Achievements and excellence among SPH faculty, students, and staff.
Winter 2012
Dr. Howard Hu, chair and professor of environmental health sciences, has been appointed to the National Advisory Environmental Health Sciences Council. The council is consulted by and provides advice to the Director of the NIH. A major responsibility is to review and make recommendations regarding grant applications to support biomedical research and research training activities. The invitation from HHS Secretary Sebelius outlined a four-year term that began Dec. 1, 2011.
To aid them in covering President Obama's Jan. 27 speech on higher education affordability at the University of Michigan, SPH students Jijean Li and Rachael Strecher were issued press passes by the White House. Strecher, who worked as a photojournalist before coming to SPH, took photos at the event. Li, a longtime blogger for SPH, wrote a thoughtful report on what the president's proposals could mean for students and future health researchers like himself: "A commitment to us (read: public health graduate students) and our work means committing resources to understanding host-environment-pathogen interactions or refining community-based health initiatives or reformulation of policies to reflect the needs of the marginalized. A commitment in our research allows us to make our individual contributions to the improvement of our communities’ quality of life."Watch President Obama's speech.
The new associate chair for the University of Michigan School of Public Health Department of Environmental Health Sciences is John Meeker. An associate professor in the department, Meeker's research focus is exposure assessment and epidemiology studies investigating negative health effects associated with exposure to pesticides, phthalates, bisphenol A, flame retardants, PCBs, tobacco smoke, and other agents.
Effective February 1, UM SPH Professor of Epidemiology Sharon Kardia joins the Dean’s Office, assuming the role of senior associate dean for administration. Facilitation and promotion of innovation represent one of her foci, as she works with faculty, staff, and students to develop administrative processes to aid in identifying and rewarding creativity and innovation. Said UM SPH Dean Martin Philbert, in announcing the appointment: "The University of Michigan is well known for encouraging research. As we increase our focus on innovation, Sharon will help us make this a rewarding and relatively seamless process."
On January 1, UM SPH Professor of Health Behavior and Health Education Vic Strecher became the school’s first director for innovation and social entrepreneurship. He was the 2010 recipient of the University of Michigan's Distinguished Innovator Award, and he is "well prepared to foster new entrepreneurial endeavors at SPH, and to help drive the economic aspects of these endeavors," said UM SPH Dean Martin Philbert, in announcing the appointment. Strecher will work with internal and external stakeholders to cultivate and grow the school's entrepreneurial community. He will encourage innovation, and he will help take innovative ideas through the steps leading to community engagement and venture acceleration.
Recipients of the 2012 Risk Science Fellowships (RSC) at UM SPH have been announced, and they are (from l to r in photo): Lindsay Weir, Natalie Sampson, Gamola Fortenberry, Deena Thomas, and Peter Dornbos. The students receive stipends for summer research, made possible through the Risk Science Fellowship Fund. More info is available on the RSC site on the following 2012 projects:
Peter Dornbos w/ EHS adviser Nil Basu:
High-Throughput In Vitro Screening Platform to Assess Risk of Rare EarthElements Across Organisms.
Gamola Fortenberry w/ EHS adviser John Meeker:
A Prospective Pilot Study of Early Life Pesticide Exposure in Relation to Childhood Neurodevelopment in a Mexico City Population.
Natalie Sampson w/ EHS adviser Marie O'Neill:
Program Planning & Evaluation with Community Leaders in Detroit, MI to Assess and Address Heat Related Risks.
Deena Thomas w/ EHS adviser Howard Hu: Fluoride Exposure and Its Effects on Neurobehavior in Young Children.
Lindsay Weir w/ EPID adviser Alex Rikard:
From Freshwater to Hospital Bed: The Role of Coaggregation in Acinetobacter baumannii Biofilm Development.
Alescia Maraboushontrell Hollowell, a community activist and second-year M.P.H. student in Health Behavior and Health Education at UM SPH, has a new venue from which to encourage children to adopt positive health behaviors: she was recently selected to serve as Miss Black Michigan USA 2012. A dance instructor, native of Detroit, and intern at Genesee County Health Department in summer 2011, Hollowell plans a career as a health educator. She's already taking advantage of service opportunities in her new role, such as visiting with children in hospital and community settings throughout Michigan. She'll take her official platform, "The Benefits of Physical Activity and Healthy Eating in Reducing Childhood Obesity," to the national pageant in August 2012. "The solution begins with the decisions we make on a daily basis," Hallowell says, such as "adopting a healthy lifestyle, with healthy eating and physical activity."
Fall 2011
On November 28, SPH Dean Martin Philbert accepted an award for top-tier participation by SPH staff and faculty in MHealthy Rewards worksite wellness program. UM Chief Health Officer Bob Winfield and Senior Director of Health and Well-Being Services LaVaughn Palma-Davis praised SPH for being among "the highest-achieving academic units," thus "helping to create a campus culture of health" and "curbing the rise of long-term health-related costs." They noted that when asked to fill out the 2011 UM health questionnaire, 60% of SPH faculty and staff complied. SPH regularly has strong showings in Active U and other MHealthy programs as well.
Photos at right of the award and SPH's MHealthy committee (from left): Laurie Carpenter, Patty Bradley, Shelagh Saenz, Dean Martin Philbert, Bev Slane, and Laura Baker.
Photos by Peter Smith.
Cecilia "CC" Pryor, Annual Fund and Alumni Relations Assistant Director at UM SPH, was selected as a 2011 Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) District V Advancing Diversity Program Scholar. She received a $1,000 scholarship to attend the annual CASE V Conference held in Chicago in mid-December. “The best thing about the conference was the people I met and spoke with about institutional advancement and alumni relations," Pryor said. "Representatives from many different kinds of schools had great ideas to share. It was a very rewarding experience.”
UM SPH Assistant Professor of Health Behavior and Health Education Melissa Valerio recently received a 2011 Mentor of the Year award from the Latin American and Native American Medical Association (LANAMA) at the University of Michigan. Valerio was praised for:
her "ability to guide students while allowing them to develop their own leadership skills"
for serving as "a wonderful liaison for students interested in bridging gap between medicine and public health"
and her "passion and dedication to the goals that LANAMA holds: to address the health disparities of Latino and Native communities."
University of Michigan researchers and SPH's Kidney Epidemiology and Cost Center (KECC) have been awarded renewed federal funding to lead national efforts to monitor chronic kidney disease, a costly health condition that can lead to kidney failure. SPH faculty members Brenda Gillespie and Yi Li (Biostatistics) and Hal Morgenstern and William Herman (Epidemiology), along with UM Medical School faculty, will be involved in a $550,000 per year public health surveillance contract as part of UM's CDC-funded project. Public health experts believe the number of people with kidney disease will surge as diabetes and hypertension -- the two leading causes of damage to the kidneys – increase among American adults. More information on all components of the multi-year project "Establishing a Surveillance System for Chronic Kidney Disease in the U.S." and its principal investigator Rajiv Saran, M.D., MRCP, M.S., who co-directs KECC along with SPH's Yi Li.
UM SPH Department of Environmental Health Sciences announced annual student awards at the 48th Warren Cook Industrial Hygiene Discussional in October at the Michigan Union:
Warren A. Cook Award - Gustavo Serrano
Michigan Industrial Hygiene Society Award - Nora Kuiper
Robin Theeuwes Award - Mary Ellen Hicks
The team of Jessica Lai (M.P.H. ’13 in Health Behavior and Health Education), Ta-Wei Lin (M.H.S.A. ’13 in Health Management & Policy), and Emily Potter (M.S./Space Systems Engineering ’11) beat out dozens of other teams to win the Organizer’s Award at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business Entrepreneur & Venture Club (EVC) Business Model Competition. The team was awarded $500 to continue working on their plan for YoMamaPackedIt, an online-ordering business to bring students low-cost, healthy brown bag lunches "just like mom used to make," delivered to them on campus between classes. Watch the 3-minute pitch video:
Howard Hu is the recipient of the prestigious American Public Health Association (APHA) Award for Excellence for 2011. Hu is the NSF International Department Chair of Environmental Health Sciences and a professor of epidemiology at UM SPH; he's also a professor of internal medicine at UM Medical School. The APHA award recognizes Hu's "creative and innovative work in research on environmental health issues," especially on the adverse health effects of lead and other heavy metals, endocrine disruptors, gene-environment interactions, long-term effects of fetal exposures, and health and the global environment. It will be presented at the awards ceremony at the APHA Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. on Nov. 1 at 6:30 p.m.
Several members of the UM SPH have received 2011 Distinguished Diversity Leaders Awards at the University of Michigan. Toby Citrin received an award in the individual category for all his work with communities and public health genomics work, and the Summer Enrichment Program (SEP) in Health Management and Policy received a team award.
SEP was also recently awarded a $4.2 million grant over five years from the Centers for Disease Control National Minority Undergraduate Student Program. Details.
Summer 2011
In October in Washington, D.C., Kai Zheng will receive the 2011 New Investigator Award from the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA). This award recognizes early-career achievements in health informatics and significant scholarly contributions on the basis of scientific merit and research excellence. Zheng is an assistant professor of Health Management and Policy at UM SPH and also in the UM School of Information;
he is among the founding faculty of the two schools' new joint program in Health Informatics. His research draws upon techniques from information systems research and human-computer interaction to study the use of information, communication, and decision technologies in patient care delivery and management.
First-year UM SPH student Prince Baawuah has been awarded a Corris Boyd Scholarship for 2011. Sponsored by the Hospital Corporation of America (HCA) and Association of University Programs in Health Administration (AUPHA), it is a $20,000-per-year award toward a master degree in health care management from the AUPHA-member school of the recipient's choice. Baawuah, who comes from Bronx, NY, and earned an economics degree from the City College of New York (CUNY), will pursue an M.P.H. in Health Management and Policy at UM SPH. More info.
Christy Harris Lemak was awarded the 2011 Excellence in Teaching Award from the Academy of Management’s Health Care Management Division on August 15. The award recognizes innovative and outstanding teaching, particularly the work of excellent, dedicated and inspiring teachers. Dr. Lemak an associate professor of Health Management and Policy at UM SPH, director of the Griffith Leadership Center. She said she is "honored and delighted to receive this award from the AOM, especially its Health Care Management Division, which represents about 900 of my colleagues who teach health care management."
At the Gordon Research Conference on Cellular and Molecular Mechanisms of Toxicology in early August, UM SPH student Muna Nahar won second place for her poster on "Gene Expression of Bisphenol A-related Xenobiotic Metabolism Enzymes in the Developing Human Fetus."
Several University of Michigan School of Public Health researchers won awards for their work at the 2011 American Industrial Hygiene Conference and Expo (AIHce) in Portland earlier this summer. AIHce is widely considered the premier gathering for occupational and environment health and safety professionals. Honorees and their work are as follows:
• Mr. Jonathan Bryant-Genevier (presenter) and co-authors Mr. Sun Kyu Kim, Dr. Hungwei Chang, and Dr. Ted Zellers won two awards for "Field Testing of a Micro Gas Chromatograph Prototype: Selective, Real-Time Analysis of Indoor-Air Concentrations of TCE at Low-ppb Levels." It received accolades as a Real-time Detection Systems Committee Best Poster and Engineering Committee Best Poster.
• Ms. Thitiporn Sukaew (presenter) and co-authors Dr. Hungwei Chang, Mr. Gustavo Serrano and Dr. Ted Zellers’ work on "Multi-Stage Preconcentrator/Focuser Module Designed to Enable Trace Level Determinations of Trichloroethylene in Indoor Air with a Microfabricated Gas Chromatograph," was named Best Poster in the Sampling and Laboratory Analysis category.
• Mr. Gustavo Serrano (presenter) and co-authors Dr. Hungwei Chang, Ms, Lindsay K. Amos, and Dr. Ted Zellers’ work on "Prototype Micro Gas Chromatograph for Rapid Determination of Explosive Marker Compounds" won first place as Real-time Detection Systems Committee Best Poster.
Natalie D. Crawford will expand her dissertation work by integrating a more sociologically driven perspective to understanding how discrimination influences material risks (e.g., low education, lack of access to health care) and resources (e.g., personal physician access, health knowledge) in one’s social network. She received her Ph.D. in epidemiology from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health (photo and more info)
Corina Graif will examine the implications of migration flows, neighborhoods, and spatial mismatch for individual and collective well-being. She received her M.A. and Ph.D. in sociology from Harvard University (photo and more info).
Spring 2011
In May, Rayna Edwards, M.P.H. '11, won the 2011 Michigan Family Medicine Research Day award for "Best Clinical Research Presentation by a Student." The tropic of her presentation was "Compounded Suffering: A Population-Based Evaluation of the Relationship between Vulvodynia and Interstitial Cystitis."
At this year's Michigan Dietetics Association Meeting, UM SPH Human Nutrition Ph.D. student Olivia Anderson won 2nd place for Best Poster Presentation for her work entitled "Dose-Dependent Shifts in Avy Coat Color Distribution following Maternal Dietary Exposure to Bisphenol A." According to Dana Dolinoy, Anderson's mentor at SPH, "The judges were impressed with how the background was explained in a manner that was very understandable to people who may not be familiar with epigenetics or BPA, and they also liked how she brought it all together and tied in the dietetics profession to the research." The Michigan Dietetic Association (MDA) has been serving Michigan citizens since 1929.
Human Nutrition student Bridgette Kidd has received awards from the Michigan Dietetic Association Institute and the Association of State and Territorial Public Health Nutrition.
The American Heart Association has chosen Sara Adar, assistant research professor of epidemiology, as a recipient of the 2011 Sandra A. Daugherty Award for Excellence in Cardiovascular Disease and Hypertension Epidemiology. The award recognizes the role of junior faculty and stimulates excellence in research by junior investigators. Adar was recognized for her research paper"Longitudinal and Cross-Sectional Associations between Fine Particulate Air Pollution and Intima-Medial Thickness of the Common Carotid Artery: The Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis and Air Pollution." Details.
The Michigan School of Public Health Alumni Society Board of Governors has chosen SPH Associate Professor Matthew Boulton, M.D., M.P.H. '91, as the 2011 recipient of the Romani Award. Named for Professor Emeritus John Romani, the award recognizes UM SPH alumni who have demonstrated outstanding career accomplishments. The award was presented at the school's annual spring scholarship dinner. Details.
Michigan Governor Rick Snyder and the Michigan Department of Community Health chose UM SPH'sMarc Zimmerman, director of the Prevention Research Center of Michigan, as one of the 2011 Hometown Health Heroes during Public Health Week. The award recognizes impressive work done by Zimmerman with Youth Empowerment Solutions for Peaceful Communities (YES). Through the YES program, which focuses on areas of Flint and Genesee County with high levels of youth
violence and crime, high-risk youth have opportunities to
learn specific empowerment skills, practice those skills, and establish the social and
cognitive resources that will help them effectively navigate and change social
settings.
The American Society for Nutrition has chosen Dana Dolinoy, the UM SPH Searle Assistant Professor of Environmental Health Sciences, as recipient of the 2011 Norman Kretchmer Memorial Award in Nutrition and Development. This award is given to a young investigator for a substantial body of independent research with potential relevance to improving child health. Dr. Dolinoy's research looks at how nutritional and environmental factors interact with epigenetic gene regulation to shape health and disease. It lays the foundation for development of innovative treatments that target our "epigenomic software" rather than "genomic hardware." Visit her lab site.
Winter 2011
Allison Aiello, Associate Professor of Epidemiology at UM SPH, was on the authoring committee for the recent Institute of Medicine (IOM) report "Preventing Transmission of Pandemic Influenza and Other Viral Respiratory Diseases: Personal Protective Equipment for Healthcare Personnel Update 2010. " The IOM report found gaps and deficiencies in research about the use of face masks and other protection, but was able to recommend planning and preparation at organizational levels, comprehensive training for all personnel, availability of appropriate devices, and accountability throughout organizations. More info and the full report.
The UM Board of Regents has approved the appointment ofAl Franzblau as SPH’s associate dean for research, effective January 1, 2011 through December 31, 2013. Dr. Franzblau's research crosses a range of occupational health issues, and he is recognized nationally and internationally for his scholarly contributions.He has provided significant service to SPH's Department of Environmental Health Sciences and to the school, serving on the SPH Advisory Committee on Academic Programs (ACAP) and the SPH Executive Committee.At the university level, he has played an important role as co-chair of the Health Institutional Review Board.He also works on the University of Michigan Dioxin Exposure Study.
Five UM SPH students have been awarded 2011 summer fellowships to work with faculty on projects related to risk science. Details, project info, and more photos.
UM SPH Associate Dean for Practice Phyllis Meadows was on the authoring committee for the recent Institute of Medicine (IOM) report "For the Public’s Health: The Role of Measurement in Action and Accountability." The report finds that the United States lacks both a cohesive national strategy and the appropriate measurement tools to track and respond to the social and environmental factors that affect health outcomes. To improve health, the committee suggests changes in the processes, tools, and approaches used to gather information about health outcomes and their determinants. In addition, the committee describes approaches to measurement that can assess and enhance accountability on the part of governmental and other entities that bear responsibility for population health. More info and free download of the report.
UM's Center for Global Health and Graham Sustainability Institute have partnered to sponsor pilot studies to determine the feasibility for an Integrated Assessment (IA) of a major issue regarding climate and/or water and their impact on health inequities in an international setting. Three of the four $20,000 awards in 2011 will go to teams led by SPH faculty members:
Water Contamination and Maternal-Child Health Impacts in Ghanaian Small-Scale Gold Mining Communities: Niladri Basu, SPH Assistant Professor, Department of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health; Elisha Renne, Professor, Center for Afroamerican and African Studies and the Department of Anthropology.
Climate-Induced Shifts in Distributions and Environmental Health Risks of Pesticides and Other Persistent Organic Pollutants in Arctic Ecosystem:
Stuart Batterman, SPH Professor of Environmental Health Sciences; Sergei Chernyak, SPH Associate Research Scientist in Environmental Health Sciences.
Gastric Cancer and Helicobacter Pylori Infection in Lima Peru: The Role of Water Contamination:
Chuanwu Xi, SPH Assistant Professor of Environmental Health Sciences; Manuel Valdivieso, UM Clinical Professor of Internal Medicine; Lu Wang, SPH Assistant Professor of Biostatistics.
Fall 2010
In the past six months, the UM SPH Office of Communications has won 6 major awards. Five are for Findings magazine. One is for the web-based Experts List, which identifies faculty experts on more than 200 public health topics. Designed and operated in collaboration with UM SPH Web Services, the searchable Experts List interfaces with the Findings magazine database. The awards:
Gold Award, Excellence in Design, 2010 CASE Circle of Excellence competition (national competition, 77 entries)
Silver Award, Special Interest Magazines, 2010 CASE Circle of Excellence competition (national competition, 37 entries)
Award of Excellence for overall magazine design, 2010 University and College Designers Association
Silver Award, Going-Green Production, 2010 University and College Designers Association
Gold Award, Best Specialized or Unit-Level Magazine, 2010 Pride of CASE V District Awards Program
Bronze Award, Best Website, Individual Page, or Section, for Web-Based Experts List, 2010 Pride of CASE V District Awards Program
UM SPH Health Management and Policy professor Peter Jacobson is the keynote speaker at the symposium "Rethinking Regulation in an Era of Reform" at Hamline School of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota. Jacobson is president of the Public Health Law Association and serves as associate editor for health law and public health for the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law. At UM SPH, Jacobson directs the Center for Law, Ethics, and Health, and serves as practice advisor for UM SPH's new regional center for the nationwide Public Health Law Network.
UM SPH's Marc Zimmerman, chair of the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education, is among the winners of the 2010 Society for Public Health Education(SOPHE) Distinguished Fellow Award. It honors SOPHE members who have made significant and lasting contributions to advancing the research and practice of health education. Dr. Zimmerman is a highly regarded researcher who has published more than 100 peer-reviewed articles on community and individual empowerment and adolescents’ resilience. The award will be presented at SOPHE’s 61st Annual Meeting Awards Ceremony on Saturday, November 6, 2010, at the Denver Art Museum in Denver, Colorado.
Regents of the University of Michigan in September named Arnold Monto, of UM SPH's Department of Epidemiology, the Thomas Francis, Jr. Collegiate Professor of Public Health, in recognition of important contributions to science, the school, and the university. On Nov. 12, 2010, UM SPH will hold an all-day symposium honoring Professor Monto. It will feature talks by
internationally renowned influenza experts as well as the Thomas Francis
Jr. Lecture, to be delivered by Professor Monto, on the topic of "The Francis Legacy of Influenza." Learn more about the Nov. 12 symposium: "Influenza as a Global Concern: Where Do We Go from Here?"
In September, the Association of Schools of Public Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention welcomed 29 new fellows to the ASPH/CDC Allan Rosenfield Global Health Fellowship Program. Three of them are from UM SPH. Fellows now begin their assignments 11 countries abroad, as well as at CDC headquarters in Atlanta. UM SPH fellows and their placements are: Ashley Burson (Atlanta), Catherine Herzog (Zambia), and Pamela Mallinga (Rwanda).More information.
Summer 2010
HMP's Daniel Eisenberg was awarded the 2010 John D. Thompson Prize for Young Investigators at the Association of University Programs in Health Administration (AUPHA) annual meeting in Portland this summer. Eisenberg was recognized for his contribution to knowledge in health services, including his research project, Healthy Minds Study, a national survey of college students. In addition, he has been heavily involved in mentoring doctoral students and developing new initiatives to enhance the Health Services Organization and Policy doctoral program. More info. --Also at the AUPHA meeting: UM SPH's Christy Lemak and John Griffith’s poster tied for first place. The poster, Towards Competency in Management of Health Care Organizations, was also co-authored by Kenneth R. White of Virginia Commonwealth University.
Regents of the University of Michigan in July approved Betsy Foxman as the first holder of the newly endowed Hunein F. and Hilda Maassab Professorship in Epidemiology. Foxman is also director of UM's Center for Molecular and Clinical Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases.
University of Michigan is well represented in the new class of ASPH/CDC Public Health Fellows, who will be working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in conjunction with the Association of Schools of Public Health. Michigan scholars won 3 of the 18 highly competitive fellowships this year; they are Stacy Endres, Rachel Weintraub and Yoshimi Yamakawa. The fellows will be working with teams of public health experts within CDC, contributing to CDC’s Health Protection Goals. Fellows will be placed within six of the CDC national centers including: National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDPHP); National Center Health Statistics (NCHS); National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention (NCHHSTP); National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD); National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC); and National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).
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Additionally, Monica Silver of UM SPH is one of the six new fellows in the class of 2010 ASPH/EPA Environmental Health Fellowship Program. She will have a one-year assignmentsat EPA labs and offices based in Washington, D.C., and Cincinnati, Ohio. More info.
David Schottenfeld, UM's John G. Searle Professor Emeritus of Epidemiology and Internal Medicine, will receive the 2010 Harvard School of Public Health Alumni Award of Merit. The award recognizes a graduate whose "leadership, community service, contributions, and commitment to the field of public health exemplify the ideals set forth by the Harvard School of Public Health."
The award ceremony will be held on September 25 at the Harvard Medical School. Dr. Schottenfeld, a longtime UM faculty member, is a specialist in cancer epidemiology and prevention, with a focus on prostate, breast,
endometrial and colorectal cancers.
Neal Krause has won the 2010 Richard Kalish Innovative Publication Award from the Gerontological Society of America Behavioral and Social Sciences section. Krause is the Marshall H. Becker Collegiate Professor of Health Behavior and Health Education at UM SPH. The award recognizes insightful and innovation publications on aging and life course development in the behavioral and social sciences. The committee judged Krause's book Aging in the Church to be an important, innovative, and potentially transformational publication in the field. The award will be presented ($500 award and plaque) at the BSS business meeting at the GSA annual meeting in November.
Spring 2010
Denise Brooks-Williams, a graduate of both the UM SPH Department of Health Management & Policy and its Summer Enrichment Program, has been named to Modern Healthcare's"Top 25 Minority Executives" list. Brooks-Williams is president and CEO of Battle Creek Health System and president of the National Association of Health Services Executives.
The editorial board of Women's Health Issues has awarded the Charles E. Gibbs Leadership Prize for the best paper of 2009 to Paula Lantz, the S. J. Axelrod Collegiate Professor of Health Management and Policy and chair of HMP. The paper, “An Evaluation of a Medicaid Expansion for Cancer Care: The Breast and Cervical Cancer Prevention and Treatment Act of 2000,” was co-authored with Soheil Soliman, a doctoral candidate in Health Services Organization and Policy at UM SPH. The paper was deemed "exceptional, particularly in its methodology and relevance to understanding an important health services and policy issue in women’s health."
Roderick Little, the Richard Remington Collegiate Professor of Biostatistics at SPH and a research professor at the UM Institute for Social Research, has been named to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the prestigious
society that recognizes individuals who have made significant
contributions in scholarly and professional fields. Little focuses his primary research interest on incomplete data, sample surveys, Bayesian statistics and applied statistics, specifically analysis of data sets with missing values. More.
Margaret Hicken will examine the cellular and molecular mechanisms linking stress exposure to black/white disparities in cardiovascular disease.
Aaron Mauck, a historian and ethnographer, will research disease management and the social and economic impact of type 2 diabetes on neighborhoods with elevated diabetes rates.
Julianna Pacheco, a political scientist, will study how public opinion towards smoking bans is influenced by the passage of anti-smoking legislation.
The UM SPH Excellence in Staff Service award winners for 2010 are Kim Elliott, Director of Academic Affairs; Dean B. Girbach, Business Administrator Lead, Dean's Office; and Brenda Hadley, Grants/Contract Accountant; Department of Environmental Health Sciences. Each was nominated by a co-worker and chosen by a committee of past winners. Each awardee receives $1,000. More information.
SPH Health Behavior and Health Education Ph.D. student Minal Patel, who is also affiliated with the UM Center for Managing Chronic Disease, won second-place in the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan Foundation's 2010 Excellence in Research Award for Students competition. Minal submitted her article "Physician communication regarding cost when prescribing asthma medication to children" for this award; it was published in June 2009 in Clinical Pediatrics.
"The Michigan Apprentice Program was an opportunity of a lifetime," says Doug Roehler, left, of his work experience with UM SPH alumnus Grant Baldwin, right, who directs the Division of Unintentional Injury Prevention at the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control in Atlanta. Read Doug's reflections on his first visit (PDF) and plans for his summer internship.
Kristin King, a doctoral candidate in Epidemiology, has been awarded funding from the Joint Overseas Young Chinese Forum/1990 Institute Fellowship for her project “Reproductive Morbidity among Migrant Women in China.” The fellowship sponsors research projects that analyze economic and social issues facing China, and explore implications and solutions from a policy perspective.
Carrie Rheingans has been named by the National Association of Social Workers as this year's Social Work Student of the Year at the University of Michigan. A dual-degree student, she is pursuing an M.P.H. in health behavior and health education at the UM School of Public Health and an M.S.W. in community organization and social systems at the UM School of Social Work. In her field placement at the HIV/AIDS Resource Center (HARC) in Ypsilanti, she develops strategies for media usage and communication with volunteers. She writes a student blog for UM SPH and is a student associate at the UM Center for Global Health. For summer 2010, she will travel to China and Bangladesh to learn how nonprofit organizations work under a different style of government and what challenges AIDS organizations face. In summer 2009, she worked at Vía Libre in Lima, the largest AIDS service organization in Peru. Watch video of her clever and thought-provoking acceptance speech on April 1.
Winter 2010
Epidemiology second-year student Rebecca Coughlin has been awarded the prestigious
Presidential Management Fellowship.
Administered by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management to develop future leaders, the fellowship represents a very competitive process that requires
schools to nominate students based on accomplishments, capacity for leadership, and a commitment to excellence in the management of public policies and
programs.
Epidemiology International Health second-year student Ashley Strahley has been selected as a recipient of a U.S. Department of State scholarship for its Arabic language summer institute. In partnership with the Council of American Overseas Research Centers and the American Councils for International Education, the Critical Language Scholarship program is part of a U.S. federal
government effort to expand the number of Americans studying and mastering critical-need foreign languages.
SPH students
Emily Pingel, Michelle Marie Johns, and
Anna Eisenberg received the ISIS Award for Young Researchers on Feb. 26 in San Francisco at Sex:Tech, the premier conference examining the interplay between sexual education and technology among youth in the U.S. The award recognizes the students' work with Dr. Jose Bauermeister's SexLab project at UM SPH, for cutting-edge scientific research on digital technology and sexual health. In announcing the award, conference organizers said: "All three researchers have worked with young men who have sex with men, dispelling negative stereotypes about men's behaviors online, and instead working to understand how the Internet is shaping young men's sexual identities, sexuality, and sexual maturation." (Photo by Carrie Rheingans)
SPH's Derrick Yang and Kimberly Nielson are among the 6 future hospital executives who will serve as ARAMARK Healthcare post-graduate fellows, to promote professional development within hospital administration roles. In June, the fellows, representing some of the country’s leading healthcare administration graduate programs, will be mentored by executive preceptors at U.S. hospitals. Yang will be at Advocate Health System in Illinois, and Nielson will be at Bon Secours Health System in Maryland. Both are both second-year students in UM SPH's Health Management and Policy Department, oriented toward administration. Derrick Yang is working toward an M.P.H. and Kimberly Nielson toward an M.H.S.A..
SPH's Findings magazine won 2 Gold Addy Awards from the American Advertising Federation's Ann Arbor chapter, the first level in a three-tier national competition. The Spring/Summer 2009 food issue was chosen by the judges for the Best of Show award (out of 122 entries). Both of the 2009 issues of Findings are now automatically entered in the District competition, which is the next level that includes Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois. District results won't be known until April 10. The magazine's designer, Don Hammond, says, "The creative direction of each issue is truly a happy collaborative endeavor with Findings editor Leslie Stainton and SPH Director of Communications Terri Mellow, with contributions from writers Mary Beth Lewis and Laura Bailey. The wonderful work of photographer Peter Smith also plays a key role in each issue, and Marilyn Bealafeld and the rest of the folks at University Lithoprinters do a masterful job of putting it all together on press." More info.
Ted Zellers, professor of Environmental Health Sciences, is among the key collaborators recognized by the Ted Kennedy Family Team Excellence Award for establishing UM as a world-renowned research center in the area of microelectromechancial systems and integrated microsystems. The research efforts have focused on two testbed microsystems. The first is a family of implantable neural prostheses for disorders such as deafness, paralysis, epilepsy, and Parkinson's disease. The second is a wristwatch-size environmental monitor for pressure, temperature, humidity, radiation-level, and air quality. Zellers
was instrumental in the development of the gas chromatograph, overseeing everything from system architecture to component integration and testing. He demonstrated the detection of biomarkers for tuberculosis and lung cancer. More on the collaboration and award on the UM College of Engineering website.
Honor Potvin of HBHE and a team of UM School of Information students are finalists in the Computer Human Interaction (CHI) 2010 Student Design Competition. They will present their "Mobile Application to Encourage Walking" to a panel of judges at the premier international conference in the field of human-computer interaction in Atlanta on April 12. Potvin's faculty advisor at UM SPH, Cathleen Connell, said: "I'm delighted that this interdisciplinary paper was selected for this prestigious award. The group worked so hard, dedicating part of their holiday break to make this happen." Potvin (standing at work at left) was the public health advisor on the project. She said she was "especially proud to see a reviewer comment about the strong tie-in of health-related
issues." Her fellow team members are Malhar Gupta, Kathryn McCurdy, Eunkyoung Kimberly Song, and Xiaowen Zhang.
HMP's Richard Hirthand co-authors were listed on Health Affairs "Top 20" most-read articles from 2009. The article is "Increased Spending On Health Care: Long-Term Implications For The Nation" by Michael E.
Chernew, Richard A. Hirth, and David M. Cutler.
UM Alumni Association and SPH Career Services Offices have selected the first SPH Michigan Apprentice. Doug Roehler (left), from Health Behavior and Health Education, won an all-expense-paid job-shadowing opportunity with SPH alumnus Dr. Grant Baldwin (right), Director of the Division of Unintentional Injury Prevention at the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control in Atlanta. The office is dedicated to reducing the number and severity of unintentional injuries through science-based programs and applied research. This is the first year the Alumni Association has extended this program to graduate-level students at the School of Public Health. More on the program.
More honors and scientific accomplishments continue to be accrued by Mike Boehnke, the Richard G. Cornell Distinguished University Professor of Biostatistics at UM SPH, and Director of UM's Center for Statistical Genetics and Director, Genome Science Training Program:
He has been named to the newest class of Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is so honored for contributions to the analysis of human genetic data, particularly
to the application of statistical methods to human gene mapping.
He will deliver a Distinguished University Professorship Lecture on Feb. 15 at UM on "Identifying Genes for Type 2 Diabetes."
A recent study that he worked on, which has newly identified genes that influence insulin & glucose regulation, is attracting news coverage, such as in Medical News Today.
Vic Strecher has been named the University of Michigan Distinguished University Innovator for 2010. Strecher, a professor of health behavior and health education at SPH and a successful entrepreneur, has conducted breakthrough research leading to a fundamental shift in how technology is adapted to support preventative health behaviors. An expert in "tailoring," he uses digital technologies to assess specific health needs, and then creates tailor-made plans that help people make better decisions and improve health-related behaviors. More.
SPH's Gail Wardenchaired a 14-member Institute of Medicine committee that takes a hard line against any financing of continuing medical education for corporate gain and seeks a new system that is “much freer of conflict of interest than the current reality.” Continuing education for physicians and other health professionals is in need of a wholesale overhaul, says the report “Redesigning Continuing Education in the Health Professions. It calls for the establishment of a new public-private institute to govern and coordinate all aspects of continuing education. Order the report.
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Dr. Howard Hu, chair and professor of environmental health sciences, has been appointed to the National Advisory Environmental Health Sciences Council. The council is consulted by and provides advice to the Director of the NIH. A major responsibility is to review and make recommendations regarding grant applications to support biomedical research and research training activities. The invitation from HHS Secretary Sebelius outlined a four-year term that began Dec. 1, 2011.
To aid them in covering President Obama's Jan. 27 speech on higher education affordability at the University of Michigan, SPH students Jijean Li and Rachael Strecher were issued press passes by the White House. Strecher, who worked as a photojournalist before coming to SPH, took 
The new associate chair for the University of Michigan School of Public Health Department of Environmental Health Sciences is 
On November 28, SPH Dean Martin Philbert accepted an award for top-tier participation by SPH staff and faculty in MHealthy Rewards worksite wellness program. UM Chief Health Officer Bob Winfield and Senior Director of Health and Well-Being Services LaVaughn Palma-Davis praised SPH for being among "the highest-achieving academic units," thus "helping to create a campus culture of health" and "curbing the rise of long-term health-related costs." They noted that when asked to fill out the 2011 UM health questionnaire, 60% of SPH faculty and staff complied. SPH regularly has strong showings in Active U and other MHealthy programs as well.
Photos at right of the award and SPH's MHealthy committee (from left): Laurie Carpenter, Patty Bradley, Shelagh Saenz, Dean Martin Philbert, Bev Slane, and Laura Baker.
Photos by Peter Smith.
Cecilia "CC" Pryor, Annual Fund and Alumni Relations Assistant Director at UM SPH, was selected as a 2011 Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) District V
UM SPH Assistant Professor of Health Behavior and Health Education Melissa Valerio recently received a 2011 Mentor of the Year award from the
In October in Washington, D.C., Kai Zheng will receive the 2011 New Investigator Award from the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA). This award recognizes early-career achievements in health informatics and significant scholarly contributions on the basis of scientific merit and research excellence. Zheng is an assistant professor of Health Management and Policy at UM SPH and also in the UM School of Information;
he is among the founding faculty of the two schools' new joint program in 
First-year UM SPH student Prince Baawuah has been awarded a Corris Boyd Scholarship for 2011. Sponsored by the Hospital Corporation of America (HCA) and Association of University Programs in Health Administration (AUPHA), it is a $20,000-per-year award toward a master degree in health care management from the AUPHA-member school of the recipient's choice. Baawuah, who comes from Bronx, NY, and earned an economics degree from the City College of New York (CUNY), will pursue an M.P.H. in Health Management and Policy at UM SPH. 
Christy Harris Lemak was awarded the 2011 Excellence in Teaching Award from the 
At this year's Michigan Dietetics Association Meeting, UM SPH Human Nutrition Ph.D. student Olivia Anderson won 2nd place for Best Poster Presentation for her work entitled "Dose-Dependent Shifts in Avy Coat Color Distribution following Maternal Dietary Exposure to Bisphenol A." According to Dana Dolinoy, Anderson's mentor at SPH, "The judges were impressed with how the background was explained in a manner that was very understandable to people who may not be familiar with epigenetics or BPA, and they also liked how she brought it all together and tied in the dietetics profession to the research." The Michigan Dietetic Association (MDA) has been serving Michigan citizens since 1929. 
The American Heart Association has chosen 
Michigan Governor Rick Snyder and the Michigan Department of Community Health chose UM SPH's 
The American Society for Nutrition has chosen 
The UM Board of Regents has approved the appointment of 
Five UM SPH students have been awarded 2011 summer fellowships to work with faculty on projects related to risk science. 
UM SPH Associate Dean for Practice Phyllis Meadows was on the authoring committee for the recent Institute of Medicine (IOM) report "For the Public’s Health: The Role of Measurement in Action and Accountability." The report finds that the United States lacks both a cohesive national strategy and the appropriate measurement tools to track and respond to the social and environmental factors that affect health outcomes. To improve health, the committee suggests changes in the processes, tools, and approaches used to gather information about health outcomes and their determinants. In addition, the committee describes approaches to measurement that can assess and enhance accountability on the part of governmental and other entities that bear responsibility for population health. 
Regents of the University of Michigan in September named Arnold Monto, of UM SPH's Department of Epidemiology, the Thomas Francis, Jr. Collegiate Professor of Public Health, in recognition of important contributions to science, the school, and the university. On Nov. 12, 2010, UM SPH will hold an all-day symposium honoring Professor Monto. It will feature talks by
internationally renowned influenza experts as well as the Thomas Francis
Jr. Lecture, to be delivered by Professor Monto, on the topic of "The Francis Legacy of Influenza." 
In September, the Association of Schools of Public Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention welcomed 29 new fellows to the ASPH/CDC Allan Rosenfield Global Health Fellowship Program. Three of them are from UM SPH. Fellows now begin their assignments 11 countries abroad, as well as at CDC headquarters in Atlanta. UM SPH fellows and their placements are: Ashley Burson (Atlanta), Catherine Herzog (Zambia), and Pamela Mallinga (Rwanda). 
HMP's Daniel Eisenberg was awarded the 2010 John D. Thompson Prize for Young Investigators at the Association of University Programs in Health Administration (AUPHA) annual meeting in Portland this summer. Eisenberg was recognized for his contribution to knowledge in health services, including his research project, 
Regents of the University of Michigan in July approved Betsy Foxman as the first holder of the newly endowed Hunein F. and Hilda Maassab Professorship in Epidemiology. Foxman is also director of UM's Center for Molecular and Clinical Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases.
University of Michigan is well represented in the new class of ASPH/CDC Public Health Fellows, who will be working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in conjunction with the Association of Schools of Public Health. Michigan scholars won 3 of the 18 highly competitive fellowships this year; they are Stacy Endres, Rachel Weintraub and Yoshimi Yamakawa. The fellows will be working with teams of public health experts within CDC, contributing to CDC’s Health Protection Goals. Fellows will be placed within six of the CDC national centers including: National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDPHP); National Center Health Statistics (NCHS); National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention (NCHHSTP); National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD); National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC); and National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). 
David Schottenfeld, UM's John G. Searle Professor Emeritus of Epidemiology and Internal Medicine, will receive the 2010 Harvard School of Public Health Alumni Award of Merit. The award recognizes a graduate whose "leadership, community service, contributions, and commitment to the field of public health exemplify the ideals set forth by the Harvard School of Public Health."
The award ceremony will be held on September 25 at the Harvard Medical School. Dr. Schottenfeld, a longtime UM faculty member, is a specialist in cancer epidemiology and prevention, with a focus on prostate, breast,
endometrial and colorectal cancers.
Neal Krause has won the 2010 Richard Kalish Innovative Publication Award from the Gerontological Society of America Behavioral and Social Sciences section. Krause is the Marshall H. Becker Collegiate Professor of Health Behavior and Health Education at UM SPH. The award recognizes insightful and innovation publications on aging and life course development in the behavioral and social sciences. The committee judged Krause's book Aging in the Church to be an important, innovative, and potentially transformational publication in the field. The award will be presented ($500 award and plaque) at the BSS business meeting at the GSA annual meeting in November.
Denise Brooks-Williams, a graduate of both the UM SPH Department of Health Management & Policy and its Summer Enrichment Program, has been named to 
Roderick Little, the Richard Remington Collegiate Professor of Biostatistics at SPH and a research professor at the UM Institute for Social Research, has been named to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the prestigious
society that recognizes individuals who have made significant
contributions in scholarly and professional fields. Little focuses his primary research interest on incomplete data, sample surveys, Bayesian statistics and applied statistics, specifically analysis of data sets with missing values. 
SPH Health Behavior and Health Education Ph.D. student Minal Patel, who is also affiliated with the UM Center for Managing Chronic Disease, won second-place in the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan Foundation's 2010 Excellence in Research Award for Students competition. Minal submitted her article "Physician communication regarding cost when prescribing asthma medication to children" for this award; it was published in June 2009 in 
"The Michigan Apprentice Program was an opportunity of a lifetime," says Doug Roehler, left, of his work experience with UM SPH alumnus Grant Baldwin, right, who directs the Division of Unintentional Injury Prevention at the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control in Atlanta. Read 
Carrie Rheingans has been named by the National Association of Social Workers as this year's Social Work Student of the Year at the University of Michigan. A dual-degree student, she is pursuing an M.P.H. in health behavior and health education at the UM School of Public Health and an M.S.W. in community organization and social systems at the UM School of Social Work. In her field placement at the HIV/AIDS Resource Center (HARC) in Ypsilanti, she develops strategies for media usage and communication with volunteers. She writes a 
SPH students
Emily Pingel, Michelle Marie Johns, and
Anna Eisenberg received the ISIS Award for Young Researchers on Feb. 26 in San Francisco at Sex:Tech, the premier conference examining the interplay between sexual education and technology among youth in the U.S. The award recognizes the students' work with 
SPH's Findings magazine
Honor Potvin of HBHE and a team of UM School of Information students are finalists in the Computer Human Interaction (CHI) 2010 Student Design Competition. They will present their "Mobile Application to Encourage Walking" to a panel of judges at the premier international conference in the field of human-computer interaction in Atlanta on April 12. Potvin's faculty advisor at UM SPH, Cathleen Connell, said: "I'm delighted that this interdisciplinary paper was selected for this prestigious award. The group worked so hard, dedicating part of their holiday break to make this happen." Potvin (standing at work at left) was the public health advisor on the project. She said she was "especially proud to see a reviewer comment about the strong tie-in of health-related
issues." Her fellow team members are Malhar Gupta, Kathryn McCurdy, Eunkyoung Kimberly Song, and Xiaowen Zhang.
UM Alumni Association and SPH Career Services Offices have selected the first SPH Michigan Apprentice. Doug Roehler (left), from Health Behavior and Health Education, won an all-expense-paid job-shadowing opportunity with SPH alumnus Dr. Grant Baldwin (right), Director of the Division of Unintentional Injury Prevention at the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control in Atlanta. The office is dedicated to reducing the number and severity of unintentional injuries through science-based programs and applied research. This is the first year the Alumni Association has extended this program to graduate-level students at the School of Public Health. 
SPH's 
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