Dear SPH Community,

I would like to thank everyone who submitted nominations this year. We received a deep pool of nominees for each award, which is testament to the dedication and hard work of our faculty and staff. As we are all aware, it has been an especially challenging year due to the pandemic, and it has been incredible to read stories of faculty and staff who continue to go above and beyond the call of duty to make such big impacts on scholarship, mentoring, research, community engagement, and operations and help the School reach new heights under such circumstances. I would also like to thank the committees who volunteered their time to review the nominations and to the Dean’s office faculty and staff who helped to coordinate the whole process – it was a particularly impressive effort by all as we added three brand new awards.

Without further ado, please join me in congratulating the following faculty and staff on their honors:

• Excellence in Community Engagement: Amy Nunn
• Excellence in Mentoring: Jennifer Merrill & Jennifer Nazareno (co-winners)
• Excellence in Research Collaboration: Sara Becker
• Excellence in Classroom Teaching: Shira Dunsiger
• Excellence in Leadership: Jesse Yedinak
• Excellence in Innovation: Joann Barao, Diane Schlacter, Elizabeth Jackvony, and Beth Guerrera (MPH Program)

We would typically recognize the awardees in person during Public Health Research Day. Since that wasn’t possible for a second straight year, we will look to celebrate in person at a future date when we are able to. In the meantime, you can read the citations for the faculty winners here, and the staff winners here.

Congratulations again to this year’s winners!

Warm regards,

Ashish K. Jha, MD, MPH
Dean, School of Public Health