Diane Howard will honored at the 2017 Alumni Awards Ceremony for her contributions to the school. She is associate professor and director of student development in the Department of Health Systems Management (HSM) at Rush University Medical Center, where she teaches courses in managed care, health care in America, and professionalism. She serves on the HSM career services, chairman’s council, curriculum, faculty appointments and promotions, recr...
Eric Hulsey is manager of behavioral health analytics in the Allegheny County Department of Human Services (DHS) Office of Data Analysis, Research and Evaluation. In this role, he is responsible for working with key partners to evaluate behavioral health services administered by DHS and find practical applications for research, as well as for managing all research activities, implementation, and reporting efforts; designing and developing quanti...
Michael T. Walsh Jr. is founder and principal of 25 Strategies, a consulting firm focused on creating and deploying impact strategy for foundations, health systems, nonprofit organizations, governmental agencies, and social impact ventures that address public health challenges, strengthen health systems, and build resilient communities.
Walsh is also interim chief of strategy and programs for the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center’...
Mary Ganguli is professor of psychiatry and neurology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and professor of epidemiology at Pitt Public Health. Her research focuses on the epidemiology of late-life mental disorders, particularly neurocognitive disorders, including Alzheimer’s disease. She is the principal investigator of several National Institute on Aging (NIA)-funded, population-based investigations in the area of dementia and Al...
Tammy Haley is director of nursing and radiological sciences, associate professor of nursing, and coordinator of the RN-BSN program in the Division of Biological and Health Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford, where she has been a member of the nursing faculty since 2003. She teaches Physical Examination and Health Promotion and Community Health Nursing at the BSN level and teaches at all levels of the ASN program, in both the c...
Annette Fetchko currently serves as the regional manager for the Center for Inclusion Health (CIH), a division of the Department of Medicine at Allegheny Health Network (AHN), with a mission to provide outstanding health care to all people in the region served by AHN, especially socially marginalized and vulnerable populations. Fetchko oversees the operational and strategic development of the programs within CIH.
Prior to her role at CIH, Fet...
Laura B. Gieraltowski is serving as a lieutenant commander with the Commissioned Corps of the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) for which she is a epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National Center for Emerging and Infectious Zoonotic Diseases, Division of the Foodborne, Waterborne, and Environmental Diseases’ Outbreak Response and Prevention Branch (ORPB). She regularly leads teams of public health professiona...
The following four individuals will be inducted into the Omicron chapter of the Delta Omega Honorary Society at the Graduate School of Public Health, recognizing merit and encouraging further excellence in, and devotion to, public health work:
Nancy W. Glynn (EPI '94), faculty and alumna; Leah M. Lamonte (IDM '06), alumna; Natalie A. Solomon-Brimage (BCHS '06), alumna; Christopher A. Taylor (EPI '10), alumnus.
The University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health has selected WENDY ELIZABETH BRAUND as the new director of its Center for Public Health Practice and associate dean for public health practice. She will join the school’s faculty as a professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management. Braund, who has a strong history in public health administration, most recently served as state health officer and public health division admi...
CBS NEWS - "We knew there was an increase in the number of people experiencing problems with alcohol within the first two years of surgery, but we didn't expect the number of affected patients to continue to grow throughout seven years of follow-up," said lead author WENDY KING, associate professor of epidemiology at Pitt Public Health. Her team discovered that 20.8 percent of participants developed symptoms of alcohol use disorder within five ye...
ASA NEWS - Biostatistics professors Jong-Hyeon Jeong and George C. Tseng are to be honored with the prestigious distinction of Fellows of the American Statistical Association (ASA) for their professional contributions, leadership and commitment to the field of statistical science. "The statistics community, as well as other scientific disciplines, needs to look no further than these remarkable individuals who have proven that collaboration, inno...
SCIENCE DAILY - Biostatistics assistant prof JONATHAN YABES crunched data for the first nationally representative analysis of hookah use by young adults over an extended follow-up period. The team found that a positive attitude toward and desire to take up hookah smoking are the most likely predictors of a young adult becoming a hookah tobacco smoker. The research is published in this month's issue of the journal "Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers &...
UNIVERSITY TIMES - Assistant BCHS prof CHRISTINA MAIR submitted one of seven winning teaching proposals that received funding as part of Pitt's 2017 Innovatioin in Education Awards Program. Winners are selected each year by the Office of the Provost’s Advisory Council on Instructional Excellence. Mair’s project, "Teaching Multilevel Statistical Modeling with Innovative Educational Technologies," will enhance Pitt’s multilevel statistical modeling...
We were delighted to learn that Collette Ncube (HPM '09, BCHS '14) will be starting a postdoc as a senior fellow-trainee in perinatal epidemiology within the University of Washington School of Public Health in Seattle. Her focus area is social stratification, public health, and obstetrics.
Congratulations to alumnus JASON FLATT (BCHS '13), recipient of a KL2 award for career development (3-yrs of salary support to pursue multidisciplinary clinical research with training and mentoring) from University of California - San Francisco. Flatt is an assistant professor at the School of Nursing's Institute for Health and Aging, Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences. His current research explores risk and protective factors for Alzhe...
Two Pitt Public Health students have been selected as 2017-18 Pittsburgh Schweitzer Fellows. EMMA GOSSARD and CAROLINE HAMILTON, both from BCHS, will be continuing a project started by a previous Fellow and will implement a social support network and health education program for LGBT youth ages 13 to 18 at the Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Pittsburgh. ALEXANDRA TOPPER, also from BCHS, recently graduated from the Fellowship.
PITTSBURGH BUSINESS TIMES - County Executive Rich Fitzgerald has named EOH's BERNARD GOLDSTEIN to a nine-member task force to study and recommend action steps to reduce the childhood lead exposure in the region. The task force, to be chaired by HPM's KAREN HACKER, Allegheny County's health director, has six months to make its recommendations.
UPI - "The long term effects of bullying involvement are important to establish," EPI's KAREN MATTHEWS, the lead researcher from the University of Pittsburgh, said in a press release. "Most research on bullying is based on addressing mental health outcomes, but we wished to examine the potential impact of involvement in bullying on physical health and psychosocial risk factors for poor physical health."
POST-GAZETTE - A disturbing topic is the racial disparity in the cases of asthma. EPI's LUANN BRINK has reported rates for African-Americans that are nearly double the rates for whites. Pollution sources are clustered in areas where many African-Americans live, leading to this disparity.
A round-table was held today with some amazing minds on the issue of polio eradication: Jennifer Jones, director of Rotary International; PETER SALK, IDM visiting professor and son of research pioneer Jonas Salk; and DONALD BURKE, school dean and University associate vice chancellor of global health. Rotary has been raising awareness that "We are this close to ending polio!" While all were in Pittsburgh, they shared amazing conversation about the...
TIME - “The AHCA would lead to catastrophic coverage losses among those right above the poverty line,” said JULIE DONOHUE, HPM faculty and director of the Medicaid Research Center at the University of Pittsburgh Health Policy Institute. “While individuals right above poverty-level could technically purchase coverage on the marketplace, such coverage will be out of reach for nearly all.”
NEW YORK TIMES - “I think it’s absolutely fair to say that had it not been for Dr. Youngner, the polio vaccine would not have come into existence,” PETER SALK president of the Jonas Salk Legacy Foundation and a visiting professor at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health, said in an e-mail. He added, “The really important thing to recognize is that the development of the polio vaccine at the University of Pittsburgh was a t...
ELSA S. STROTMEYER, associate professor of epidemiology at Pitt Public Health, was voted chair-elect of the Gerontological Society of America's Health Sciences Section. She will assume her role in November, joining colleagues from around the country in accepting responsibility for matters of governance and strategic planning with GSA.
IDM awarded departmental prizes in the 2017 Dean's Day student research competition to DANA WOELL of the MPH-PEL program in the MPH category, PRANALI RAVIKUMAR in the MS category, and DIANA DELUCIA in the PhD category.
In a spontaneous and touching gesture, HPM students leapt up to honor WESLEY ROHRER with a standing ovation when he was called to the podium to accept the Craig Teaching Award at the 2017 Pitt Public Health Convocation on Sunday. Presented annually to a nominee selected by students and past honorees, this award for faculty excellence in teaching and mentoring was established by alumnus James L. Craig, MD, (MPH '63). Rohrer serves as the director ...