Weekly news from the School of Public Health at Washington University in St. Louis
March 17, 2025
Dear colleagues,
I hope everyone has had a good weekend.
We begin this week excited to welcome our first group of secondary faculty — an interdisciplinary mix of scientists, scholars, and educators who will help us shape the School of Public Health.
Joining the school
Our initial, inaugural group of secondary faculty to announce this week.
Mary McKay, PhD, is a WashU executive vice provost and former dean of the Brown School. Her research focus is child- and family-focused HIV prevention and care, poverty and economic inequality, and public health interventions to strengthen families, communities and systems. She also brings expertise in implementation research methods.
Patrick Aguilar, MD, MBA, is the managing director of health and a professor of practice of organizational behavior at Olin Business, and maintains a practice in pulmonary medicine at WashU Medicine. He works at the intersection of business and public health, aligning financial returns with social good, bridging academic theory with solutions to drive change and help health-care providers, employers, investors, and entrepreneurs use business as a force for better health.
Ozge Sensoy Bahar, PhD, MSW, is a research associate professor at the Brown School. Her research focuses on child and family well-being in global contexts characterized by poverty and associated stressors.
Devin Banks, PhD, is an assistant professor of psychiatry at WashU Medicine. Her research interests are racial and cultural determinants of health, substance use development and prevention, behavioral health equity, and community-engaged research and intervention.
Patricia Cavazos-Rehg, PhD, is a professor of psychiatry and director of the Division of Addiction Science, Prevention, and Treatment at WashU Medicine. Her research interests include mental health epidemiology, and understanding how policy and technology shape health behaviors of young people.
Daniel Giammar, PhD, is the Walter E. Browne Professor of Environmental Engineering at McKelvey School of Engineering and director of the Center for the Environment. Hisresearch focuses on sustainable solutions to produce safe drinking water.
Phillip L. Marotta, PhD, MPH, is an assistant professor at the Brown School. His research focuses on the impact of the criminal legal system on disparities in public health, with an emphasis on substance use treatment interventions in justice-involved populations and the HIV care continuum for justice-involved persons with substance use disorders.
Aaron M. Schuh, MD, MPH, is an assistant professor of pediatrics in the Division of Adolescent Medicine at WashU Medicine. His work focuses on eating disorders, sexual and reproductive health, and mood disorders.
Nicholas Szoko, MD, PhD, is an assistant professor of pediatrics in the Division of Adolescent Medicine at WashU Medicine. His research has focused on identifying protective factors to support systems-involved youth, as well as design, implementation, and evaluation of community-partnered youth empowerment programs.
Carol Camp Yeakey, PhD, is the Marshall S. Snow Professor of Arts & Sciences. She is a professor of education, urban studies, African and African American studies, American culture studies and global studies, as well as founding director of the Center on Urban Research & Public Policy and the Interdisciplinary Program in Urban Studies. Her primary area of research is social welfare policy as it pertains to marginalized children, young adults and families and the neighborhood contexts in which they live.
Hilary E.L. Reno, MD, PhD, is a professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at WashU Medicine, and principal investigator (PI) of the St. Louis STI/ HIV Prevention Training Center. Her research focuses on the use of large clinical databases to improve care for sexually transmitted infections (STIs).
To all, thank you for becoming a part of the School of Public Health.
The past week
We hosted Jaime Miranda, MD, MSc, PhD, professor and head of the School of Public Health at the University of Sydney, and International Distinguished Visiting Scholar, for a talk on the topic of rethinking chronic disease. See here for a recording of the talk.
Next week
Sarah Moreland-Russell, PhD, MPH, an associate professor in the School of Public Health, will speak at noon Tuesday, March 18, on “Power and possibility of policy: Implementation Science for promoting equitable and sustainable public health policy.” The talk will be in Brown Lounge in Brown Hall on the Danforth Campus. RSVP here to attend in person or over Zoom.
Dana March Palmer, PhD, MPH, senior associate provost for academic programs, associate dean for doctoral education in public health, director of undergraduate studies in public health and an assistant professor of epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, will speak at 9 a.m. Wednesday, March 19, on “Public Health Education for the Next Generation; Here and Now, Why and How.” Her talk, sponsored in part by the Program in Public Health & Society in Arts & Sciences, will be in 333A Goldfarb Hall on the Danforth Campus. RSVP here to attend in person or over Zoom.
Lindsey Filiatreau, PhD, MPH, an assistant professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases at WashU Medicine, will speak at noon Wednesday, March 19, on “’What I know is that people don’t die from HIV, they die from stress:’ Closing the mental health treatment gap for people living with HIV in the Global South.” The talk will be in 333A Goldfarb Hall on the Danforth Campus. RSVP here to attend in person or over Zoom.
Public Health Ideas
A video of my conversation with Lindsay Stark, DrPH, of the Brown School, and soon, the School of Public Health. We discussed a paper she co-authored, “Meaning-focused coping as a cultural process: A mixed quantitative and PhotoVoice study of adolescents with Arab backgrounds overcoming stigma and harassment.” To read the paper, see here.
Also this week
Some excellent work by one of our faculty, Salma Abdalla, MBBS, DrPH, an assistant professor of public health, was featured in The Record, here.
If interested, in The Healthiest Goldfish, some thoughts on how can we be a constructive influence in the midst of challenge and uncertainty.
To all, a positive week ahead.
Warmly,
Sandro
Margaret C. Ryan Dean of the School of Public Health
Eugene S. and Constance Kahn Distinguished Professor in Public Health
Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary Initiatives
Washington University in St Louis
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