A note of gratitude
Thank you to all who attended the inaugural faculty and staff retreat last week. We had an excellent day generating ideas that will serve as catalysts for the formation of our strategic plan. Slides from the day are available here. Please contact Liz Vestal with any additional feedback or questions.
To all students, doctoral candidates, postdoctoral scholars, staff, and faculty, please note that we will be seeking your input throughout the next six months as we shape our strategic plan, and will note upcoming opportunities in future newsletters.
How we do our work; administrative units, key contacts
As we discussed August 13 at the School of Public Health orientation for faculty and staff, our goal is to build an administrative structure that supports the mission of the school. Aiming to distill what was presented at the orientation, and also to have information available to all who were not able to attend, here is a quick summary of each of the school’s administrative units. The website also has details on these units.
The Office of the Dean is centrally responsible for helping ensure we stay aligned on our vision, and represents the school externally. It also supports continuous improvement through strategic planning, accreditation, special projects, and the convening of events that advance our collective mission. The Office of the Dean also interacts with and is guided by our Community Advisory Board and National Council. To engage with the Office of the Dean, the key contact is Chief of Staff and Associate Dean for Strategic Initiatives Amanda Rhodes, amandarhodes@wustl.edu. For scheduling, please contact Caroline Caligiuri, sphdean@wustl.edu.
Administrative operations are overseen by the Office of Administration. This office provides financial oversight, manages facilities and operations, administers grants, and delivers key support services. It ensures compliance with institutional policies, fosters efficiency, partners with university administrative units and builds the administrative infrastructure on which the school is built. To engage with the Office of Administration, the key contact is Associate Dean of Administration Sunghei Han, shan@wustl.edu. For matters related to grants, the key contact is Director of Financial Management and Grants Administration Christy Potthast, christy.potthast@wustl.edu.
Our educational mission is led by the Office of Education, which is responsible for academic programs, student support, admissions and recruitment, maintaining academic records, and professional development for our teachers. This office oversees doctoral and master’s degree programs, applied practice experiences, academic advising, and student affairs. The Office of Education plays a central role in recruiting, supporting, and preparing students to lead in public health practice, research, and service. To engage with the Office of Education, the key contact is Associate Dean of Education Angela Hobson, hobsona@wustl.edu.
The success of our faculty is supported by the Office of Faculty Affairs. This office partners with faculty at every stage of their careers, promoting professional development, supporting appointment and promotion processes, enhancing work-life balance, and fostering a collegial and inclusive environment. It also serves as a bridge between faculty and administration to ensure transparency and shared understanding of academic policies. To engage with the Office of Faculty Affairs, the key contact is Associate Dean of Faculty Affairs Debra Haire-Joshu, djoshu@wustl.edu.
The Office of Research provides the infrastructure to support and grow faculty research. It assists with grant preparation, compliance, and budgeting, and facilitates access to data analytics and technical support. It also fosters connections with funding agencies and research networks to advance our scholarly mission. To engage with the Office of Research, the key contact is Interim Dean of Research Lisa Klesges, lisa.waller@wustl.edu.
Innovation and collaboration are at the heart of the Office of Networks and Innovation. This office works to build interdisciplinary partnerships and strategic alliances through our Innovation Research Networks, to enhance the visibility and impact of our research through advanced data management, analytics, and visualization. To engage with the Office of Networks and Innovation, the key contact is Executive Director of Networks and Innovation Morven McLean, morven@wustl.edu.
Communication is essential to how we build our identity and share our work with the world. The Office of Communication manages both internal and external communications, develops content across multiple formats, manages the school’s website and social media accounts, helps coordinate media and brand management, and partners closely with Advancement and University Marketing & Communications teams. This office ensures that the stories of our people, programs, and impact are heard clearly and broadly. To engage with the Office of Communication, the key contact is Director of Communications and Change Management Elizabethe Holland Durando, elizabethe.durando@wustl.edu.
And finally, we are building our Office of Practice, which shall be responsible for our engagement with the world outside the university, to help create pathways for our work to be translated into the real world, with a clear eye to local and global impact. An associate dean of practice shall lead this office. Until one is named, please contact Amanda Rhodes, Chief of Staff, Office of the Dean, for any practice-related questions.
This organizational structure aims to enable us to do what we do. All of these units are committed to working with staff, faculty, and students to advance our shared goals, and to replying to emails within one business day. As always, please let anyone on the leadership team know if any questions.
From the associate dean for education
RSVP for student orientation
Please register, if you haven’t already, for SPH student orientation, which is Thursday, August 21, and Friday, August 22. The event is designed to help acquaint new and continuing students with the School of Public Health and to build engagement with the WashU community. Student orientation activities will begin at 8 a.m. each day in the Clark-Fox Forum, on the first floor of Hillman Hall. See the agenda for details on orientation, as well as related activities. If you have any questions, feel free to contact SPH’s Admissions Office.
Public Health news
Rich trove of data on social needs waits to be tapped
“We’re sitting on a massive trove of information on what largely poor people in America need on a day-to-day basis,” said Matthew Kreuter, MPH, PhD, the Kahn Family Professor of Public Health, regarding 211 Counts, a project of WashU Public Health’s Health Communication Research Laboratory. 211 Counts compiles data on calls made to 211 — a national helpline that connects people seeking food, shelter, transportation, health care and other necessities with local health and social service organizations — and presents the collected data on a public dashboard, updated daily and broken down by locality. Read about the project, its data, its reach — and its untapped potential.the right teams for faster, more consistent service.
For healthier people and a healthier planet
The School of Public Health serves as a hub, bringing in experts from WashU’s eight other schools to elevate existing work and create synergies for new collaborations. With that in mind, the Food and Agricultural Research Mission (FARM) was launched in February to address the issue of food — its safety, security, sustainability and more — highlighting how this new culture of collaboration can work. Read more about FARM in WashU Magazine.
Ohio train disaster led to high rates of PTSD, depression
The 2023 East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment and chemical spill led to elevated rates of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and major depression in affected communities, according to a study by researchers, including SPH members Salma Abdalla, MBBS, DrPH, an assistant professor; Mohammed Abba-Aji, MD, MPH, director of special projects for SPH; and Sandro Galea, MD, DrPH, the Margaret C. Ryan Dean of the School of Public Health and the Eugene S. and Constance Kahn Distinguished Professor in Public Health. Distrust of public officials and uncertainty about chemical exposure were key predictors of mental health issues. Read about the mental health effects of the disaster.
In the news
Timothy McBride, MS, PhD, the Bernard Becker Professor at the School of Public Health, talks to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch about how five years after Missouri voters expanded Medicaid, sign-ups exceed expectations. He also was quoted in a Kansas City Star story about the potential effects of Medicaid cuts on rural hospitals.
Patrick Aguilar, MD, MBA, professor of practice of organizational behavior and managing director of health at Olin Business School, and a secondary faculty member at SPH, talks to Newsweek about the loss of local pharmacies.
Morgan Shields, PhD, assistant professor at the School of Public Health, was quoted in the New Pittsburgh Courier about a study showing that psychiatric hospitalizations sometimes do more harm than good.
Matthew Kreuter, MPH, PhD, the Kahn Family Professor of Public Health, spoke to the St. Louis American about why mental health has overtaken gun violence as the top concern of Black St. Louisans.
New to the school
We welcome a new secondary faculty member and a new staff member this week.
Health systems expert Margaret Kruk, MD, MPH, the Distinguished Endowed Professor of Health Systems and Medicine at WashU Medicine, joins the School of Public Health secondary faculty as a professor. Kruk is the director of the Quality Evidence for Health System Transformation (QuEST) Network, a multi-country research consortium working to produce a global evidence base for improving health systems. She is also director of the WashU QuEST Center. Kruk and her team use implementation science and econometric methods to design and evaluate large-scale health system reforms.
Emily Nelson, MPH, joins the School of Public Health’s Prevention Research Center as a member of the research team of Sarah Moreland-Russell, MPH, PhD, an associate professor at SPH. Nelson is an epidemiologist who recently completed an Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) Fellowship at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Funding opportunity
Transcend Initiative Grant call for proposals
The Transcend Initiative Grant supports the development of new cross-school interdisciplinary research initiatives that align with the Here and Next Priority Areas of Public and Global Health, Environmental Research, Digital Transformation, or Research Impacting the St. Louis Community. The LOI application portal for FY 2026 Transcend Initiative Grants is open via InfoReady. Applicants will receive invitations to the full proposal portal after the LOI review process has been completed. For details about the Transcend Initiative Grants, see here.
Papers of note
Rachel Tabak, PhD, RD, an associate professor at SPH, was the lead author on “Implementation of Evidence-Based Behavioral Interventions for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention in Community Settings: A Scientific Statement From the American Heart Association,” published in Circulation.
Massy Mutumba, MPH, PhD, an assistant professor at SPH, was the corresponding author on “The Intersection of Caregiving and Financial Vulnerability: Empowerment Barriers for Women in Sex Work,” published in Child and Youth Services Review.
Julia D. López, PhD, MPH, an assistant professor of medicine at WashU Medicine and a member of the secondary faculty at SPH, was the senior author on “From Crisis to Connection: HIV Care Telehealth as an Antidote to Loneliness During the COVID-19 Stay-at-Home Era,” published in AIDS and Behavior.
Notables
Morgan Shields, MS, PhD, assistant professor at the School of Public Health, has been appointed to the National Committee for Quality Assurance’s Behavioral Health Measurement Advisory Panel. The committee accredits public and private health plans – work that includes developing performance measures to support quality and accountability.
Carol Camp Yeakey, PhD, the Marshall S. Snow Professor of Arts & Sciences and a secondary faculty member of the School of Public Health, in July presented at the International Sociological Association meeting at Muhammad V University, in Rabat, Morocco. Her presentation was titled “Corporate Investors and the Housing Affordability Crisis: Having Wall Street as your Landlord.”
Elvin Geng, MD, MPH, a professor of medicine at WashU Medicine, a member of the secondary faculty at the School of Public Health, and a co-director of the School of Public Health’s Dissemination & Implementation Science Innovation Research Network (DISIRN), has been named editor-in-chief of the journal Implementation Science Communications. For more, see here.
“Empowering Informed Patient Decisions and Reducing Financial Burden of Care,” a case study on the work of Mary Politi, PhD, a professor at SPH, was featured on the Translational Science Benefits Model webpage.
Looking ahead
The Longest Table
The Gephardt Institute for Civic and Community Engagement is hosting The Longest Table, a dinner-and-dialogue event, from 5-6:30 p.m. Wednesday, September 3, in Tisch Park. The event is an opportunity for students to meet new people, get more comfortable conversing with faculty and staff, and to find common ground while learning more about how to amicably engage with civic topics and in the St. Louis community. For more information and to RSVP, see here.
Call for abstracts
Friday, August 22, is the deadline to submit abstracts for the annual Siteman Cancer Research Symposium & Poster Showcase, which will be October 10 at the Eric P. Newman Education Center (EPNEC) on the Medical Campus. See here for details.
D&I Bootcamp proposals
If you have a dissemination and implementation research proposal in the works, or an idea for one, submit a proposal for discussion at the D&I Proposal Development Bootcamp, co-sponsored by the Dissemination & Implementation Science Innovation Research Network (DISIRN). To participate, submit a concept paper by September 22. For more information, see the D&I Bootcamp page.
Visual Informed Consent Workshop
The Visual Informed Consent Workshop will be held from 8 a.m.-1 p.m. September 25 at the Eric P. Newman Education Center (EPNEC) on the Medical Campus. Informed-consent forms for research can be confusing for participants and challenging for study recruiters. Learn about a novel approach that uses visual elements & health literacy best practices to present such information in a simple, engaging way. Details and registration here.
SPH faculty development seminars
SPH will hold a faculty development seminar, on “Enhancing Your Mentorship Practice,” at noon September 16, with Alison Antes, PhD, of WashU Medicine. Antes directs a national program aimed at supporting early-career researchers and enhancing their leadership and management skills, and co-directs a coaching program for researchers facing issues related to research integrity or compliance. The location is yet to be determined, but register here to attend in person or over Zoom.
A second SPH faculty development seminar, on “Enhancing Effectiveness Through Communication Skills,” will be held at noon October 14. The location and speaker are TBD, but register here to attend in person or over Zoom.
Of note
Dean Galea’s The Healthiest Goldfish, on the value of engaging with difficult ideas from disagreeable sources: “It bears conversation.”
Also, Dean Galea on “The Health Consequences of Nonhealth Policies in a Time of Policy Disruption” in JAMA Health Forum.
Let us know
If you have SPH news, events or research to share, please send details to sphcomms@wustl.edu or Elizabethe Holland Durando, SPH director of communications and change management.