A new year greeting from Dean Barbara K. Rimer


In this letter:

A year like no other
Around the Gillings School
Academic programs
Research
Research impact
Faculty recognition
Student and alumni recognition
Leadership changes
Coming soon
Thank you


Watch a video of the year’s top highlights.


A year like no other

Mr. Aaron Williams shakes hands with a graduate.

Mr. Aaron Williams shakes hands with a graduate at the Gillings School’s 2017 commencement ceremony.

It was a year like no other. We say that every year, but somehow, 2017 felt more momentous. The year brought a new president, big changes in government at the national level and a lot of uncertainty about many significant public health issues.

While the national and global landscapes are complicated, continually in flux and not directly under our control, we go forth every day aiming to make positive differences in the world. We continue to educate some of the best students anywhere, conduct world-changing research and translate our research so people and the environment benefit in North Carolina and around the world.

Most people in public health are resilient, committed and focused. We have seen the positive changes we can make, even with limited resources and in trying circumstances. If one needs another reason to be grateful and hopeful, it is the awesome students we have the privilege of educating.

In 2017, so many good things happened at the School.

We have an incredibly strong, deep foundation and fabulous people in the School and beyond—through our alumni, partners and collaborators. I’ve chosen some of the year’s accomplishments to highlight, but these provide only the briefest sample. Without writing a much longer letter, I could not do justice to all the people associated with the School. Check our news feed for a more complete listing. ­

Around the School

The University launched a major new fundraising campaign, and we have ambitious goals for the Gillings School. We are deeply grateful for the generous support we receive from citizens of North Carolina. Remaining the top public school of public health requires generous private philanthropy as part of our funding.

We opened the Joan Heckler Gillings Auditorium in April 2017, after a year-long renovation. It’s an amazing space—beautiful, modern, open, airy and multifunctional. We are so grateful, and our students started gravitating to the room before it even opened! The first event there was a brilliant Foard Lecture by W.R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of Nutrition, Barry Popkin, PhD.

In 2017, we hosted many distinguished visitors from all over the world, including:

Dean Rimer (center) stands with panelists at the 2017 National Health Equity Research Webcast, including (l-r) Paul Cuadros, Camara Jones, Wizdom Powell and Andrew Curley.

Dean Rimer (center) stands with panelists at the 2017 National Health Equity Research Webcast, including (l-r) Paul Cuadros, Camara Jones, Wizdom Powell and Andrew Curley.

Jesse Milan Jr., JD, president and chief executive officer of AIDS United; he spoke passionately and with great depth of experience about his work.

Camara Jones, MD, MPH, senior fellow at Morehouse School of Medicine’s Satcher Health Leadership Institute and Cardiovascular Research Institute, was keynote for our 2017 annual National Health Equity Research Webcast and will be our 2018 commencement speaker.

Aaron Williams, MBA, senior adviser for government relations at RTI International and former director of the Peace Corps, was our 2017 commencement speaker. He told graduates that public health “helps the needy, heals the sick and enables people to make the most of their own lives. Keep looking outward, looking upward and empowering others—and the world will be a better place because of YOU.”

Dr. Mandy Cohen (right) visits the Gillings School with her special assistant, alumna Erika Ferguson, MPP (BSPH in health policy and management, 2014).

Dr. Mandy Cohen (right) visits the Gillings School with her special assistant, alumna Erika Ferguson, MPP (BSPH in health policy and management, 2014).

United States Representative David Price spoke to a group of Gillings School leaders in August 2017. We’re so proud of all he has accomplished.

A delegation from Cuba met with several of our faculty members.

Mandy Cohen, MD, MPH, our N.C. Secretary of Health and Human Services, visited and spoke to us in December 2017. On the state level, we have enlightened leadership. Dr. Cohen inspired those who attended her talk, and we appreciated her knowledge and candor on many issues, including work/life balance.

Academic programs

Reaccredited for seven years!

In November 2017, we were reaccredited by the Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH) for seven years. We used the process to strengthen the Gillings School by highlighting and addressing weaknesses where they existed, enhancing strengths and identifying opportunities for creative renewal.

Innovations under way!

Thanks to the leadership of Laura Linnan, ScD, professor of health behavior and senior associate dean for academic and student affairs, and a team of inspired faculty, staff and students, we have made major progress in evolving our academic programs for the 21st century.

Reshaping the Master of Public Health.

Several committees that have included faculty, staff and students from across the Gillings School are re-engineering MPH core courses, resulting in an integrated, more problem-focused, competency-based approach to education. We’re turning now to bachelor’s degrees, other master’s, doctoral and joint/dual degree programs. It’s a huge amount of work for many people across the Gillings School, but I believe we will look back and see this as an exciting and positive watershed.

Dr. Laura Linnan welcomes prospective students at the Graduate Student Open House in October.

Dr. Laura Linnan welcomes prospective students at the Graduate Student Open House in October.

As part of academic innovations, we are developing one MPH degree with 10 concentrations that may live within departments or across departments, aligned with 21st century public health needs. This effort has fully engaged the Gillings community and will allow us to conduct continuous quality-improvement efforts using consistent data sources and quality measures.

There’s also a new governance structure—the MPH Steering Committee—made up of faculty, staff and students across the School and chaired by Dr. Linnan, which will oversee and be responsible for developing Schoolwide policies on nearly every aspect of the MPH.

I want to call out the Chairs’ Committee for their leadership and willingness to embrace change. Fundamental, transformative changes in how we organize, administer and implement MPH programs across the Gillings School make us an even stronger school. The new, integrated MPH Core will begin in fall 2018, and new concentrations will be in place for fall 2019.

Exciting new partnerships will enhance and expand our MPH offerings.

After ongoing deliberations, and with support from the N.C. Legislature, we are pleased to be developing a joint MPH with UNC-Asheville, a leading liberal arts university, and the Mountain Area Health Center (MAHEC), a visionary health-care partner in western N.C. We will serve new students in a part of the state that is of vital importance, without those students having to leave the communities in which many already work.

We also are expanding our online training opportunities through MPH@UNC, a partnership with the educational technology company 2U. We will extend our academic reach dramatically and protect the future of the Gillings School by offering part-time and full-time options to students who wish to obtain a Gillings MPH without becoming residential students.

In an era of shrinking state support and a declining eligible, full-time residential student population, expanding our online training options with MPH@UNC is a reasonable growth opportunity that will be accomplished with great care under the direction of the MPH steering committee. The first students in both of these program expansions will begin classes in fall 2018. Todd Nicolet, PhD, vice dean, has led both these efforts with excellence.

Several long-term faculty members retired.

They include Shrikant Bangdiwala, PhD, research professor in biostatistics; Diane Rowley, MD, Professor of the Practice in maternal and child health; Pranab K. Sen, PhD, Cary C. Boshamer Distinguished Professor in biostatistics; Janice Sommers, MPH, clinical assistant professor in nutrition; and Stephen Whalen, PhD, professor in environmental sciences and engineering.

We thank them and wish them good health and satisfaction in the years to come.

Research

Our faculty researchers had their best year ever—generating more than $209 million in grants, the highest per-capita average at the University. It’s not just about the number of grants, though, or even the dollars generated. Ultimately, it’s about the impact of our research, most of which is interdisciplinary, with collaborations spanning departments, schools, universities and other organizations.

Thanks to Sandy Martin, PhD, professor of maternal and child health and associate dean for research, and Christin Daniels, MA, director of research, for the excellent work they do in tracking grants, managing various aspects of research compliance and stimulating work in high-priority areas, such as implementation science.

Recent new grant awards reflect the tremendous diversity, breadth, depth, salience and reach of our faculty members’ research. A few examples:

Dr. Ralph Baric

Dr. Ralph Baric

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) renewed a 5-year grant managed by co-principal investigators Ralph Baric, PhD, professor of epidemiology in the Gillings School, and Mark Heise, PhD, professor of genetics in the UNC School of Medicine.

Dr. Baric and Timothy Sheahan, PhD, research assistant professor in epidemiology, were awarded an NIAID grant to accelerate development of a promising new drug in the fight against deadly coronaviruses.

Richard Bilsborrow, PhD, research professor in biostatistics, is part of a research team awarded a grant from NASA to study island ecosystems.

Posing in the Galápagos are (l-r) Dr. Jaime Ocampo, dean of public health at USFQ, Dr. Peggy Bentley, Norman Archer, UNC bachelor’s student in nutrition, Dr. Amanda Thompson, Hannah Jahnke, UNC graduate student in anthropology, and Dr. Jill Stewart.

Posing in the Galápagos are (l-r) Dr. Jaime Ocampo, dean of public health at USFQ, Dr. Peggy Bentley, Norman Archer, UNC bachelor’s student in nutrition, Dr. Amanda Thompson, Hannah Jahnke, UNC graduate student in anthropology, and Dr. Jill Stewart.

Amanda Thompson, PhD, associate professor in nutrition, was awarded a 2-year National Institutes of Health grant to examine the effects of changing environments on human health in the Galápagos, Ecuador. Her co-investigators are Peggy Bentley, PhD, associate dean for global health and the Carla Smith Chamblee Distinguished Professor of Global Nutrition, and Jill Stewart, PhD, associate professor of environmental sciences and engineering.

Brian Pence, PhD, associate professor of epidemiology, is co-principal investigator for a 5-year grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to the UNC Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases. The project focuses on implementation science research and capacity building around mental health treatment delivery in Malawi and Tanzania.

Dr. Anastasia Ivanova

Dr. Anastasia Ivanova

Anastasia Ivanova, PhD, associate professor in biostatistics, will lead a 5-year study to identify more effective treatments for asthma attacks by combining two important tools—precision medicine and big data analysis. The work is funded by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.

Ilene Speizer, PhD, research professor in maternal and child health, is principal investigator for a 4-year Gates Foundation grant to inform programs and policies to expand contraceptive method choices for youth in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

Catherine Sullivan

Catherine Sullivan

The Carolina Global Breastfeeding Institute (CGBI) at the Gillings School was awarded a 3-year grant from The Duke Endowment to expand work with hospitals and communities in North and South Carolina to promote and support breastfeeding. Catherine Sullivan, MPH, is the CGBI director.

Research impact

Our faculty members’ research, often in collaboration with students, both raises and answers some of the most important questions about health, safety and the environment.

They’ve contributed to our understanding about the impact of climate changes on human health, effects of changing health policies, means to prevent the spread of emerging infections, strategies to reduce intake of sugary beverages, and the effect of opioids on North Carolina and the nation. There’s so much more, but I’ve chosen examples here that represent the whole, even if they don’t tell the whole story.

Dr. Nab Dasgupta

Dr. Nab Dasgupta

Every day, more than 100 Americans die from opioid overdoses. Epidemiology alumnus Nab Dasgupta, PhD, became interested in the problem as a doctoral student. Collaborating with Steve Marshall, PhD, professor of epidemiology and director of UNC’s Injury Prevention Research Center, and others, Dr. Dasgupta showed that Project Lazarus, which he developed as a graduate student, reduced deaths from opioid overdoses by 69 percent. In a commentary, “Opioid Crisis: No Easy Fix,” published in the American Journal of Public Health, he wrote: “Opioid prescribing is as much an indicator of Americans’ demand for pain relief as it is about the supply of opioids.”

Dr. Jonathan Oberlander

Dr. Jonathan Oberlander

Co-authors Jonathan Oberlander, PhD, professor of health policy and management at the Gillings School and professor and chair of social medicine in the UNC School of Medicine; Krista Perreira, PhD, professor of social medicine at the medical school and adjunct professor of maternal and child health, health policy and management, and health behavior at the Gillings School; and David K. Jones, PhD, Gillings School alumnus and assistant professor of health law, policy and management at Boston University School of Public Health, weighed in on the potential harms associated with cuts in Medicaid funding to states, based on the experience of Puerto Rico.

Actions to significantly slow climate change would improve air quality in the United States, avoiding roughly 24,000 premature deaths associated with air pollution in the year 2050. This is according to new research by Jason West, PhD, associate professor of environmental sciences and engineering, which was published in the journal Environmental Research Letters.

Drs. Jamie Bartram (L) and Jason West

Drs. Jamie Bartram (l) and Jason West

Dr. West and Jamie Bartram, PhD, Don and Jennifer Holzworth Distinguished Professor and director of The Water Institute at UNC (housed in the Gillings School), wrote in BMJ Opinion about the huge cost of hurricanes and other weather-related disasters—more than $150 billion in the U.S. for 2017.

More comprehensive taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages and ultra-processed foods would promote a healthier diet in Chile, according to a new study co-authored by a Gillings School student and several nutrition faculty members. The article, “Designing a tax to discourage unhealthy food and beverage purchases: The case of Chile,” was published in the journal Food Policy. Authors from the Gillings School include Juan Carlos Caro, doctoral student in health policy and management and researcher at the University of Chile’s Institute of Nutrition and Food Technology, Shu Wen Ng, PhD, associate professor, Lindsey Smith Taillie, PhD, research assistant professor, and Barry M. Popkin, PhD, W.R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor, all in the Department of Nutrition.

Dr. Barry Popkin

Dr. Barry Popkin

Dr. Lindsey Taillie

Dr. Lindsey Taillie

Dr. Shu Wen Ng

Dr. Shu Wen Ng

According to a study in JAMA co-authored by health behavior and nutrition professor Deborah Tate, PhD, an internet-based weight loss program led to significant weight loss in low-income women during the year following pregnancy.

We announced five new Gillings Innovation Laboratories, an investment in innovative faculty research made possible because of the gift from Dennis and Joan Gillings. Gillings School awardees include Orlando Coronell, PhD, associate professor of environmental sciences and engineering; Stephanie Engel, PhD, associate professor of epidemiology; Emily Gower, PhD, associate professor of epidemiology; Steven Meshnick, MD, PhD, professor of epidemiology; and Stephen Marshall, PhD, professor of epidemiology and director of UNC’s Injury Prevention Research Center, with co-principal investigator Kristen Hassmiller Lich, PhD, research assistant professor of health policy and management.

Faculty recognition—some examples

Alice Ammerman, DrPH, was honored for her public service with the UNC Thomas Jefferson Award. Dr. Ammerman was named Mildred Kaufman Distinguished Professor in Nutrition at the Gillings School’s 2017 Foard Lecture.

Ralph Baric, PhD, professor of epidemiology, Noel Brewer, PhD, professor of health behavior, and Barry M. Popkin, PhD, Kenan Professor of Nutrition, made Clarivate’s 2017 list of highly cited researchers.

Environmental sciences and engineering associate professor Jason Surratt, PhD, was recognized by Environmental Science and Technology Letters as a “highly prolific” author.

Dr. Peggye Dilworth-Anderson

Dr. Peggye Dilworth-Anderson

Peggye Dilworth-Anderson, PhD, professor of health policy and management, in February will be awarded the 2018 Pearmain Prize for Excellence in Research on Aging by the University of Southern California Roybal Institute on Aging. The award recognizes her outstanding contributions to the field of translational aging research and the import of her work to issues directly relating to older people.

Rohit Ramaswamy, PhD, clinical associate professor in the Public Health Leadership Program and in maternal and child health, was technical lead on the evaluation of SCALE (Spreading Community Accelerators Through Learning and Evaluation). This team of Gillings School alumni and faculty won the American Evaluation Association’s 2017 Outstanding Evaluation Award.

Mr. Manish Kumar

Mr. Manish Kumar

Manish Kumar, MPH, adjunct assistant professor in the Public Health Leadership Program and senior technical specialist for the Carolina Population Center’s MEASURE Evaluation Project, received a certificate of appreciation from Ambassador Deborah Birxin for his contributions to the development and maintenance of the data system used by the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.

Rosalind Coleman, MD, professor of nutrition, will deliver the prestigious L. Van Deenen Lecture at the 2018 International Conference on the Bioscience of Lipids, to be held in September in Helsinki, Finland.

Barbara Turpin, PhD, chair and professor of environmental sciences and engineering, will be honored with the 2017 American Chemical Society (ACS) Award for Creative Advances in Environmental Sciences and Technology at the ACS conference in New Orleans in March.

Dr. Stephanie Wheeler

Dr. Stephanie Wheeler

Stephanie Wheeler, PhD, associate professor of health policy and management, was awarded UNC’s Hettleman Prize for Artistic and Scholarly Achievement. She also was recognized by the College of Charleston as a distinguished alumna and by the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health with the Early Career Public Health Research Award.

The Water Institute at UNC, based in the Gillings School and directed by Jamie Bartram, PhD, was designated as a Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) Collaborating Center for Water and Sanitation.

Jacqueline MacDonald Gibson, PhD, associate professor of environmental sciences and engineering, was named to the N.C. Science Advisory Board to study emerging chemicals. Dr. Bartram leads the Science Advisory Board, which is overseen by the secretaries of North Carolina’s state environmental quality and health agencies. The board is tasked with studying ways to better protect public health and the environment from new and emerging chemicals of concern, including GenX and hexavalent chromium.

Student and alumni recognition

Our students and alumni received many significant recognitions in 2017. Here are a few especially noteworthy examples, but the School’s student-specific news feed houses a much larger—and highly impressive!—compilation.

Alumni catch up while admiring an aquarium exhibit.

Alumni catch up while admiring an aquarium exhibit.

We celebrated our alumni at the Atlanta Aquarium in conjunction with the annual American Public Health Association (APHA) meeting.

Aditi Borde and Chelsea Anderson, both first-year graduate students in health policy and management, were on the winning team for the inaugural Kenan-Flagler Business School Healthcare Case Competition, which sought solutions to the opioid crisis.

Liz Chen and Cristina Leos, doctoral students in health behavior, were recognized as outstanding social entrepreneurs by Forbes’ “30 under 30” for their work on the MyHealthEd app. This is the second year in a row that students from the Gillings School were recognized.

Dr. Amy Lansky receives the UNC Distinguished Alumna Award from Chancellor Folt during a ceremony observed by Gov. Cooper (center).

Dr. Amy Lansky receives the UNC Distinguished Alumna Award from Chancellor Folt during a ceremony observed by Gov. Cooper (center).

Amy Lansky, PhD, alumna of the Gillings School’s health behavior department, was selected as one of five 2017 recipients of UNC’s Distinguished Alumnus/Alumna Awards. She and other winners were recognized Oct. 12, 2017, during the annual University Day ceremony.

A master’s student, faculty member and alumnus of the Gillings School have been awarded a Kenan-Biddle Partnership grant to improve health and wellness among refugee communities in the Triangle (N.C.) area. Meagan Clawar, graduate student in health policy and management, Dilshad Jaff, MD, MPH, adjunct assistant professor of maternal and child health and program coordinator for solutions to complex emergencies in the Research, Innovation and Global Solutions unit, and Michael Wilson, MPH, 2014 alumnus of the Department of Health Behavior, will work on the project with colleagues at Duke University.

Dr. Satish Gopal delivers the winter 2017 commencement address.

Dr. Satish Gopal delivers the winter 2017 commencement address.

Gillings School graduate Satish Gopal, MD, MPH, associate professor of medicine at UNC, gave the University’s winter commencement address.

Mya Roberson, epidemiology doctoral student, was one of 40 graduate students selected from across the U.S. to participate in the Health Policy Research Scholars program.

Shauna Rust, BSPH, 2016 Gillings School alumna, was a recipient of the George J. Mitchell Scholarship, which supports graduate studies in Ireland. Rust, a public health analyst in the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration, was one of just 12 recipients selected from the United States.

Min Yang

Min Yang

Min Yang, BSPH, an alumnus from the health policy and management department, was selected for the Schwarzman Scholars program.

Leadership changes

We said a grateful thanks to Leslie Lytle, PhD, professor and former chair of health behavior, and welcomed Kurt Ribisl, PhD, as the new chair. We announced the selection of Til Stürmer, MD, PhD, professor of epidemiology, as incoming chair for that department. Andy Olshan, PhD, the Barbara Sorenson Hulka Professor of Epidemiology and current chair, will step down at the end of February.

We also welcomed Karissa Grasty as associate dean for advancement. She’s already off and running at a rapid pace! Thank you to Sterling Frierson for serving as interim associate dean.

The new assistant dean for inclusive excellence, Kauline Cipriani, PhD, currently at the Purdue University College of Veterinary Medicine, will join us in mid-February. We can’t wait!

Several long-term staff retired in 2017, and we thank them for their efforts:

  • Kathleen Anderson, MEd, social and clinical research specialist, Department of Maternal and Child Health
  • Deborah Atkinson, MA, administrative support specialist, North Carolina Institute for Public Health
  • Becky Hart, public communications specialist, North Carolina Institute for Public Health
  • Richard Howard, system specialist, Department of Epidemiology
  • David Kleckner, IT manager, Department of Epidemiology
  • Henna Mehta, research specialist, Department of Epidemiology
  • Teresa Riley, administrative support specialist, North Carolina Institute for Public Health
  • Marcia Roth, academic director, Department of Maternal and Child Health
  • Jack Whaley, student services manager, Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering

Coming Soon

We’re looking forward to “Going Viral,” a symposium that will be held April 4-6 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the 1918 influenza pandemic.

The pandemic killed ~50 million people around the world, including UNC president Edward Kidder Graham, at age 42, and his successor, Marvin Stacy.

Edward Kidder Graham

Edward Kidder Graham

The deaths in 2018 would translate to ~250M deaths if the 1918 pandemic happened today. The devastating impact of the pandemic was expressed poignantly in letters written from soldiers to their loved ones at home and in popular literature. Thomas Wolfe was a student at UNC during the epidemic and wrote arrestingly in Look Homeward Angel about the tragic death of his brother Ben from influenza in 1918.

The flu pandemic touched almost every corner of the world, including most cities and towns in the U.S., and it influenced world events. Bodies piled up on porches and several cities, including Philadelphia, ran out of wood for caskets. Young adults were especially vulnerable, and more soldiers died from influenza than in battle. Physicians and nurses were overwhelmed, and patients often passed away within hours of first displaying symptoms.

That the influenza epidemic coincided with World War I created conditions that exacerbated the outbreaks. Many city leaders across the country downplayed down the risks, or worse, denied them. Ultimately, the pandemic provided a catalyst for establishing schools of public health and more hospitals. It also shone a light on the critical importance of fields such as epidemiology. Our own first dean, Milton Rosenau, MD, conducted research on influenza before coming to North Carolina to lead the School. (Rosenau appears at right.) To learn more, I encourage you to watch the fascinating PBS documentary on the 1918 influenza pandemic.

Our “Going Viral” symposium will discuss this history as well as what epidemics may lurk in the future. The symposium will be highly interdisciplinary, with outstanding speakers from UNC and other organizations representing fields as diverse as literature and virology. The symposium is being planned with our partners, the UNC Institute for Global Infectious Diseases, the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, RTI International, and the Smithsonian Institution. On April 5, acclaimed New York Times journalist and best-selling author Gina Kolata will present the Foard Lecture as part of the symposium.

Thank you

Finally, a heartfelt thanks to all the people who make the Gillings School the fabulous place it is today, including our faculty, staff and students.

Special thanks to the superb leaders of our central administrative units and our assistant, associate and other deans and chairs. Thanks to every donor who supports the Gillings School; we would not be a great school without you. Thanks also to the citizens of North Carolina for supporting the state’s public universities. Thanks to members of our Public Health Foundation Board, Advisory Council, External Advisory Committee, Alumni Association Advisory Board and Practice Advisory Committee. You make a positive difference! Thanks to our campaign cabinet, Gillings Visiting Professors and Professors of the Practice, our entrepreneur-in-residence, and our partners and collaborators.

It takes a lot of people working together to keep a great public school of public health, the Gillings School, at the top. Thank you all!

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