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Alumni

 

Dear EHS Alumni,

It is my great pleasure to write this letter of holiday greetings, update you about your EHS Department, and solicit your interest in registering for our list-serve so that we can be in touch about our new Alumi/Alumnae Network.

This is a very exciting time for our Department.  We are enjoying the second year of leadership by a wonderful new Dean, Ken Warner, and on September 1 the EHS Department finally saw the arrival of a new Chair (yours truly!). Along with many other units of the School, we have moved a substantial number of our offices, conference rooms, and soon, our laboratories into the beautiful new Crossroads Building---it is simply gorgeous, and as Mary Sue Coleman put it, “This bold new building…tells the University community that our highly ranked School of Public Health is an intersection: an intersection of theory and practice; of basic science and advanced degrees; of community organizations and global problems; and of the Medical and Central campuses.”

Our existing faculty continue to win acclaim for their research and scholarship.  Just to name a few of the accolades: Professor Jerome Nriagu has been listed as one of the 150 most-cited scientists in the fields of Ecology and Environmental Studies.  Professor David Garabrant and his team won the 2005-2006 SPH Research Excellence of the Year Award for his ground-breaking investigation of dioxin exposure pathways and population exposures in Midland, Michigan. Professor Martin Philbert’s research on the development of nanotechnology for intracellular measurement of biochemicals and ions and for the early detection of brain tumors led him to serve on a landmark international panel that published in Nature five “Grand Challenges” for nanotechnology risk research that must be met if the technology is to reach its full potential.  Professor Rita Loch Caruso’s work on toxicant impacts on reproduction led her to serve on an expert panel of the Institute of Medicine that released a key report on Prematurity as a growing public health problem with environmental risk factors likely playing a major role.  Professor Ted Zellers and colleagues won a patent for their “Microelectromechanical Heating Apparatus and Fluid Preconcentrator Device.”  

The Department continues to be the home of innovative research training programs, including an NIEHS Toxicology T-32 Training Grant in its 24th year lead by Professor Rudy Richardson; and a NIOSH Education and Research Center Grant in its 28th year and a NIH-Fogarty Training Grant for collaborative work in Southern African in its 11th year, both led by Professor Tom Robins.  And despite constraints in the current levels of federal funding, this past year (2006) has seen new major grants (>$100,000 direct costs) awarded to a number of EHS Principal Investigators, including Professors Tim Dvonch, Al Franblau, Gerald Keeler, Peter Mancuso, Marie O’Neill, Rudy Richardson, Ted Zellers, and your truly. 

We have a lot of new faculty.  In addition to myself, our Department has seen the arrival of 4 new faculty in the last 18 months---Professor John Meeker, an exposure assessment/environmental epidemiologist who just published a widely-quoted study of pesticide exposure and male reproductive effects) and won a Young Clinical Scientist Award from the Flight Attendant Medical Research Institute; Professor Olivier Jolliet, an international expert in risk modeling and life cycle analysis recruited from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne, Switzerland, where he led the Industrial Ecology and Life Cycle Systems Group; Professor Chuanwu Xi, a water/microbial specialist who is in the second year of a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to elucidate “Mechanisms Responsible for the Persistence of Microorganisms in Drinking Water Distribution Systems via DNA Microarray Technology;” and Professor Marie O’Neill, an environmental epidemiologist who just received an EPA Science To Achieve Results (STAR) grant to study morbidity and mortality associated with climate change and heat stress. 

If that wasn’t enough, we have just begun searches for 4 additional faculty in the areas of genomics (and other ‘omics), water/risk assessment, and nutrition (2 positions).  Of the two nutritional program positions, one will be for a senior faculty member who will lead a major expansion in Nutrition research and teaching. 

With regards to our students and trainees, Sadaf Shaukat (MPH/EHS) won a Fulbright Fellowship to study the effects of Jordan’s safe drinking water crisis on the health of children.  Jaymie Meliker (PhD/EHS) received first place in the student research competition at the Annual Meeting of the International Society of Exposure Analysis.  Ryann Fisher (MPH/IH/HSAT) was the recipient of the 2006-07 Ralph G Smith Memorial Scholarship from the American Industrial Hygiene Foundation.  Sanjeeva Wijeyesakere (PhD/Tox) won  Second Place in the Society of Toxicology Neurotoxicology Poster Competition.  Dongjuan Dai (PhD/EHS) won one a Rackham International Student Fellowships awarded to U of M Students for 2006-2007—one of two UMSPH students given this honor.  Dr. Diane Holder (Research Fellow, Dr. Xi's lab) won the best poster award at the Great Lake International Imaging and Flow Cytometry Association 2006 Annual Meeting held in September, 2006 at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  Our EHS graduates in the past year have competed successfully for the best jobs in the country, and they dominated the 2006 competition for Association of Schools of Public Health Fellowships in Environmental Health, winning 6 of the 12 available positions (Joshua Bennett, MPH-IH/HSAT; Julia Gray, MPH/OEE; Carrie Knowlton, MPH/EHS; Tina Moore, MPH/OEE; Stephanie Ross, MPH/OEE; Erin Silvestri, MPH-OEE).  Finally, we note that the University of Michigan Industrial Hygiene Student Association won first place as the top such organization recognized by the American Industrial Hygiene Association. 

And we have continued to attract some of the brightest students in the country for our MPH, MS, and PhD programs.

But there is so much that needs to be done.  In a retreat held on October 13th, our faculty began working on plans to compete for several of the “big science” opportunities that have been created by the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences and other agencies in order to accelerate the pace of discovery into the contribution of environmental hazards to common chronic diseases.   We have initiated an "Interdisciplinary Research and Collaboration Outreach" seminars that are connecting our scientists across disciplines and across Departments and Schools in our University; initiating a Departmentally-based pilot project program to peer-review and fund innovative science that has a high likelihood of leading towards major funded projects, and we are re-vamping our Departmental appointments to better utilize and reward scientists and teachers who are affiliated with our Department.  We are laying the groundwork for a complete re-assessment of our curriculum to streamline and modernize our teaching programs and standardize what is expected of our faculty and students.   We are overhauling our approach to admissions, recruitment, and the funding of our trainees so that we can recruit our top applicants with ever greater success.  

And how about yourselves, our Alumni/Alumnae?  There are over 2,000 of you, and until now you have mostly been the passive recipients of news from the School and invitees to receptions at the many meetings where we congregate.  Of course all institutions want to appeal to the sense of pride, gratitude, and loyalty of their alumni to solicit their annual donations---and we have already done so with the Alumni Appeal letter sent to you a few weeks ago (if you missed it---see the Alumni Appeal letter that emphasizes the importance of the EHS Scholarship Fund at http://www.sph.umich.edu/ehs/alumni.html).  But we believe that there is much more that can be done, and have initiated an Alumni Network that will serve as a liaison between yourselves and our Department; identify opportunities for student and graduate internships and job placements; provide job counseling; and facilitate in alumni-faculty interactions. 

We would very much like to invite you to join our EHS Alumni list-serve by sending a message to our Student Coordinator, Sue Crawford, at sac@umich.edu.  Simply let her know your name, degree (year) and current email address, and we will be in touch with the details. 

In the meantime, my door is open and I would welcome suggestions and feedback on how we are doing.  I wish you all a safe and healthy New Year.

Sincerely,

Howard Hu, M.D., M.P.H., Sc.D.

  

Printed from http://www.sph.umich.edu/ehs/alumni.html on July 21, 2008