Dean’s Message – February 2025
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Last week I had the pleasure of attending an event organized by our Student Advisory Board called Brewed Ideas. The evening – part social mixer for faculty and graduate students, part research presentations – hinged on a wonderfully unique premise: three teams of faculty-student pairings demonstrated their research topics either through Pictionary or in completely jargon-free language. Everyone who attended had a blast – and we were all so impressed by the artistic ability of our students!
Brewed Ideas was the culmination of a 2-year long conversation on how we can engage graduate students and our faculty. I greatly appreciate the leadership of our board, and particularly Carissa Lange, a doctoral student in Environmental Health Sciences whose vision helped guide this evening to fruition. This night is just one example of many that illustrates the creative and important role our student advisory board has in the school.
I am also pleased to announce that we have two Advance Award recipients in our school. Dr. Lindiwe Sibeko, Chair of our Department of Nutrition, has won the Advance Mentor Award in SPHHS. This award recognizes the vital role faculty play in mentoring their colleagues. This is so well deserved, and we are very proud of Dr. Sibeko. Second, Dr. Raphael Arku, a faculty member in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences, has won this year's ADVANCE Equitable Practices in Collaboration Award for his work with the Holyoke Community Energy Project. This award recognizes effective and equitable collaboration practices. Congratulations to Dr. Arku and the Holyoke Community Energy Project; an exemplary model of community engagement.
Earlier this month, I traveled with David Catrambone, our Executive Director of Development, and two of our faculty members, Jasleen Singh from Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, and Amanda Paluch from Kinesiology, to attend the Delray Beach capital campaign event. The evening included talks by Kim Dumpson, Vice President for Advancement at the UMass Amherst Foundation, Provost Fouad Abd-El-Khalick, Drs. Singh and Paluch; and faculty from the Elaine Marieb College of Nursing. Drs. Singh and Paluch were incredibly articulate in describing their research and its application to our alumni living in Florida – and around the world. It is an honor to be the dean of the school, witnessing firsthand your faculty doing an amazing job of communicating the public health importance of their research. I’d like to thank them both for taking the time to attend with me and David. I hope you all have seen our goals for the Accelerate campaign.
I would like to end with a simple message during this time of uncertainty in support of higher education and science research. Investing in public health and health sciences is a win for all. Public health interventions improve health outcomes and save money by preventing or reducing the burden of diseases, decreasing healthcare costs, and increasing economic productivity. A well-trained public health and health care workforce saves lives. Join us in advocating for the importance of the field, educating the next generation, and investing in new innovations and pushing the science forward in our fields.