December 2015 — April 2016 Awards and Recognitions
May 5, 2016
Read more at sph.unc.edu/news
.
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
Selected awards and recognitions
Appointments
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.
Amy Herring, ScD, BIOS professor, was named the Carol Remmer Angle Distinguished Professor of Children’s Environmental Health, effective Dec. 1.
.
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.
.
.
.
.
Gillings School Awards
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.
.
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.
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).
.
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.
.
.
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.
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.
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.
.
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.
.
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, 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.
.
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.
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.
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.
.
.
.
External Awards — Students/Alumni
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.
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, 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.
.
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.
.
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.
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.
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.
.
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.
.
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.).
.
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 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.
.
.
.
.
Program Accreditations
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.
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.
.
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).
Carolina Public Health is a publication of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Gillings School of Global Public Health. To view previous issues, please visit sph.unc.edu/cph.