Weekly news from the School of Public Health at Washington University in St. Louis
Dear colleagues,
Welcome to Public Health in Progress for the week of Jan. 20, 2025. Two notes: Past PHiPs, as well as monthly Community Notes, are archived here. And, you are receiving this email if you signed up for it or are a core member of the School of Public Health (SPH) community. Please feel free to reach out to Elizabethe Holland Durando, our Director of Communications, if you would like an item added to a future PHiP or if you would like to change your subscription.
Before I get into updates, an acknowledgement that today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, when we honor the legacy of someone who did much to shape a healthier world. Martin Luther King Jr. dedicated his life to the pursuit of social and economicjustice, both of which are central to the creation of healthy populations. He was brave in times of challenge, compassionate to all — including those who deeply, even violently, disagreed with him —and gifted with the ability to envision a radically better future and then express that vision in indelible words. In this time of challenge and division, his example reflects how individuals can make a central, defining difference in creating a better tomorrow, reminding us, as he said in his 1965 Commencement Address at Oberlin College, “The time is always right to do what’s right.”
Today, an update looking back, looking ahead.
The past week
Much of my time is taken up by the work I summarized in last week’s PHiP, so I will not repeat that here or weekly. Broadly, I continue meeting a number of colleagues throughout the university and in the community, as I both learn about the community and think about how we may build programs that advance our mission. We are as a team continuing the work of recruiting faculty and staff, as noted in previous communications and on the website, and we have a strong focus on the steps we need to put in place toward accreditation happening at the end of this year.
In terms of specific updates, we held our first School Assembly for faculty and staff this past week. We discussed progress in building the school, including an update on faculty and staff hiring, and space, and had a discussion about key priorities in the coming year. I enjoyed the meeting and conversation; thank you to all who were there. Notes from all School Assemblies, for those who could not attend, are archived here.
Looking ahead
This week we have our first Talking Public Health seminar scheduled.
At noon Jan. 23, Daniel Zhao is speaking on the topic of “Statistical Analysis of Family Studies with Kinship Matrices: Applications to the Strong Heart Family Study.” Zhao, associate dean for research and Presidential Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences’ Hudson College of Public Health, will speak in 333A Goldfarb Hall on the Danforth Campus. To register to attend in person or over Zoom, see here.
Please join us if you are free.
Joining the School of Public Health
As Professor Debra Haire-Joshu transitions to the school, the staff from the Center for Obesity Prevention & Policy Research and Center for Diabetes Translation Research Team also are joining SPH. A welcome to the following.
Evelyn Annor (MPH ’26) is a graduate research assistant who just started working with the team and is responsible for supporting center marketing and communication activities.
Ronni Byrth has worked with the center for over 10 years and is currently managing the NIH HEALTH-P2 and HEALTH clinical trials while also pursuing a PMBA at the Olin School of Business, and also was selected and is a current participant in the Emerging Leaders Program, cohort 2024.
Alejandra Cortez, a registered dietician, has worked with the center for one year and oversees the implementation of the intervention for the NIH-NHLBI ENRICH Multi-Site Clinical Trial and has a background in nutrition and interest in food insecurity.
Jasdeep Dulay (MPH/MBA ’26) has worked as a graduate research assistant for one year and is responsible for supporting the center evaluation activities.
Shelly Kannuthurai, MPH, a registered dietician, has worked with the center for over six years and manages the WashU Center for Diabetes Translation Research and the Institute for Implementation Science Scholars (IS-2) training program and is also a member of the WUNDIR working group.
Bria Lee-Robinson, MPH, has worked with the center for over two years and oversees data collection for the NIH-NHLBI ENRICH Multi-Site Clinical Trial and manages the pilot studies for WashU Center for Diabetes Translation Research.
Nelly Lugo has worked for one year at the center and is responsible for recruitment and data collection for the NIH-NHLBI ENRICH Multi-Site Clinical Trial.
Abygail Martinez has worked over two years recruiting and monitoring participants, managing post-data collection, and serving as the liaison between our Spanish-speaking families and community partners for the NIH HEALTH-P2 and HEALTHclinical trials.
Alejandra Munoz-Rivera, MPH, MSP, CPH, has worked with the center for over four years starting as a graduate research assistant and is now the evaluation manager for the WashU Center for Diabetes Translation Research.
Cindy Schwarz, MPH, MS, also a registered dietician, has worked with the center for over 16 years and has managed seven NIH-funded clinical trials including the current NIH-funded trials HEALTH-P2, HEALTH, NIH-NHLBI ENRICH Multi-Site Clinical Trial and WashU Center for Diabetes Translation Research.
A note about education strategic thinking
Our focus for the year is on building the faculty, staff, and structures we need for accreditation, scheduled, as previously noted, for the fall. I realize that in previous years there has been an annual education retreat in the spring semester around public health teaching. We are pausing on this retreat this spring as we focus on accreditation, but we will indeed return to it after that, as part of a comprehensive strategic direction review after accreditation. I anticipate that 2026 will be taken up by strategic planning that includes all our staff, faculty, and students, which will be exciting indeed.
Where is the School of Public Health?
As we create the first new school at WashU in 100 years, there are a number of elements still in evolution. One of them is space for the school. As discussed at the School Assembly, right now we are on the Garden Level in Hillman (suites 20, 30, 40), and we are in conversation and close to securing space at 4300 Duncan Ave. as part of the Cortex complex. We hope that we will have that space lined up by June to allow us to have space, on both Danforth and Medical campuses, where we can build our faculty and staff communities as the school evolves.
Public Health ideas
A video of my conversation with Professor Lora Iannotti on her paper “Wild Foods Are Positively Associated with Diet Diversity and Child Growth in a Protected Forest Area of Madagascar,” is here. Thank you to Professor Iannotti for being a part of this.
Also this week
If interested, here is this week’s post in The Healthiest Goldfish, on “Challenging health in 2025,” further thoughts on seizing opportunities to shape a healthier world in the new year.
I hope everyone has a good week ahead.
Warmly,
Sandro
Sandro Galea, MD, DrPH
Margaret C. Ryan Dean of the School of Public Health
Eugene S. and Constance Kahn Distinguished Professor in Public Health
Washington University in St Louis