The new research training program aims to build capacity for future genomic, epidemiological, and clinical research and training in chronic diseases in China. The grant will also strengthen partnerships between U.S. and Chinese investigators by training the next generation of scientists in research that focuses on the interaction between genetic predisposition and environmental exposure in chronic, non-communicable diseases.

The grant was jointly awarded to Tulane’s Jiang He, Joseph S. Copes Chair and Professor in the Department of Epidemiology, and Dongfeng Gu, vice president of the Cardiovascular Institute and Fu Wai Hospital of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College and vice director of the National Center for Cardiovascular Diseases of China.

This multidisciplinary training program builds on the longstanding collaboration in chronic disease research between the U.S. and Chinese participating institutes. “This research training program is very unique,” says He. “We will train geneticists in epidemiology and clinical research and train epidemiologists and clinical researchers in genetic and genomic research. There is a great need for scientists who have knowledge in both genomic and epidemiological research.”

This research training program will support the graduate students pursuing their doctoral degrees at the Peking Union Medical College in China. After the first year of course work in China, the trainees will take advanced courses and gain experience in research during their second year at Tulane University.

The training program will also provide postdoctoral research training in gene-environment interaction for junior researchers, who will advance their genomic and epidemiologic research skills at Tulane during a 6-month period. Other researchers will be exposed to the gene-environmental interaction research training through a summer institute in China and a special session at the China Heart Congress.

A child dies of malaria about every 30 seconds, according to Ahmed Aly, assistant professor in tropical medicine. The new, state-of-the-art Collins C. Diboll Laboratory for Emerging Infectious Diseases will work toward gradual elimination of malaria to change that statistic forever, as well as combat other infectious diseases.

“At Tulane, we are working on the development of vaccines to stop infection and transmission of human malaria parasites. In our research we are also using the mouse model for initial discovery research. Once we make these initial findings, we can test the concept for human malaria parasites and possibly develop a vaccine that will prevent the disease completely,” said Nirbhay Kumar, professor and chair of the Department of Tropical Medicine.

Herschel Abbott and David Edwards, members of the Diboll Foundation, join Dean Pierre Buekens in a ribbon-cutting for the new Emerging Infectious Diseases Lab.

The new lab is part of a legacy at Tulane stretching back more than a century. According to Tulane provost Michael Bernstein, the Medical College of Louisiana, Tulane’s predecessor, was founded in 1834 specifically to examine vector-borne diseases.

“The studies of malaria, West Nile, dengue, and other vector-borne viruses that will take place in the Diboll laboratory reflect our institutional roots,” he said. “It is due to the success of the scientists who came together so long ago that New Orleans is no longer called a necropolis.”

Among those trailblazing doctors of yesteryear was Collins Diboll’s great-grandfather, Dr. Joseph S. Copes. Two hundred years ago, he devoted his medical career to the eradication of yellow fever, smallpox, and cholera, all of which plagued New Orleans in that era.

Diboll Foundation trustee and Tulane alumnus David Edwards noted that Collins Diboll made certain suggestions in his will to provide for public health and tropical medicine at his alma mater and keep his great-grandfather’s legacy alive. Diboll was an alumnus of the School of Architecture.

“Collins’s tremendous pride was his great-grandfather,” said Edwards, a member of the Board of Tulane. “The opening of this new lab two centuries later is very propitious. It has also been 25 years since Collins died, and he’d be very proud of what the foundation and Tulane have done in that short time.”

The Diboll Foundation has supported the Joseph S. Copes Chair in Epidemiology, the Collins C. Diboll Auditorium and Gallery, the annual fund, and continuing education at the school.

“Tulane has always been involved in public health, tropical medicine, and the eradication of diseases,” said Dean Pierre Buekens at the dedication ceremony. “This history gives weight to what we’re doing, and today is another leap forward in our efforts to eliminate some of the world’s most contagious and deadliest diseases.”

The new lab is located in the J. Bennett Johnston building on Tulane Avenue.

“Creating a pipeline of emerging environmental health scientists is an unprecedented opportunity,” says Lichtveld. “The students will explore environmental science in its broadest sense: from the ecosystem to human health.”

The project has spawned the Emerging Scholars Environmental Health Sciences Fellowship and the Environmental Health Sciences Teacher Workshop which will train 11th and 12th grade high school students and high school science teachers.

The student program, when fully implemented, will expose high-performing high school juniors and seniors from 17 parishes and counties in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida to environmental health science research. Launching in summer 2013 in Louisiana, the 8-week program will give selected students the opportunity to work one-on-one with university professors to complete an environmental health research project in the local community. Public health professors involved in the program will serve as mentors, helping students to develop skills in scientific inquiry.

A complementary teachers’ workshop will be held over two Saturdays in spring 2013. The technical content will be aligned with 11th and 12th grade Louisiana Grade Level Expectations and the newly introduced Common Core Curriculum. Participants will learn how to develop and implement creative, engaging lessons in the environmental health sciences.

“Equipping the science teachers with the knowledge and tools to embed what both students and teachers learn in the day-to-day science curriculum is key to sustaining our effort,” indicates Lichtveld.

The Environmental Health Capacity and Literacy Project will also create a network of environmental health experts to provide peer consultation, educational resources, and specialty referrals benefitting primary care physicians and other providers in the four-state area of the Gulf Coast, a collaboration with the Association of Occupational and Environmental Clinics.

“This project gives us the first comprehensive opportunity to build sustainable environmental health capacity benefitting our vulnerable communities,” says Lichtveld. “We will improve environmental health knowledge and skills at every level — from high school to graduate education, while connecting primary care providers with experts in environmental medicine.”

—Keith Brannon and Dee Boling (Parts of this article originally appeared in Tulane New Wave)

In October, alumnus Bernard H. Eichold, II, (center, holding plaque) received the Exceptional Public Achievement Medal from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for his work with the NASA DEVELOP Program, a nationwide internship program designed to foster an adept corps of tomorrow’s scientists and leaders. As health officer of the Mobile County (Alabama) Health Department, Eichold has partnered with NASA since 2003 to provide an interdisciplinary research environment for 5-10 college students each year to work on applied science research projects. DEVELOP interns lead research projects that focus on utilizing NASA Earth observations to address community concerns and public policy issues.

Eichold has earned four degrees from Tulane – a BS in 1975 (psychology), an MPH in 1978 (health care administration), an MD in 1979, and a DrPH in 1980 (applied health sciences). He currently serves on the SPHTM Dean’s Board of Advisors and the SPHTM Alumni Association Board. He has long been a proponent of the MD/MPH joint degree program at Tulane and recently, in honor of SPHTM’s Centennial year, provided generous support for endowed scholarships in that program.

Associate Professor of Global Environmental Health Sciences Erik Svendsen is conducting the long-term study into the effects of a chlorine gas explosion.

“The goal of this study is to identify and document any long-term lung health problems that have occurred since the 2005 chlorine spill,” says Svendsen, associate professor of global environmental health sciences at the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.

The Graniteville Recovery and Chlorine Epidemiology study is a joint effort with Svendsen and the Graniteville Community Coalition, Arnold School of Public Health at the University of South Carolina, Medical University of South Carolina, University of Maryland, Georgia Health Sciences University, and the University of Georgia.

While the spill affected the entire community, investigators are focusing on those residents who worked for the Graniteville/Avondale denim factory, the local cotton textile mill. Because the mill had a worker health standard to perform annual spirometry, a type of lung function testing, on all employees, pre-spill pulmonary function values are available for comparison to the measures being taken for this study.

In June a state-of-the-art diagnostic testing facility opened in Graniteville where a comprehensive suite of pulmonary function tests will be performed on each participant. In addition to pre- and post-bronchodilator spirometry, the tests include measurement of exhaled nitric oxide, characterization of exhaled breath condensate, impulse osillometry, vital capacity, lung volumes, diffusion capacity and a six-minute walk exercise test.

The five-year, $2.9 million study is funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences of the National Institutes of Health.

—Arthur Nead (Originally published in Tulane New Wave)

June 1912 Creighton Wellman publishes a landmark article in the New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journey presenting a compelling argument for the New Orleans School of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene at Tulane, including letters of support from public health leaders around the world. (Wellman’s original article appears in the special SPHTM anniversary edition of the American Journal of Epidemiology, dated Oct. 1.)

Isadore Dyer

In November 1912, Dyer, dean of the medical department, addressed a letter to Robert Sharp, president of the university. In this letter, Dyer highlights that the department of tropical medicine, hygiene and preventive medicine has been operating as a school. “We are desirous that the School of Tropical Medicine, Hygiene, and Preventive Medicine should be known as such, and it has already demonstrated its ability to live… our School of Tropical Medicine, Hygiene and Preventive Medicine should be formally authorized by the Board so that anything which emanates from this particular School may be credited with dignity to such an institution.”

1912 The School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, including Public Health begins operating as a separate school.

April 1913 The Board of the Tulane Educational Fund formally recognizes the School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine as such. “That since the School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, including Preventive Medicine, has been, by action of the Board, constituted a distinct school in the College of Medicine, with a separate Dean, that Dr. Creighton Wellman be appointed Dean of this school.” This certainly came as no news to Wellman who had already been functioning as dean both internally and in public.

Jan 1914 Creighton Wellman’s career trajectory at Tulane takes sudden and unexpected turn when he abruptly resigns.

Also in 1914 Isadore Dyer, dean of the School of Medicine, becomes acting dean of the School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

First DrPH degree granted to Herbert Maxwell Shilstone. First Diploma in Tropical medicine granted to Walton Todd Burres.

1915 William Seeman becomes dean of the School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

1918 The school is officially folded back into the School of Medicine.

1928 Medical School Dean Charles Bass hires Ernest Carroll Faust as chair of the Department of Parasitology. Faust, already a distinguished scientist in parasitology, joined Tulane as chair of a new division of parasitology created just for him. In 1929, he published Human Helminthology, the first textbook on this subject in English. Faust’s interests extended to protozoa during his Tulane tenure and he made notable contributions in the diagnosis and treatment of amoebiasis.

A native of Missouri, he taught parasitology at the Peking Union Medical College for nine years and did experimental studies on parasites of humans and animals in China. When he moved back to the States to join the Tulane faculty, he brought with him an extensive collection of specimens.

Ernest Carroll Faust, author of Human Helminthology, the first textbook on parasitology.

Faust remained on faculty at Tulane for 28 years, where he was instrumental in the formation of the parasitology program, authored several textbooks on the subject, and contributed chapters to a dozen textbooks of medicine, pediatrics, and therapeutics.

When he retired from the faculty in 1956, he was appointed coordinator of the Tulane-Colombia Program in Medical Education. Although the appointment necessitated a move to Cali, Colombia, Faust remained a presence in the Department of Tropical Medicine and Public Health, as evidenced by the annual parasitology holiday letters which always brought mention of his research, travels, and activities. Even after he returned to New Orleans and officially retired, he became an emeritus professor and continued to take part in teaching, writing and editing texts, and research in the lab. He was always busy, always active, always a presence at Tulane for the rest of his life.

1931 Charles Franklin Craig hired as chair of tropical medicine. Craig spent more than 30 years as a surgeon in the military before joining Tulane as the head of the Department of Tropical Medicine. Although he retired just seven years later, he left his mark on the school as an inspiring teacher and also a prolific writer. Indeed, he joined colleague Ernest Faust in writing Craig and Faust’s Clinical Parasitology, long a go-to text for student.

1956 Paul C. Beaver becomes chair of Parasitology.

Paul C. Beaver

Much like Faust, Paul Beaver’s parasitology career was inextricably linked to Tulane. Beaver came to Tulane in 1945 from the Georgia Department of Public Health where he had first become interested in soil-transmitted helminths. He rose quickly through the ranks, becoming the William Vincent Professor of Tropical Diseases and Hygiene and Chair of the Department of Tropical Medicine in 1956, upon Faust’s retirement.

As chair, Beaver became known for the annual holiday missives he wrote himself. The letters detailed faculty research activities and alumni updates, cataloged current master’s and doctoral students, and also never failed to provide updates on Faust’s activities in Colombia and as emeritus professor.

Upon Beaver’s death in 1993, department faculty Rodney Jung, Dale Little, and Donald Krogstad published a tribute to Beaver in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene , which Beaver had edited for 20 years. They wrote: “This may be the most remarkable aspect of his career:  after 60 years he remained committed to the future of Tropical Medicine and Parasitology in a direct personal way. He remained a productive investigator while editing a major scientific journal for 20 years and simultaneously creating a cadre of investigators throughout the world, many of whom have since become leader in their own countries.”

Continue reading SPHTM Turns 100! The Last 50 years.

1834 Seven physicians, none older than 26, found a medical college in New Orleans to provide training in the pressing health issues affecting the region, including malaria, yellow fever, small pox, and cholera. It was an early start in the education of tropical medicine.

1855 At the urging of medical school faculty, Louisiana establishes the first state board of health in the country. (New Orleans created a city board in 1817.)

Havana Yellow Fever Commission, 1879

1879 Stanford Chaillé is chosen as one of four members of the Havana Yellow Fever Commission, established by Congress. During the commission’s travels in Cuba, they work with scientist Carlos Finlay, who would later put forth the theory that malaria is transmitted by way of the mosquito. It would be nearly 20 years, however, before Finlay’s theory gains widespread acceptance.

1881 First formal course in hygiene taught in the university’s medical department.

1884 The University of Louisiana becomes a private entity—Tulane University of Louisiana—thanks to a bequest by Paul Tulane.

1885 Chaillé becomes dean of the medical department. A national figurehead, Chaille was spokesman for the establishment of community sewerage and drainage systems, street paving, pure water supplies, and mosquito control. He was also instrumental in the establishment of the National Board of Health, forerunner of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare. He is often called the “Father of Hygiene and Health Education.”

Bust of Carlos Finlay

1900 the public health community finally demonstrates public support for Carlos Finlay’s evidence that the mosquito is the vector for the parasite spreading yellow fever.

1904 Charles C. Bass joins the faculty.

1907 Isaac Brewer, a medical doctor with the U.S. Army and later sanitary supervisor for the New York Department of Health, publishes an article in the New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal declaring New Orleans the best location for an American school of tropical medicine.

1908 Chaillé, who served as chair of the physiology department as well as dean, retires. Isadore Dyer becomes dean and a separate chair of hygiene is established.

May 1911 The American Society of Tropical Medicine (established 1907) announces support for Tulane to establish a school of tropical medicine.

July 1911 New Orleans businessman Samuel Zemurray donates $25,000 towards the establishment of a school of hygiene and tropical medicine at Tulane.

Sept. 1911 Creighton Wellman arrives and is named chair of tropical medicine and hygiene, including preventive medicine. Wellman makes an early appeal to transition to a school as soon as possible.

Continue reading SPHTM Turns 100! The First 50 years.

Grace Goldsmith in the lab.

1971 SPHTM and the School of Medicine launch a combined MD/MPH program, the first such program that permits students to earn both degrees in four years. Since then, the program has grown and stands as the largest in the country. In the more than 40 years since, over 850 students have earned MD/MPH degrees.

1973 Joseph D. Beasley is dean.

Walsh was one of the key guiding forces behind the MD/MPH program.

1974 John Walsh, Acting Dean

1975 Frank Moore, is acting dean before James Banta takes the helm. Banta was the first to cultivate dengue virus in tissue culture and to demonstrate cytopathogenic effect.

1979 SPHTM begins participating in the Hubert Humphrey Fellowship Program. Since then, 305 mid-career professionals from 90 countries have participated in the program at Tulane, which brings international mid-career professionals to the U.S. for a year of study. Students train in many areas of public health, including health systems management, hospital administration, maternal and child health, tropical medicine, nutrition, environmental health, and epidemiology.

1987 Thomas Hamrick, Acting Dean

1988 Tulane SPHTM becomes one of the first schools to being participating in the Master’s International program. More than 150 students have gone through the program, earning their master’s degree at the conclusion of their participation the Peace Corps.

Harrison Spencer

1991 Dean Harrison Spencer, who goes on to become the current president of the APHA.

Ann Anderson

1995 Ann Anderson, Acting Dean

1997 Dean Paul K. Whelton

1999 Ann Anderson, Acting Dean

2003 Dean Pierre Buekens begins his tenure.

2005 Levee failures following Hurricane Katrina devastate New Orleans. The School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine,  however, reopens in January of 2006.

SPHTM conducts a successful fundraising drive receiving more than $330,000 for endowed scholarships,

2011 The American Society of Microbiology names the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine a Milestones in Microbiology site, in honor of its long history and many contributions to the field.

July 2011 International Health and Development and Health Systems management unite to form the department of Global Health Systems and Development.

November 2012 Alumni and friends gather in New Orleans for a celebration of the school’s history with social events, a symposium, and a successful fundraising drive!

Dean Pierre Buekens and his wife dance at Saturday night’s fundraising gala and awards presentation. After attending two days of scientific symposia, guest seminars, student poster presentations, and a lively networking roundtable lunch session, Centennial guests met for one last hurrah at the La Nouvelle Ballroom at The Hotel Monteleone for dinner, drinks, and dancing to celebrate the school’s 100th anniversary of its founding. We are glad to have been able to share this milestone with so many alumni, faculty, staff, students, and friends in the global health community.

The newly-minted center facilitates multidisciplinary research in bioinformatics, biostatistics, computational biology, genetics, genomics, and proteomics. Researchers draw on tools from these fields to better understand the ways in which genetic risk, environment, and lifestyle factors may contribute to or protect from the development of a health condition.

The center has opened a branch in Baton Rouge for the Louisiana Osteoporosis Study, which provides bone density testing. Data will help the center study inherited risk for osteoporosis.

Epigenetics – the study of the interplay between genetic risk and the factors that can affect health – is at the forefront of public health research and prevention efforts. The center’s research efforts span the globe, with collaborations extending from Yale University to China.

The center is divided into sections that focus on different aspects of genomics, such as epigenetics and epigenomics. Director Hong-Wen Deng also is chair of the Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics at Tulane’s School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. He holds an endowed Chair in Biostatistics, funded by the Edward G. Schlieder Educational Foundation. Deng came to Tulane in 2011 to establish the center and continue his team’s research in New Orleans.

Deng is an internationally recognized researcher in statistical, quantitative, and population genetics and bioinformatics, and on genetics and genomics research of complex disorders. Prior to arriving at Tulane, he taught and conducted research at the University of Missouri at Kansas City. While there he held positions including director of the genetics program, director of orthopedic research, and the Franklin D. Dickson/Missouri Endowed Chair in Orthopedic Surgery.

The center, which currently has 15 faculty members, nine students, and seven postdoctoral researchers, aims to grow with the addition of new research projects and faculty whose expertise supports the growing research goals.

“Different sections focus on different areas, such as DNA balance or polymorphisms associated with disease risk,” explains the center’s associate director Hui Shen, assistant professor in the Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics. “Others focus on functional genomics and we recently expanded into epigenetics and epigenomics. We also try to combine the data to have a general model of how different aspects interact and work together to contribute to disease risk.”

The center’s work relies on high-caliber technology and statistical analyses. The team is breaking ground in this area as well as in the arena of genomic research. A recent publication in the journal Bioinformatics details and compares the next generation sequencing applications within the field of genetic analysis, providing best practices information for researchers around the world.

The center’s novel, multidisciplinary approach is attracting award-winning young researchers who are furthering the epigenetic research into osteoporosis, including Jigang Zhang, recipient of a 2011 American Society of Human Genetics Trainee Research Semifinalist Award and Fei-Yan Deng, Hongbin Liu, and Xiaojing Xu, all recipients of the 2011 American Society for Bone and Mineral ResearchYoung Investigator Travel Grant.

Louisiana Osteoporosis Study

The flagship project for the center focuses on the epigenetics of osteoporosis, a condition in which the loss of bone density puts people at risk for fractured and broken bones. Current research shows that the risk for osteoporosis is not fully understood, although bone density can both be inherited and altered by lifestyle choices and events.

A lab technician at the study site positions a participant’s arm for a bone density test.

In Louisiana, Hong Wen Deng and his team are collecting information from eligible adults as part of the Louisiana Osteoporosis Study. Participants in the 10-year study receive bone density testing and results at no charge, provide a small blood sample, and also are asked about their overall health and lifestyle. The data will be stored and available for additional research in future years.

Participants are drawn from the local New Orleans area, as well as in the Baton Rouge area, where the center has a study site located in a medical office building affiliated with Baton Rouge General Hospital.  The Louisiana study builds on Deng’s previous research in both Kansas City and in Omaha.  Deng intends for his sample collection to become the largest osteoporosis sample in the world.

“We focus on human studies instead of cell and animal based,” says Shen, although, he adds that there is a section looking at the cellular level to study the function of specific genes. “We focus on the human population part. We collect samples and information from the general human population, including bone mineral density information and in addition to that we have to collect a variety of different lifestyle and demographic data from the subjects, smoking, alcohol, drinking, lifestyle, and peripheral blood sample. Using those blood samples, we can collect DNA and RNA protein and sometimes cells for all those subsequent analyses.

“We can try to compare whether different groups of people have high or low bone mineral density, high risk or low risk of osteoporosis fracture, to compare whether they have different genetic polymorphism,” explains Shen. “We are just trying to see what kind of biological mechanism contributed to the differential risk of osteoporosis.”  Polymorphism refers to genetic variations in a particular DNA sequence.

Even though the research project will continue over the course of the coming decade, the team publishes regularly about the study as it is in progress. Peer-reviewed publications have appeared in the Journal of Cellular Physiology, PLoS One, the Journal of Bone Mineral Metabolism, and Human Genetics. The research ranges widely, from a detailed analysis of genetic makeup to the impact of vitamin D and health history factors such as age of menarche.

However, cautions Shen, “We have a long way to go before we can apply our findings to clinical settings, to predict whether subjects will have high risk of osteoporosis or how they will respond to osteoporosis treatment based on his or her genetic information. The major outcome is to find that new genes or new factors that contribute to the bone metabolism. By finding those new mechanisms, we can try to combine them to view the biomarkers for predicting osteoporosis risk.”

This information could ultimately lead to new targets for drug development and disease prevention, says Shen.

Expanding Research Avenues

Periodontal disease is a growing area of focus of the center, says Shen, emphasizing that they are one of the first to consider the disease from an epigenetic focus. Their research could help individuals and physicians better understand why one family member struggles with periodontal disease and others in the same household – eating the same foods, drinking the same beverages, performing basically the same hygiene tasks – seem immune.

“We are the first group doing a comprehensive search for genetic factors in periodontal disease. Previously people have looked at immune factors and one or two genes, but not this big picture,” he says.

Other avenues of research center investigators are pursuing include aspects of obesity, alcoholism, leukemia, osteoarthritis, and muscle formation.

Madeline Vann
Photos by Rick Olivier

Antoinette Kitoto Tshefu

Take ANTOINETTE KITOTO TSHEFU. She earned both her MPH&TM and PhD degrees from SPHTM and now is helping students in the Democratic Republic of the Congo do the same in her role as dean of the Kinshasa School of Public Health.

Then there’s PASCAL IMPERATO (TM MPH ’66). When Imperato was looking for a place to study tropical medicine, he told the Tulane admissions personnel that since he had trained in internal medicine, he wasn’t interested in public health. “They said, well, when you come here, you are going to find that the two are inextricably related to one another,” he recalls. The decision to train in tropical medicine at Tulane altered his professional trajectory permanently.

Pascal Imperato

After Tulane, he cut his teeth in international health on small pox eradication programs in West Africa. From West Africa and the CDC he went to the New York Department of Public Health, where he continued to draw upon the knowledge and expertise of colleagues at Tulane and in the public health programs of the City of New Orleans.

Meanwhile, he pursued his own vision of a public health program at SUNY Downstate in Brooklyn, where he is now dean of the School of Public Health. “It is the first school of its kind in Downstate and the first publicly supported school of public health in New York City.” The school, an hour-and-a-half trip from Manhattan, has been positioned to be more accessible to professionals and students in Brooklyn.

RANDY WYKOFF (TM MPH&TM ’81) is the founding dean of the first school of public health in Tennessee, at the East Tennessee State University.

Randy Wykoff

“What I liked about Tulane was both its global focus and its applied skills,” recalls Wykoff, who has four degrees from Tulane University including his 1981 MPH&TM. “I never felt that I was learning things solely because it was relevant to academia. I very much try to bring that perspective to ETSU.”

“We are training our students to enter the workforce and make a difference in the lives of other people. What I liked about Tulane was this practical, applied, boots-on-the-ground kind of mentality,” he says. In addition to cutting edge public health techniques, Wykoff also insists that students learn about the history of public health. “I love this job,” he says. “I worked in the workforce, not academia, my whole career. To be able to be here and be guiding students to become effective public health workers is amazing.”

Elizabeth Fontham

ELIZABETH FONTHAM (EPI MPH ’78, DrPH ’83) is the founding dean of the LSU School of Public Health. She relishes the opportunities where Tulane and LSU can work together, including the consortia studying aspects of the Gulf oil spill and the Louisiana Cancer Research Consortium. “Louisiana ranks at the bottom nationally on almost every health indicator and has ranked poorly for years,” she notes. “The opportunity to work together to increase the critical mass of trained public health practitioners in the state of Louisiana is a real asset.”

SPHTM offers students a broad education that brings the world into the classroom. For these alumni, their career paths ultimately took them back to school, to leadership positions that help them carry on the goal of changing the world through education.

Alumni at the Helm

Other alumni who have gone on to the top spot at schools and universities:

• Cyril Blavo (TM MPH&TM ’88), Director, Public Health Program, Nova Southeastern University
• Wayne Riley (HSM MPH ’88), President, Meharry Medical College (Master of Science in Public Health Program)
• Ciro Sumaya (TM MPH ’73), Professor,Texas A&M Rural School of Public Health (Founding Dean)

Lee Van Iderstine

For example, MPH student Lee Van Iderstine, the recipient of the 2011 Katie Evans Memorial Scholarship, established an intensive nine-week health and wellness curriculum for workers and caretakers in health and hygiene classes, with the goal of preventing severe illness and improving community health. Her clinic in Mozambique delivered care to more than 800 children of HIV-positive mothers and their caretakers. “Almost every day,” she says, “at least one of the caretakers thanks me for teaching them things that they didn’t know about how to be healthy so that they can live life to the fullest.”

Endowed scholarships provide resources which enable students like Lee to empower communities in New Orleans and across the globe. Currently SPHTM has only 19 permanently endowed scholarship funds for a student body of around 1,300 students, and the average master’s degree student graduates with $90,000 of debt. Because of this, a major goal of our school’s Centennial is to increase the amount of scholarship aid available to our students – both the number of scholarships available and the amount of financial aid each student receives.

Public health professionals with a Tulane education travel the world to take action and work toward solutions to global health challenges, from poverty and war to earthquakes and outbreaks. Thanks to endowed scholarship funds, our talented students are
able to choose a career without regard to the burden of debt so that they can go out into the world and make a difference.

If you are interested in helping to Fill Up the World with Our Students,please contact Tatine Frater:
P: 504-314-7331
E. tmfrater@tulane.edu

Things are getting a little nutty around here as the holidays begin to take shape and Christmas spirit begins to spread. While the festivities are in full swing, what did we spy with our little eye? Nothing else but the classic age old tradition of the Christmas nutcracker showing face in every high spirited window display and retailer across the country. Take the traditional route with a charming drummer boy or go glam with a bejeweled blitz on your Christmas cracker. Either way this timeless piece will make you feel like a kid again. Are you decorating with a nutcracker this year? Which of these nutcrackers are your favourite?

Owner Operator is a NYC-based label making technical apparel for cold weather adventures, likely in the mountains. All their outerwear is made in NYC, with other pieces from the collection being produced throughout the USA as well. Classic (understated) styling across the board here, and the packs and hats are especially great: get me that waxed cotton cap and we’re hella cool. Definitely a brand to watch, and everything is available for purchase online.

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Clothing retailer Barney’s and BBC have come together for an in-store exclusive collection which will be featured this Fall/Winter and will be super limited. We’re talking 100 pieces of each limited. The collection will feature four fleece hoodies in BBC fashion and will be available in Barney’s New York, Barney’s Miami & the online store for around $250 (ballpark figure).

Credit: HB