Karen DeSalvo to Deliver 2018 Convocation Address.

Karen DeSalvo, former acting assistant secretary for health and national coordinator for health information technology at the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and former New Orleans health commissioner, will deliver the 2018 School of Public Health Convocation Address.

DeSalvo is currently professor of medicine and population health at the University of Texas at Austin Dell Medical School, where she works on a range of projects seeking to leverage technology and digital health in the areas of community health, medical care, and research related to the social determinants of health.

She served as acting assistant secretary for health at HHS from 2014 to 2017. In that role, she oversaw 12 core public health offices and 10 regional health offices across the nation, as well as the Office of the Surgeon General.

From 2014 to 2016, DeSalvo also served as the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology at HHS, setting national strategy and policy on health IT. She led the charge to develop an interoperable health IT system for the US, creating and executing a revised national strategy for health IT that shifts focus from electronic health records to standardized data.

Before joining HHS, DeSalvo transformed New Orleans’ outmoded health department while serving as the city’s health commissioner. Following Hurricane Katrina, she was a community leader in building an innovative and award-winning model of neighborhood-based community health services for low-income, uninsured, and other vulnerable people in the New Orleans area.

DeSalvo is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and was a recipient of the Surgeon General’s Medallion, the highest honor bestowed by the US Public Health Service. She holds a medical doctorate and a master’s of public health from Tulane University, where she was also previously professor of medicine and vice dean for community affairs and health policy. She also holds a master’s in clinical epidemiology from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and an honorary doctorate from her alma mater, Suffolk University.

Student Speaker

Fatima Saffia Dainkeh, an MPH recipient working at the intersection of reproductive health, racial equity, and social justice, has been named the student speaker at the 2018 SPH Convocation.

Storytelling and communication have been central to Dainkeh’s time at SPH, ever since she introduced herself in her first semester at the inaugural BUSPH Stories event. She won second place for her story, about how applying for and receiving the Whitney M. Young Jr. Fellowship at SPH, and learning about the fellowship’s namesake, helped her explore the meanings of being black often left out of the dominant narrative. “It’s the type of black that will fight for you, and you, and you, and you,” she told the audience. “It’s the type of black that will fight for justice, even when justice is long past due.”

Currently, Dainkeh is organizing a video project amplifying the voices of black mothers in the greater Boston area, using storytelling to evaluate risk and protective factors, bring awareness to their experiences, and simultaneously encourage empowerment and healing. She is also a research assistant on a Boston Medical Center study testing the effectiveness of a virtual patient advocate for preconception health, and she helps facilitate discussions and trainings around racial equity at Trinity Boston Foundation.

At SPH, Dainkeh’s pursuit of racial equity has taken the form of leadership roles in Students of Color for Public Health and in the Racial Justice Talking Circle. She is also a Diversity Leadership Scholar, supported by the Maternal & Child Health Center of Excellence, and has twice TAed the course MC 775: Social Justice and the Health of Populations: Racism and Other Systems of Oppression in America.

Leonard H. Glantz Award for Academic Excellence

Erin M. Ashe, an MPH recipient, is the winner of the 2018 Leonard H. Glantz Award for Academic Excellence.

The Glantz Award is the highest award granted to a graduating MPH student at SPH. The award is named in honor of Leonard H. Glantz, emeritus professor of health law, bioethics & human rights, who served for 30 years as academic dean and demanded rigorous standards in curriculum and teaching throughout the academic program.

Glantz Award winners are nominated by faculty, and should demonstrate exceptional academic performance, creative, and critical thinking, and seriousness and professionalism in public health.

While maintaining a 4.0 GPA, Ashe worked as an assistant on BU SHIELD (School Health Institute for Education and Leadership Development), for which she was nominated as BU Student Employee of the Year for planning and developing course content, delivering material, and guiding work groups. She also worked with Massachusetts Health Connector as an intern and Abt Associates as a research assistant while completing her degree.

“I have come to know Erin as a truly exceptional student, community member, and public health practitioner in the making,” one faculty member wrote of Ashe. “She’s the type of student you look at and honestly say, ‘She’ll probably be my boss someday.’”

Norman A. Scotch Award for Excellence in Teaching

Yvette C. Cozier (SPH’94, ’04), associate professor of epidemiology and assistant dean for diversity and inclusion, is the winner of the 2018 Norman A. Scotch Award for Excellence in Teaching.

The Scotch Award is presented annually to an individual who has made outstanding and sustained contributions to the education program of SPH. The award is meant to recognize individuals, faculty, or others who have substantially enriched the educational experience for the students at the School.

Cozier holds both an MPH and a DSc from SPH. She joined the faculty in 2005 and was appointed assistant dean for diversity and inclusion in 2015. In teaching social epidemiology to second-semester students, Cozier has encouraged frank, in-depth, sustained discussions about the context of race, class, and gender in the shaping of population and individual health. She has also extended her teaching and mentoring role to include the entire SPH community through her work on the SPH Reads program, advising the Racial Justice Talking Circle and Students of Color for Public Health, and organizing and leading training in diversity and inclusion.

Cozier is an investigator on the Black Women’s Health Study (BWHS), a prospective follow-up of over 59,000 African American women begun in 1995. Her research focuses on the influence of psychosocial factors, including socioeconomic status, segregation, and perceived racism, in the development of sarcoidosis, obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer.

“The topic of race can at times be a sensitive subject to discuss, especially considering it as a social determinant of health,” wrote a former student in one of several nomination letters.  “Rarely have I seen a professor tackle such sensitive subject matter with such poise and grace—while simultaneously facilitating the acquisition of advanced epidemiological analysis skills for her students.”

Faculty Career Award in Research and Scholarship

Paola Sebastiani, professor of biostatistics, is the winner of the 2018 SPH Faculty Career Award in Research and Scholarship.

This honor is given annually to recognize a faculty member for a distinguished body of scholarly or scientific work on a specific topic or within a general area of expertise.

Sebastiani joined the Department of Biostatistics in 2003, after holding faculty positions in Italy, the UK, and the US. A multidisciplinary biostatistician, she is the author of more than 200 peer-reviewed publications, developing new methodologies in Bayesian statistics, decision theory, machine learning and artificial intelligence, and statistical experimental design with applications to the fields of biology, epidemiology, gerontology, and aging.

She is the primary statistician of the BU site of the Long Life Family Study and of the New England Centenarian Study, and her work has been supported by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes for Health. She is a statistical consultant for Circulation: Genomic and Precision Medicine, a regular reviewer for major journals in statistics and computer science, and serves on the program committee of several international conferences at the intersection of statistics and artificial intelligence. In 2017, she was honored as a fellow of the American Statistical Association.

“In addition to her outstanding research record, Professor Sebastiani is an outstanding teacher with a strong dedication to mentoring the next generation of biostatisticians,” a colleague wrote in one of many nomination letters from students and faculty. Her mentorship of more than 30 PhD students, three SPH Awards for Excellence in Teaching, and leadership in several programs and initiatives for biostatistics students at SPH “clearly demonstrate her commitment to the next generation of quantitatively trained researchers.”

Dzidra J. Knecht Award for Distinguished Service

Anna McKay, website and design manager in the Office of Communications, and Andrea Tingue (SPH’13), graduate program administrator in the Department of Health Law, Policy & Management, are the winners of the 2018 Dzidra J. Knecht Staff Award for Distinguished Service.

The Knecht Award recognizes staff members who have made outstanding and sustained contributions to the administrative functioning of their departments and therefore the school. It is named in honor of Dzidra J. Knecht, the school’s first associate dean for administration, who spent 30 years working for the university, 20 of them at SPH.

McKay joined the communications team in 2014, in a role encompassing website management, design and art direction, and development of SPH This Week, SPH This Month, SPH in Focus, and signature event emails. She was part of the team that executed a complete redesign of the SPH website in 2016, and her projects over the past year have included the redesign and development of the SPH suite of emails and the design of the Faculty Handbook website, accreditation website, and accreditation cover artwork.

In several nomination letters, her colleagues particularly noted McKay’s “charm and intelligence” in training and aiding every staff member who edits or posts to the SPH website. “Anna is patient—incredibly patient,” one colleague wrote. “Where most people would be tired of repeating the same messages and answering the same questions, Anna patiently listens, answers questions respectfully, and makes sure her audience is learning and understanding.”

Tingue joined SPH in 2010 as an MPH student, and worked as an administrative coordinator in student services and as associate registrar before taking on her current role in the Department of Health Law, Policy & Management. As a program manager, Tingue supports the Healthcare Management certificate program and its students, and recently led the CAHME accreditation process for the certificate.

“Andrea embodies the very fabric that we seek to instill in our current students, alumni, and SPH community members by representing the university with class, integrity, and competence,” Tingue’s colleagues wrote in one nomination letter. Tingue provides leadership among department staff, going above and beyond her role to train and support new colleagues, they wrote, “with a friendly smile and a willingness to see our department succeed.”

—Michelle Samuels

Follow the SPH Convocation on Twitter and Instagram at #BUSPH2018.