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Delta Omega Honor Society welcomes two new members in 2015

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On May 29, 2015, at the Pitt Public Health Alumni Awards dinner, two alumni were inducted into the Omicron chapter of the Delta Omega Honorary Society, which recognizes merit and encourages further excellence in, and devotion to, public health work.

Delta Omega members are found in key leadership positions and essential fieldwork positions throughout the public health community and include current and past U.S. surgeon generals, a former president of the American Public Health Association, deans of the schools of public health, researchers, and policymakers. Our alumni inductees’ work in the practice of public health serves as a model for future graduates of Pitt Public Health.

Marisabel Sánchez (BCHS '93) is CEO at Links Media in Gaithersburg, Maryland. She has led numerous national and international community mobilization and individual behavior change initiatives, most notably for the World Health Organization, USAID, National Institutes of Health, and the CDC. She served as project director on programs including the Amazon Malaria Initiative, the South American Infectious Diseases Initiative, Mexico TB/HIV Education program, Pandemic Influenza Response program, U.S. National Diabetes Education Program, the National Eye Health Education Program, the national Children’s Mental Health Campaign, and worked on an array of prevention and treatment initiatives. She has lead a myriad of outreach, marketing, advocacy, education, and mobilization efforts at international, federal, state, and local levels to eradicate diseases and reduce morbidity and mortality of infectious and chronic diseases. She has been instrumental in the creation of community and institutional networks to respond to critical health and environmental problems including disease outbreaks and natural and man-made disasters. A former journalist, Sánchez has also produced award winning documentaries, news reports, and education campaigns. She was a Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute Public Policy Fellow, has authored numerous journal articles, has contributed to the book Antimicrobial Resistance in Developing Countries, and has lectured in international and national conferences and meetings. Sánchez earned an MPH in 1993 from Pitt Public Health.

Tushar Singh (EPI '14) is an Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) officer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in Atlanta, Georgia. After completing his medical education and earning the Doctor of Medicine degree with honors from Sechenov Moscow Medical Academy in Moscow, Russia, Tushar Singh worked as a physician in India before coming to the U.S. to pursue a PhD. During his studies, he helped in designing, developing, and managing a cohort study, the Mobility and Independent Living in Elders Study (MILES), in rural, older Indians. This study is a collaborative project between the University of Pittsburgh and SHARE-INDIA, a research organization in India. He trained the study staff in India in research and data-collection protocols and worked as the quality control and data manager for the study. Additionally, he collaborated on several other multicenter projects at the Center for Aging and Population Health, University of Pittsburgh. At the CDC, Tushar works as an EIS Officer in the Office on Smoking and Health (OSH). As part of his work, he was deployed to Sierra Leone in October/November 2014 with the CDC’s Ebola Response Team. Singh helped in establishing a district-level command center for Ebola response and trained staff in case investigation and contact tracing during his deployment. His work in OSH includes research on marijuana, tobacco, and electronic cigarettes in youth and adults. Singh earned his PhD in epidemiology from Pitt Public Health in 2014.

In addition to these two alumni inductees, 20 Pitt Public Health students and one faculty member were inducted into Delta Omega this year.



5/29/2015

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