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Anand Parekh's View from D.C.
The Deputy Assistant Secretary of Health (Science and Medicine) for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services answers questions about the nation's public health agenda and more.

Auld on Michigan
The chief executive officer of the Society for Public Health Education and 2010's Distinguished Alumna on what's special about Michigan'

Smith in the Philippines
Zach Smith on the U.S. Marine Corps' first deployment of its Forward Resuscitative Surgical System (FRSS), which provides general surgery in combat environments.

Ho at Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi
Jenny Ho is in Abu Dhabi helping launch a 364-bed hospital and clinic.

Artley Recycling on Campus
Tracy Artley went from the Washtenaw County Solid Waste Program to work as UM's recycling coordinator.

Alumni Class Notes

1950s
In April, Bailus Walker Jr., MPH '59, gave the keynote address at the commemorative anniversary of the 1997 Presidential Apology for the U.S. Public Health Service Syphilis Study in Macon County (Tuskegee), Alabama. Walker's address kicked off a two-day symposium celebrating the establishment of the Tuskegee University National Center for Bioethics in Research and Health Care. Walker is a professor of environmental and occupational medicine, Howard University College of Medicine.

1960s
David Perlman, MPH '69, working in association with Joseph Himle, UM associate professor of social work and psychiatry, has received a two-year, $1.1 million small-business technology-transfer grant from the National Institutes of Health to further their work on a device to assist people who suffer from chronic hair-pulling, skin-picking, and nail-biting. Perlman hopes the device may be ready for manufacturing within two years.

1970s
The retired head of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois, Paul S. Boulis, MHA '73, has been named to the board of advisors for Stonegate Advisors, a health care and wellness strategy firm that consults for the nation's top 10 health insurance companies. "With the recent passing of reform, Paul's insights will help guide Stonegate's contributions to the industry as the convergence of best practices occurs between insurers, brokers, benefits consultants, and corporate human resource directors," said Stonegate President Marc Pierce. Boulis also serves on the board of the UM SPH Griffith Leadership Center.

Garry Lindsay, MPH '77, is the new director of health education and promotion for Federal Occupational Health Service, a non-appropriated agency and service unit within the Department of Health and Human Services, which provides occupational health and wellness services exclusively to federal employees.

1980s
As chief medical officer of Northrop Grumman Corporations information systems sector, Sam Shekar, MD, MPH '87, provides strategic direction for the company's health information technology business and serves as an adviser on IT and health-policy issues. Before joining Northrop Grumman, Shekar was a physician consultant with the U.S. Public Health Service. He has also held executive-level health policy management positions at the Office of Public Health and Science, the National Institutes of Health, and the Health Resources and Services Administration.

1990s
Stacy Goldberg, MPH '99, RN, BSN, has won the 2010 Greater West Bloomfield Chamber of Commerce "Young Entrepreneur of the Year" award. In the past three years, Goldberg founded A Weigh of Life/What's in Your Cart?™, LLC, which focuses on making healthy grocery-shopping choices and daily lifestyle changes.

The Rhode Island Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition has given its Silver Rattle Award to Maureen G. Phipps, MD, MPH '99, an obstetrician and gynecologist at Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island and an associate professor of ob/gyn and vice chair for research in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. Among numerous other roles, Phipps is a co-principal investigator in the National Children's Study, a landmark research project aimed at improving children's health, and chair of the Rhode Island Task Force on Preterm Births. The Silver Rattle award is given each year to someone who has "shaken up the system" for mothers and babies in Rhode Island.

As the first chief administrative officer for the UM Health System (UMHS), Quinta Vreede, MHSA '95, oversees regulatory compliance, government relations, public relations, and marketing for UMHS, and also serves as chief of staff to UM Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs Ora Hirsch Pescovitz. Previously, Vreede was lead administrator for the UM Medical School's Department of Family Medicine, with lead responsibility as well for five UMHS outpatient centers in her role as an ambulatory care administrator.

2000s
Hamdan Azhar, MS '10, published an op-ed on the "Ground Zero Mosque" controversy in the August 4, 2010, edition of the Christian Science Monitor. In his op-ed, Azhar, who was born in Pakistan and moved to Brooklyn, New York, when he was two, laments the fact that "so many in our society remain mired in archaic notions of 'us' vs. 'them,' of 'the same' vs. 'the other,' failing to realize how useless these constructs are
in this day and age." Azhar is currently pursuing a PhD in neuroscience at the University of Chicago.

A report on childhood diseases co-authored by Aviva Glaser, MPH '10, received coverage in July from both the Detroit News and Michigan Radio. Released by a coalition of health and environmental groups, the report notes that Michigan could save up to 1.5 percent of its annual gross domestic product by protecting children from environmental exposures. Glaser worked on the report as part of her field experience with the Ann Arbor Ecology Center. She is now on the staff of the National Wildlife Federation in Washington, D.C.

Lisa VanRaemdonck, MPH/MSW '07, is executive director of the Colorado Association of Local Public Health Officials and the Public Health Alliance of Colorado.

Erika Willacy, MPH '03, is a lead health education specialist with the Immigrant, Refugee, and Migrant Health Branch of the Division of Global Migration and Quarantine at the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.