Our 18,000 and Counting Alumni (Fall, 2014)

Our 18,000 and Counting Alumni

Featured here are only a few of our nearly 18,000 accomplished alumni. They have changed lives for the better in North Carolina—and around the world.

GLOBAL LEADERS

Greg Allgood, MSPH, PhD (ESE, 1983)
Allgood established Procter & Gamble’s Children’s Clean Drinking Water program; he was the
School’s 2014 Foard Lecturer. (See video at tinyurl.com/foard-allgood-2014.)

Saye Baawo, MD, MPH (MCH, 2006)
Assistant minister for curative services at the Ministry ofHealth in
Liberia. A number of women’s health issues face
Baawo’s country after a prolonged civil war (See tinyurl.com/womens-issues-liberia). Most recently, an Ebola epidemic threatens the country.

Garry Conille, MD, MHA, PhD  (HPM, 1999)
Former Prime Minister of Haiti and senior adviser to Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in her role as co-chair of the United Nations’ Development Programme; now regional director of the U.N..’s Office for Project Services in Africa.

Paul Hebert, PhD (ESE, 1984)
Received Virginia Military Institute’s Jonathan Myrick Daniels Humanitarian Award in 2010. Hebert has consulted with NGOs on four continents about water resource management, humanitarian and other issues.

Heather Munroe-Blum, PhD (EPI, 1983)
Recently retired principal and vice chancellor of Mcgill University (Montreal)

Rich Vinroot, MD, MPH (PHLP, 2004)
Physician who employs public health practices in distressed areas, including in New Orleans after hurricane Katrina, in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake, now in Afghanistan; the school’s 2011 Foard Lecturer. (see video at tinyurl.com/foard-vinroot-2011.)

NATIONAL LEADERS

Mayra E. Alvarez, MHA (HPM, 2005)
Associate director of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ office of Minority Health

Alfredo Armendariz, PhD (ESE, 2002)
Research associate professor at Southern Methodist University; was appointed by President Obama as administrator of Environmental Protection Agency’s Region 6; now works on environmental issues with the Sierra Club

Brenda Edwards, PhD (BIOS, 1975)
Senior adviser for cancer surveillance in the National Cancer Institute’s Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences; has helped make NCI’s Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results program an important resource for monitoring the nation’s cancer burden and monitoring cancer control progress.

Eric Feuer, PhD (BIOS, 1983)
Branch chief in the Surveillance Research Program (SRP) in the National Cancer Institute’s Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences. Prior to joining SRP, Feuer was a cancer center statistician at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine.

Lisa LaVange, PhD (BIOS, 1983)
Director of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Biostatistics Organization; formerly director of the Gillings School’s Collaborative Studies Coordinating Center and executive at Quintiles and Inspire Pharmaceuticals.

Jerry Linenger, MD, MPH, PhD (HPM, 1989; EPI, 1990)
NASA astronaut who made more than 2,000 orbits around the Earth during his 132-day mission on the Russian space station Mir in 1997. See his TedX-UNCtalk at tinyurl.com/youtube-linenger.

Jerry Mande, MPH (NUTR, 1983)
Deputy Under-Secretary for Food Safety, U.S. Department of Agriculture

Gregorio Millett, MPH (HB, 1995)
Vice president and director of public policy at amfAR (amfar.org). Millett worked to develop HIV/AIDS policies at the CDC and White House, where he helped construct President Obama’a national HIV/AIDS strategy.

Deborah Parham Hopson, MSPH, PhD, RN (HPM, 1979, 1990)
Assistant U.S. Surgeon General and associate administrator at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ HIV/AIDS Bureau.

  Roy Ramthun, MSPH (HPM, 1987)
Expert on health savings accounts and consumer-directed health-care issues; George W. Bush appointee as health-care policy advisor at the White House; chair of the School’s 75th anniversary campaign.

   Chesley Richards, MD, MPH (HPM, 1997)
Deputy director for public health scientific services and director of the Office of Public Health Scientific Services at the CDC, where he oversees the National Center for Health Statistics, the MMWR and Vital Signs publications, the Epidemic Intelligence Services and other programs.

Rebecca Slifkin, PhD (HPM, 1994)
Former director of UNC Sheps Center’s N.C. Rural Health Research and Policy Analysis Center; director of the Office of Planning Analysis and Evaluation in the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration. See video at tinyurl.com/slifkin-rural-health.

Robert Verhalen, MHA, PhD (HPM, 1972)
Risk analyst at Verhalen & Associates; presidential appointee in 1969 to study product safety; senior U.S. regulatory scientist at Consumer Product Safety Commission; established National Electronic Injury Surveillance System

Deborah M. Winn, PhD (EPI, 1980)
Deputy director of the National Cancer Institute’s Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences.

STATE LEADERS

Lynn W. Blanchard, MPH, PhD (HB, 1985. 1989)
Clinical associate professor of health behavior and director of the Carolina Center for Public Service, which offers programs to support service and engagement. learn more at  ccps.unc.edu.

Leah Devlin, DDS, mph (HPM, 1984)
Has served the state of N.C. with more than 30 years of public health practice, including a decade as N.C. State Health Director; now Professor of the Practice in health policy and management at the Gillings school.

Lisa Macon Harrison, MPH (PHLP, 2006)
Director Granville-Vance (N.C.) District Health Department; has led a number of initiatives in the School’s Public Health Leadership program, including the N.C. Public Health Incubator Collaboratives and Southeast Public Health Leadership Institute.

Pam Silberman, JD, Dr.PH (HPM, 1997)
Former president and chief executive officer of N.C. Institute of Medicine, and publisher of North Carolina Medical Journal; clinical professor of health policy and management.

Paula Brown Stafford, MPH (BIOS, 1992)
President of clinical development at Quintiles; president of the Gillings School’s Public Health Foundation board.

LEADERS IN OTHER STATES

David Ballard, MD, MSPH, PhD (SPI, 1984, 1991)
Senior vice president and chief quality officer at Baylor Health Care System in Dallas, Texas; member and former president of the Gillings School’s Public Health Foundation board.

Stacy-Ann Christian, JD, MPH (HPM, 2006)
Director, research administration and finance, Northeastern University (Boston); co-founder and president of the Jamaican Children’s Aid Network, which funds primary schools in Clarendon Parish; and member of the Gillings School’s Public Health Foundation board.

Edward Ehlinger, MD, MSPH (MCH, 1980)
Serves as Minnesota’s Commissioner of Health

Kelly Weidenbach, DrPH (PHLP, 2013)
Executive director of the Casper-Natrona County Health Department in Casper, Wyo.

PUBLIC HEALTH ACADEMICS

C.Margorie Aelion, PhD (ESE, 1988)
Dean, University of Massachusetts-Amherst School of Public Health Sciences; winner of the Gillings School’s 2014 Barr Distinguished Alumni Award.

James Burdine, DrPH (HB, 1979)
Interim dean, School of Public Health, and associate dean, public health practice, Texas A&M Health Science Center.

Robert Dittus, MD, MPH (EPI, 1985)
Director, Vanderbilt University Institute for Medicine and Public Health; associate vice chancellor for public health and health care.

Paul Campbell Erwin, MD, DrPH (PHLP, 2009)
Head, Department of Public Health University of Tennessee at Knoxville

Robert M. Goodman, PhD (HB, 1987)
Professor, applied health science and former dean, Indiana University at Bloomington School of Public Health

Paul Halverson, DrPH (HPM, 1997)
Founding dean, Indiana University’s Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health

Matthew Kreuter, PhD (HB, 1993)
Eugene S. and Constance Kahn, Family Professor of Public Health; associate dean for public health; and director, Center of Excellence in Cancer Communication Research at Washington University in St. Louis’ George Warren Brown School of Social Work

Max Michael III, MD
Dean, University of Alabama-Birmingham’s public health school. Michael was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation clinical scholar at the Gillings School from 1974 to 1976

Edith A. Parker, MPH, DrPH (HB, 1989, 1995)
Professor and head, community and behavioral health; director, Prevention Research Center for Rural Health, University of Iowa College of Public Health.

Celette Sugg Skinner, PhD (HB, 1991)
Parkland Community Medicine Professor; chief, Division of Behavioral and Communications Sciences, Department of Clinical Sciences, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center;  member, Gillings School of Public Health Foundation board.