May 5, 2016


Read more at sph.unc.edu/news
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Key to departments

BIOS          Biostatistics
EPI             Epidemiology
ESE            Environmental Sciences and Engineering
HB              Health Behavior
HPM          Health Policy and Management
MCH          Maternal and Child Health
NUTR         Nutrition
PHLP         Public Health Leadership Program

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Selected awards and recognitions

Appointments

Dr. Laura Linnan

Dr. Laura Linnan

Laura Linnan, ScD, professor of HB, was named the UNC Gillings School’s new associate dean for academic and student affairs. Linnan, who joined the UNC faculty in 1999, will facilitate planning, administration, evaluation and continuous improvement of academic programs at the Gillings School.

 

 

Dr. Amy Herring

Dr. Amy Herring

Amy Herring, ScD, BIOS professor, was named the Carol Remmer Angle Distinguished Professor of Children’s Environmental Health, effective Dec. 1.
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Dr. Todd Nicolet

Dr. Todd Nicolet

Todd A. Nicolet, PhD, formerly associate dean at the UNC School of Government, was named senior associate dean at the Gillings School in January 2016. Nicolet leads strategic initiatives and special projects that advance the School’s mission.
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Gillings School Awards

Kathy Biancardi (left) accepts the Gillings School's Staff Excellence Award from Dr. Herbert Peterson. (Photo by Jennie Saia)

Kathy Biancardi (left) accepts the Gillings School’s Staff Excellence Award from Dr. Herbert Peterson. (Photo by Jennie Saia)

Kathy Biancardi, communications specialist in MCH and assistant to the director of UNC’s WHO Collaborating Center, was selected for the Gillings School’s Staff Excellence Award in fall 2015. The award recognizes staff members whose work demonstrates impact and a focus on the core values of the School.
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Four teams of researchers were awarded funding for Gillings Innovation Labs in spring 2016. They are Stephen Cole, PhD, EPI professor, and Michael Hudgens, PhD, BIOS professor, for a project to apply big data analysis and causal inference to HIV and renal disease; Mark Sobsey, PhD, Kenan Distinguished Professor of ESE, Jamie Bartram, PhD, and Lydia Abebe, PhD, postdoctoral fellow, to develop a water treatment technology to overcome waterborne viruses including rotaviruses, noroviruses and Hepatitis E and A viruses; Miroslav Styblo, PhD, NUTR professor, and Praveen Sethupathy, PhD, assistant professor of genetics at UNC, to study population exposure to arsenic in Mexico as a unique cause of diabetes; and Deborah Tate, PhD, professor of HB and NUTR, and Carmina Valle, PhD, HB research assistant professor, to develop new electronic health measures to individualize communications about exercise and diet in ways that meet participants’ unique needs. The awards, established through the $50 million Gillings gift, advance innovative research and support translation of scientific findings into workable solutions locally and globally.

Dr. Stephen Cole

Dr. Cole

Dr. Michael Hudgens

Dr. Michael Hudgens

Dr. Mark Sobsey

Dr. Mark Sobsey

Jamie Bartram, PhD, Don and Jennifer Holzworth Distinguished Professor Environmental Sciences and Engineering

Dr. Jamie Bartram

Lydia Abebe

Lydia Abebe

 

 

 

 

 

Dr. Miroslav Styblo

Dr. Styblo

Dr. P. Sethupathy

Dr. Sethupathy

Dr. Deborah Tate

Dr. Tate

Dr. Carmina Valle

Dr. Valle

 

 

 

 

 

Eight innovative teachers were honored Feb. 22 with the fifth annual Teaching Innovation Awards. They are Geni Eng, DrPH, professor (HB), Amy Herring, ScD, Carol Remmer Angle Distinguished Professor of Children’s Environmental Health and associate chair (BIOS), Amanda Holliday, MS, clinical assistant professor and director of the Practice Advancement and Continuing Education Division (NUTR), Brian Pence, PhD, associate professor (EPI), Anna Schenck, PhD, Professor of the Practice (PHLP), Christine Tucker, PhD, research assistant professor (MCH), Howard Weinberg, PhD, associate professor (ESE), and Aimee McHale Wayling, JD, MSPH, adjunct instructor (HPM).
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Dr. Peggy Bentley

Dr. Peggy Bentley

Dr. Pam Silberman

Dr. Pam Silberman

Margaret (Peggy) Bentley, PhD, and Pam Silberman, JD, DrPH, received the Gillings School’s Greenberg and Barr awards at a ceremony preceding the 48th annual Fred T. Foard Jr. Memorial Lecture on April 14. Bentley, Carla Smith Chamblee Distinguished Professor of Global Nutrition and associate dean for global health, received the Greenberg Award for excellence in teaching, research and service. Silberman, Professor of the Practice of HPM and director of HPM’s doctoral program in health leadership, won the Barr Award, which recognizes achievements of alumni and their contributions to public health. Silberman earned her doctorate at the Gillings School in 1997.
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External Awards Faculty

Peggy Bentley, PhD, Carla Smith Chamblee Distinguished Professor of Global Nutrition and associate dean for global health, was named secretary/treasurer of the Consortium of Universities for Global Health (cugh.org). She also was honored with the American Society for Nutrition’s 2016 Kellogg Prize for International Nutrition Research and Lecture at the ASN’s annual meeting on April 4 in San Francisco.

 

Dr. Sheila Leatherman

Dr. Sheila Leatherman

Sheila Leatherman, MSW, HPM research professor, was named lead adviser for a new unit on universal health coverage and quality in the World Health Organization’s Department of Service Delivery and Safety.

 

 

 

Dr. Alexandra Lightfoot

Dr. Lightfoot

Alexandra Lightfoot, EdD, research assistant professor in HB, received the 2015 Tom Bruce Award for leadership in the field at the fall 2015 meeting of the American Public Health Association.

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Dr. Danyu LIn

Dr. Danyu Lin

Danyu Lin, PhD, Dennis Gillings Distinguished Professor of BIOS, was honored by the International Chinese Statistical Association with its 2015 Distinguished Achievement Award, which recognized Lin’s overall body of work.
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Dr. Hans Paerl

Dr. Hans Paerl

Hans Paerl, PhD, William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor at UNC’s Institute of Marine Sciences in Morehead City, N.C., and of ESE at the Gillings School, was honored Dec. 16, 2015, for his election to the American Geophysical Union, one of the most prestigious communities of geophysicists and marine scientists in the world.

 

 

 

Jeffrey Simms

Jeffrey Simms

Jeffrey Simms, MSPH, HPM clinical assistant professor, was recognized for his contributions to the training of future health-care leaders with the 2016 American College of Healthcare Executives’ Higher Education Network Regent’s Award at the Feb. 19 meeting of the N.C. Hospital Association.
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Dr. Philip Singer

Dr. Philip Singer

Philip C. Singer, PhD, ESE professor emeritus, and John Young, MSEE, Gillings School alumnus and former president of American Water, were invited by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality to serve on a committee providing guidance on long-term solutions to water quality issues in Flint, Mich.

 

 

 

Dr. Barbara Turpin

Dr. Barbara Turpin

Barbara Turpin, PhD, professor of ESE, was appointed for a three- year term on the Environmental Protection Agency’s Particulate Matter Review Panel, part of the EPA’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee. The committee provides independent expert advice to EPA regarding review and revision of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards, designed to protect public health.

 

 

 

Dr. Zvara Bharathi

Dr. Zvara

Bharathi Zvara, PhD, research assistant professor of MCH, was invited to serve on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Health Interview Survey Expert Panel, the primary source of data on health statistics in the U.S., widely used to monitor trends in illness and track progress toward national health objectives.

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External Awards Students/Alumni

Jingxiang Chen

Jingxiang Chen

Alex Wong

Alex Wong

Jingxiang Chen and Alex Wong, BIOS doctoral students, won two of 20 Distinguished Student Paper Awards accorded annually by the International Biometric Society’s Eastern North American Region (ENAR). Wong and Chen presented their research at ENAR’s March 2016 meeting in Austin.

 

 

Lu Mao

Lu Mao

Chen and BIOS colleague Lu Mao received travel awards to present research at the ASA Joint Statistical Meetings in Chicago in August 2016.

 

 

 

Samantha Croffut

Samantha Croffut

Samantha Croffut, NUTR graduate student, was selected as a delegate to the CDC’s 2016 Millennial Health Leaders Summit, based upon her potential to meet the challenge of eliminating health disparities in diverse populations. The summit was held March 31-April 1, 2016.
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Mugdha Gokhale

Mugdha Gokhale

Mugdha Gokhale, MS, doctoral candidate in EPI, was selected as one of Forbes magazine’s “30 under 30” people to watch in health care. Gokhale provided the first evidence that the risk for pancreatic cancer was not elevated in patients taking a particular class of oral antidiabetics. Forbes representatives screened 15,000 entrepreneurs to select winners in 20 categories.
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(L-R) Marie Olsen, Nicole Murrell and Andrew Keimig

(L-R) Marie Olsen, Nicole Murrell and Andrew Keimig (Contributed photo)

Andrew Keimig, Nicole Murrell and Marie Olsen, second-year HPM Master of Healthcare Administration students, won third place in the 10th annual Health Administration Competition at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. The Feb. 25 competition included 38 university teams from across the U.S.

 

 

 

 

 

Dr. Christine Gray

Christine Gray

Christine L. Gray, MPH, EPI doctoral student, was recognized as author of an article having the sixth greatest impact and number of research citations of all articles published in 2015 in Global Health: Science and Practice.

 

 

 

Dr. Brian Pence

Dr. Brian Pence

Brian W. Pence, PhD, associate professor of EPI, was co-author of the longitudinal study finding that orphans in low- and middle- income countries are as vulnerable to sexual and physical abuse when living in families as orphans living in institutions.
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Larry Han will be earning a Master of Public Policy degree at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China on a Schwarzman Scholarship before pursuing a Master of Philosophy degree in strategy, marketing and operations degree at the University of Cambridge on a Gates Cambridge Scholarship. He will return to the U.S. to complete a doctoral degree in biostatistics at Harvard University T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Larry Han

Larry Han, a senior in BIOS, and Max Seunik, a 2015 HPM alumnus, were among inaugural recipients of the Schwarzman Scholars program. Modeled after the Rhodes Scholarship, the innovative master’s degree program supports the study of public policy, economics and business or international studies at China’s Tsinghua University. The two were selected from more than 3,000 applicants.

 

Han also was among 35 Americans awarded scholarships to pursue full-time graduate studies at the University of Cambridge, in England. The Cambridge Scholarship, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, supports students with demonstrated interest in social leadership and responsibility.
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Blake Hauser

Blake Hauser

Blake M. Hauser, a senior student at the Gillings School, received the Churchill Scholarship, a research- focused award that provides funding for one year of master’s-level study in science, mathematics and engineering at Churchill College, University of Cambridge (U.K.).
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Ted Mansfield

Theodore Mansfield

Theodore J. Mansfield, doctoral student in ESE, received a 2015 Best Paper Award from the Society of Risk Analysis. The paper, published Dec. 9, 2014, in the Society’s journal Risk Analysis, is a study of ambient air pollution and public health risk in Raleigh, N.C.

 

 

 

Jennifer Moss

Dr. Moss

Jennifer L. Moss, PhD, 2015 HB alumna, received the Society of Behavioral Medicine’s Outstanding Dissertation Award for 2016. Moss conducts research on geographic disparities in cancer prevention behaviors. The focus of her dissertation was on uptake of human papillomavirus vaccination.
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Program Accreditations

Dr. Catherine Sullivan

Dr. Sullivan

In January 2016, The Mary Rose Tully Training Initiative, based in the Gillings School’s Carolina Global Breastfeeding Institute and led by Catherine Sullivan, MPH, RD, IBCLC, became the first breastfeeding training program in the world to be accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health Education Programs.

 

 

Dr. Bruce Fried

Dr. Fried

Bill Gentry

Bill Gentry

Also in January, the Gillings School’s Master of Healthcare Administration (MHA) program, directed by Bruce Fried, PhD, associate professor, and Bill Gentry, MPA, lecturer, received the inaugural Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Management Education (CAHME)/ Cerner Award for Excellence in Healthcare Management Systems Education. In fall 2015, the MHA program had received a glowing review from CAHME, with a rating previously achieved by only two other of the 85 programs in the U.S.
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Our Impact Awardees

Student researchers at the Gillings School were presented with seven of UNC’s 17 Graduate Education Advancement Board Impact Awards on April 14. The annual Impact Awards are presented to graduate students whose research benefits people and communities in North Carolina. Awardees are Jacqueline Burgette (HPM), Elizabeth Christenson (ESE), Anna Cope (EPI), Sara Hatcher (ESE), Brooke Nezami (HB), Pasquale Rummo (NUTR) and Christine Tucker (MCH).

burgette_jacqueline_hpm

Jacqueline Burgette

Elizabeth Christenson

Elizabeth Christenson

Anna Cope

Anna Cope

Sarah Hatcher

Sarah Hatcher

 

 

 

 

 

Brooke Nezami

Brooke Nezami

Pasquale Rummo

Pasquale Rummo

Christine Tucker

Christine Tucker

 

 

 

 

 


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