Hebert, school alumnus, honored with VMI’s Daniels Humanitarian Award
| May 10, 2010 | |
Dr. Paul Hebert
Paul V. Hebert, PhD, alumnus of UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, has received Virginia Military Institute’s distinguished Jonathan Myrick Daniels Humanitarian Award for a career devoted to altruistic work in many countries. The award was established in 1997 to honor Jonathan M. Daniels (VMI, 1961), who gave his life to save a young black girl during a voter registration drive in Alabama in 1965. It recognizes individuals who have made significant personal sacrifices to protect or improve the lives of others.
Hebert, who completed his undergraduate degree at VMI in 1968 and earned master’s and doctoral degrees in environmental sciences and engineering from UNC, is the third recipient of the award. The other two awardees were former President Jimmy Carter (2001) and Ambassador Andrew Young (2006).
Hebert has worked to promote development and support humanitarian action on four continents and in countries including Iran, Philippines, Nepal, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Switzerland, Ethiopia and Kenya, collaborating with agencies including U.S. Army Medical Corps, Near East Foundation, World Bank, United Nations and World Health Organization.
“Paul was my doctoral advisee early in my career,” said Donald Lauria, PhD, professor of environmental sciences and engineering, “and in the decades since his graduation, I have held him up to successive generations of students as an example of how they can fulfill their dreams of serving developing countries if their desires are strong enough, and they work hard to achieve them.”
Lauria said that Hebert’s accomplishments, as described in the announcement of the award, “are just the tip of the iceberg.” He said Hebert “exemplifies the message UNC gives its students – that international work is a life of faith and personal sacrifice, in which one’s achievements are not easily recognized.”
A resident of Kenya, Hebert currently serves as an independent consultant for Catholic Relief Services and other nongovernmental organizations in East Africa, assessing success with community-based water resource management, sanitation programs and humanitarian funding.
UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health contact: Ramona DuBose, director of communications, (919) 966-7467 or ramona_dubose@unc.edu.
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