. Two of us were part of a National Academy of Medicine committee that planned a pandemic webinar series reaching thousands of people. Another wrote regular articles about ethical issues for Medium. We planned and executed a new COVID-19 course to meet in-person credit requirements for international students. Several faculty members collaborated with colleagues locally, with legislative support, to create a dashboard with essential SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 information specific to N.C. localities.

Over Memorial Day weekend in 2020, George Floyd was killed, and intense discussions about race, structural racism and inequity were happening everywhere, including in our school. Our school’s focus on health inequities never has been greater or more determined.

We are living through an infectious disease pandemic, a racism pandemic and an economic pandemic and are determined to be part of solutions. Deans and program directors from schools and programs around the U.S. have had powerful, regular conversations about these issues. We joined with other schools and programs in responding to executive orders that placed additional restrictions on foreign students, decimated environmental regulations and prohibited training that included structural racism. Students were hard hit, losing the in-person support communities on which they depended. Our student services leaders increased efforts to help people cope, like Wind Down Wednesdays. We hosted COVID conversations to provide opportunities for faculty, staff and students to learn what we were doing, ask questions and voice opinions. We are a community.

Our experts on vaccines and communication were central knowledge sources for our school, university, local and state health authorities, and national and global bodies as vaccination efforts rolled out and gathered steam. And still, much of our usual research and other activities continued.

This issue of our magazine provides a glimpse (albeit selective) into the deep and varied world of Gillings in the pandemic. I am awed, amazed and grateful for the remarkable work that goes on every day at Gillings (onsite and remotely) and by our alumni in thousands of locations around the world. Our commitment to equity, action, acceleration and public health impact, always strong, grew stronger during the pandemic. We are a school grounded in practice and the application of research. Our proud history speaks to that. The future demands it. Thank you to our many friends and supporters. We would not be a top school without you!

Wishing you good health, vaccinations and better times ahead.

With gratitude to all,

Barbara K. Rimer

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Still the number one public school of public health in the country

Once again, the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health has been ranked the number one public school of public health in the United States by U.S. News and World Report – and number two overall. This is the fourth consecutive period in which the Gillings School has received this ranking. In the 2020 rankings, Gillings shared second place; in the new 2022 edition, Gillings stands alone in the second position.

UNC-Chapel Hill trustees officially established the School of Public Health in 1940 – but the road to a separate public health school began much earlier. In the early 20th century, North Carolina faced a health crisis: Illnesses like hookworm and tuberculosis and other illnesses were rampant, and many North Carolinians were poor and undernourished, making them even more vulnerable to disease.

To address these health challenges, UNC medical school faculty members and public health professionals began building partnerships in communities across the state to improve treatment and prevention of disease. Backed largely by support from private foundations, those efforts made it clear that N.C. needed a state-based training program for public health workers. In 1936, the widely renowned former Harvard Professor Milton Rosenau, MD, agreed to lead the division of public health within UNC’s medical school.

“Our goal has always been to make a real difference for all people. And there’s still so much work to do.”

A person approaches a COVID-19 testing location on the campus of the UNC-Chapel Hill.

Our mission – to improve public health, promote individual well-being and eliminate health inequities across N.C. and around the world – hinges on our shared commitment to excellence and our collaborative approach to teaching, research and service. Over the School’s eight decades, we’ve grown and changed, but those values remain a north star that guides our work.

At Gillings, we live our mission in many ways every day. In every department, students and faculty go beyond the classroom, working together in scientific labs and clinical settings, and with community and global organizations, to help solve real-world problems. Gillings researchers contribute knowledge and discoveries that influence public policy and transform public health practices. We continue to build and nurture treasured and purposeful partnerships that increase our global impact.

We’ve also honed our ability to pivot. In the 1940s, as the field of public health grew and as World War II broke out, the School adapted to meet the demand for training and consultation on pressing public health issues. From the outset, the School’s training programs and field work included a focus on racial equity. And throughout the 60s and 70s, as the civil rights movement took hold, we intensified our emphasis on the health of marginalized and underserved populations, and students and faculty organized and advocated for change. Even as the COVID-19 pandemic forced an adaptation to remote-based instruction and research, we collaborate – though often from a distance – to advance public health.

Through its eight decades, under the leadership of seven deans, and being home to thousands of faculty and students, the Gillings School has worked across all our disciplines to bridge the gap between academic research and the practice of public health. Our goal is – as it has always been – to make a positive impact for all people, in North Carolina and across the world. And there’s still so much work to do.

At 80, we’re Gillings. And we’re still on it.

Then and now ... Carolina Alumni Review from November 1940 trumpeting the opening of the school of public health. We opened with an enrollment of 63 master’s candidates and in 2021, we received 1,445 residential Master of Public Health applications.

From the very onset of the pandemic, Gillings faculty, students and alumni have been working tirelessly on all fronts during this global health crisis – and will continue to do so as the world continues to navigate life during and after COVID.

This special section highlights some of the many ways the Gillings community is leading in pandemic research and response.

School faculty members across every department, have asked important questions that have helped guide response efforts around the world. They have led studies that fueled the development of treatments and vaccines, helped establish public health guidance intended to minimize risk of exposure to the virus, and served as go-to sources of key information for public health agencies, policymakers, the media and the public. (See the graphic on the next page for all the media outlets where Gillings faculty have been mentioned or interviewed throughout the COVID-19 pandemic). And, as so many educators did, our faculty adapted their coursework and instruction to remote teaching since COVID-19 disrupted the 2020 spring and fall semesters.

Collaboration and teamwork have long been Gillings School values, and our COVID work is no different.

The School also held a special round of Gillings Innovation Lab funding awards to support innovative research projects to accelerate understanding and breakthroughs related to the pandemic. A record 41 teams submitted proposals for consideration – with each department at the Gillings School represented – and seven received awards.

COVID-19 has drawn attention to longstanding healthcare, education, housing and employment inequities in our nation’s communities of color. Equity is a key focus at Gillings, and much of our pandemic work has centered on issues of equity. Faculty, alumni and students have been engaged in efforts to reduce risk and improve outcomes for those who are most vulnerable to COVID exposure, severe illness and death.

Media outlets where Gillings faculty have been mentioned or interviewed throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

Around the world, our alumni have been working to promote distancing and other strategies to slow the spread, and they have been helping healthcare providers and communities respond to the pandemic’s substantial health and economic impacts. And students actively engaged in efforts throughout North Carolina to support frontline workers and help keep vulnerable residents safe and healthy.

More than a year since the onset of the pandemic, questions still abound, and we learn new information every day about the virus and its variants. That’s why the School has launched the UNC Gillings COVID-19 Dashboard as a resource center for policy makers, researchers and anyone interested in learning more about COVID-19 in N.C. It includes county-level profiles, interactive data visualizations and updates on the latest scientific findings. Whether you’re a researcher, a healthcare provider or a concerned resident, our goal is to help make important and timely information about COVID-19 more accessible and understandable.

The UNC Gillings COVID-19 Dashboard

Collaboration and teamwork have long been Gillings School values, and our COVID work is no different. We continue to work together across disciplines and departments to further our knowledge of the virus and the actions we can take to endure this pandemic and, over the long term, improve the health and well-being of people throughout our world.