Students, Alumni, and Friends,

I want to wish you all a happy and healthy holiday season. This newsletter arrives with exciting news to report from HBHE.

First, I would like to congratulate the HBHE faculty and students on their outstanding accomplishments this year.  HBHE faculty received 11 new grants, published 72 peer reviewed articles, 8 chapters, 5 technical reports and 1 book.

In addition, Dr. Marcia Inhorn’s book, "Local Babies, Global Science: Gender, religion and in vitro fertilization in Egypt", has been selected as the winner of the 2007 Diana Forsythe Prize. The Diana Forsythe Prize was created to celebrate the best book or series of published articles in the spirit of Diana Forsythe's feminist anthropological research on work, science, and technology, including biomedicine. Please join me in congratulating Marcia on this wonderful achievement.

Kudos also goes to Sean Armstrong, MPH ‘07, one of three UM SPH students to receive a 2007-2008 Fulbright Scholar award. He will travel to Mongolia with the goal of increasing the community participation of rural Mongolians in wellness campaigns. This is a very competitive award and it speaks highly of our students at SPH. Congratulations to Sean!

Second, we have moved into our new office space in the newly renovated SPH1. Our new area includes space for doctoral students, lounge areas for work or casual conversation, and a resource room for students. We are located on the 2nd and 3rd floors of SPH 1.  Please feel free to drop in anytime.

Finally, our 3rd annual “Staying Connected” alumni reception at APHA in Washington DC drew almost 100 alumni, students & faculty. We held it at a tapas restaurant with delicious food! Thanks to all of you who could attend this event. For those who could not join us this year, I hope you can stop in next time.  It really is a festive event where old friends reconnect and get a chance to hear about all the fantastic things our graduates are doing in their careers.