Festschrift Symposium honoring Donald S. Burke

Festschrift Symposium honoring Donald S. Burke

Please mark your calendars for a Festschrift Symposium honoring Donald S. Burke on Friday, September 13, 2019 at the University of Pittsburgh. Burke served as dean of the Graduate School of Public Health and associate vice chancellor for global health at the University of Pittsburgh from 2006 to 2019, making him the longest-serving dean in school history. 

Invited speakers representing Dr. Burke’s major areas of scientific contribution include Jeanine Buchanich of Pitt, Derek Cummings of University of Florida Department of Biology and Emerging Pathogens Institute, Nelson Michael of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, and Nathan Wolfe of Global Viral.

The half-day program will conclude with a luncheon at the University Club during which the 2019 Porter Prize will be awarded to Dr. Burke in recognition of his exemplary performance in health promotion and disease prevention over the course of his career. (Luncheon pre-registration required).

Agenda

8:30 a.m.      Arrival and Continental Breakfast

Pitt Public Health, 130 DeSoto Street, Pittsburgh, Pa.

9:00 a.m.      Welcome

Public Health Auditorium (G23)

Ann E. Cudd, provost and senior vice chancellor
Rob A. Rutenbar, senior vice chancellor for research
Arthur S. Levine, senior vice chancellor for the health sciences, John and Gertrude Petersen Dean of the School of Medicine

9:15-10:15     Speakers

Nathan Wolfe, founder and chair, Metabiota
Jeanine Buchanich, Department of Biostatistics, Pitt Public Health

10:30-11:45 Speakers

Derek Cummings, Department of Biology and Emerging Pathogens Institute, University of Florida
Nelson Michael, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research

12-1:30 p.m.  Porter Prize Luncheon & Award Presentation
University Club, Ballroom A  (pre-registration required)

Maximize Speaker bios

Event Questions?

Contact Jill Reumpler at ruempler@pitt.edu or call 412-383-8849.

Grand Rounds Event

GR RGBcolorOnWht_for Web events list The 9 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. sessions are eligible for Public Health
  Grand Rounds
credit.

Webcast video

Video of the symposium will be made available after the event via the following link: 

View symposium video.

Symposium progam

Some definitions

Fest·schrift  /ˈfes(t)ˌSHrift/ 
- a collection of writings published in honor of a scholar. noun.

Sym·po·si·um  /simˈpōzēəm/  
- a conference or meeting to discuss a particular subject. noun.
- a drinking party or convivial discussion, especially as held in ancient Greece after a banquet (and notable as the title of a work by Plato). noun.

HONORING THE CAREER OF DONALD S. BURKE

Donald S. Burke served as dean of the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health from 2006 to 2019, the school’s longest serving dean. He also served as associate vice chancellor for global health at the University of Pittsburgh. He is the first occupant of the Jonas Salk Chair in Population Health. A native of Cleveland, Ohio, Burke received his BA from Western Reserve University and his MD from Harvard Medical School. He was an intern and resident in medicine at Boston City and Massachusetts General hospitals and trained as a research fellow in infectious diseases at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. He has studied prevention and control of infectious diseases of global concern, including HIV/AIDS, influenza, Japanese encephalitis, dengue, and emerging infectious diseases.

He lived six years in Thailand, worked extensively in Cameroon, and conducted collaborative vaccine and epidemiology studies in India, China, South Africa, and other countries. He served 23 years on active duty in the U.S. Army researching the prevention of diseases of military importance, and nine years on faculty at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Burke joined the University of Pittsburgh in 2006 where, as dean of Pitt Public Health, he founded the Pitt Public Health Dynamics Laboratory, an academic team that develops computational models and simulations of epidemic infectious diseases and other dynamic public health problems and uses these simulations to evaluate prevention and control strategies. He now leads a school-wide initiative aimed at controlling the opioid epidemic. He has been a member of the Allegheny County Health Department since 2008. Burke is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a fellow of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, a past-president of the American Society for Tropical Diseases and Hygiene, and an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine (U.S.A).

Burke urges the University and local community to utilize the power of the search for a new dean and other current vacancies: “This is a time of transition — of the health department, myself, Dr. Levine — this presents an opportunity for the community and region,” Burke said in a recent Pittsburgh Post Gazette article. “What do we really want as our priorities in health over the next decade or so?” Decisions made in the next year, including the choice of leadership, could have a significant impact, he added.