Dear SPH Community,

I am pleased to share with you the appointment of Associate Professor Karen L. Andes Ph.D., as the School’s Director of the Master of Public Health Program, effective July 1, 2023.

In this faculty administrative position, Professor Andes will be responsible for ensuring academic rigor and consistency across all of the MPH program offerings, which include our two-year, in-person MPH program; our Online MPH program; our one-year Accelerated MPH program; and our dual-degree programs. She will oversee admissions, concentrations, curriculum development, academic advising, and student theses. Professor Andes will report directly to me in my role as Senior Associate Dean of Education. I am eager to collaborate with her and our colleagues in the Office of Education to continue to develop a strategic approach for our growing MPH offerings.

Professor Andes joined the School of Public Health this academic year after nearly 20 years at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health. She is a broadly trained social scientist with three decades of experience in public health research, training, and practice. She has worked extensively on adolescent sexual and reproductive health, positive youth development, health disparities in African-American and Latinx communities, and the social determinants of health. She has worked on public health research and service projects in Paraguay since 2005. She is an Associate Professor, Teaching Scholar Track, in our Department of Behavioral and Social Sciences. Professor Andes earned her PhD and a master’s degree from Northwestern University and her bachelor’s degrees from Arizona State University. She is currently completing a Master of Fine Arts in narrative nonfiction writing from the University of Georgia.

I am grateful to those who worked on this search committee with me. Thank you to Annie Gjelsvik, our outgoing MPH Director, to whom we are all grateful for her leadership in this role these past three years; Professor and Health Services, Policy and Practice Department Chair Ira Wilson; Professor and Director of the Pandemic Center Jennifer Nuzzo; and Assistant Professor and Assistant Dean of Education Jesse Yedinak.

Please join me in congratulating Professor Andes on her new role. I know she will be an extraordinary asset in helping shape Brown’s transformative approach to public health.

Sincerely,

Ronald E. Aubert Ph.D., MSPH
Interim Dean