Class Notes & Alumni News

1980s

Brad P. Glick, DO, MD, 84MPH, is a dermatologist, dermatology surgeon, and director of residency training in dermatology at the Wellington Regional Medical Center in West Palm Beach, Fla. He has a 13-year-old daughter, Lauren.

Betsy Wallace, 87MPH, is a health education coordinator for Gwinnett Health System in Lawrenceville, Ga. Wallace lives in Dunwoody and has two grown daughters, Katherine Evans and Virginia Wallace.

1990s

Tracy Lynn Jensen, 90MPH, was elected in November 2002 to the school board in Alameda, Calif. Despite being the underdog in her first election, Jensen won nearly 40% of the vote. She ran on a platform of ensuring an excellent public education for her two-year-old son, Julian.

Suzanne Margaret Smith, MD, 91MPH, was named 2002 Outstanding Alum by the Medical College of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Smith is interim director of the Public Health Program Office at the CDC.

Born: To Michele Asrael Garber, 92MPH, and her husband Mitchell, 87M, twins, Evan Joseph and Samantha Rose, on September 19, 2002. The infants join their older brother, Robbie, who is two years old. The Garbers recently returned to Atlanta from Washington, D.C., and live in Dunwoody.

Nichelle Dickerson Brown, 93MPH, is a program manager for the Cuyahoga County Board of Health. She and her four-year-old daughter, Aleena, live in Garfield Heights, Ohio.

Born: To Kara Jacobson, 93MPH, and her husband Terry, a daughter, Katie Andrea, on February 6, 2003. Katie joins older sis Ariel, at the family home in Stone Mountain, Ga.

Francine Huckaby, 94MPH, is a program manager at the University of Alabama, Birmingham. Her son, Ryan, is four.

Ryan Huckaby

Quimby McCaskill, 95MPH, and Suzanne Sutcliff, 97MPH

Louise and Bret Friday and family

Married: Quimby E. McCaskill, MD, 95MPH, and Suzanne M. Sutcliff, 97MPH, on May 18, 2002. They live in Jacksonville, Fla., where he has completed a residency in pediatrics at the University of Florida. He will remain in the program as chief resident.

Mahseeyahu Ben Selassie, 95MPH, program administrator for the Injury Free Coalition for Kids (IFCK) of Baltimore, will serve as coalition liaison to an East Baltimore community. He will lead a parent safety leadership program and organize parent focus groups to assess needs. The IFCK targeted East Baltimore, based on childhood injury incidence reports analyzed by the Pediatric Trauma Service of Johns Hopkins Children’s Center, where IFCK is based.

Born: To Louise Kai Wiens Friday, 96MPH, and husband Bret, a daughter, Maren, on December 14, 2002. Maren joins older brother, Connor, who is nearly four. The family lives in Rochester, Minn., where Bret Friday is completing a medical residency.

Holly May Couture, 98MPH, graduated from the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine in June. She currently is a first-year resident at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. Her career goal is to become a pediatric neurologist.

Melanie Donnelly, 98MPH, works at the Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center. She is married to Andrew Swenson, and the couple live in Lebanon, N.H.

Corliss D. Heath, 98MPH, was ordained as an elder on April 27, 2003, at Anointed Word Christian Ministries in Smyrna, Ga. Minister Heath spoke at the Second Annual Black Faculty/Staff Appreciation Building Bridges Awards at the RSPH in April 2003. She currently is working on a Masters of Divinity degree at Emory’s Candler School of Theology.

Born: To Joel London, 98MPH, and his wife Lori, a son, Max Sylvan, on March 21, 2003. Max joins his three-year-old sister, Sarah, at their home in Marietta, Ga. London is a health specialist for the CDC.

Anton Chastang, 99MPH, and family

Max London

Kristi Kinsey, 99MPH, and husband Rogers Gotier

Born: To Anton Trevelle Chastang, 99MPH, and his wife, LaRonda, a daughter, Kennedy Michelle, on August 4, 2002. The Chastangs also have an older son, Marcus. Chastang is a cardiovascular project coordinator at the Health Alliance Plan in Detroit.

Kristi N. Kinsey, MD, 99MPH, of D’Iberville, Miss., is a captain in the US Air Force and is completing a residency in internal medicine. She and Rogers F. Gotier, of Augusta, Ga., married in September, and they reside on the Gulf Coast in Biloxi, Miss.

Kathryn A. Kohler, 99PhD, in collaboration with three other epidemiologists, has written a paper on the role of injections in an outbreak of polio in northern India in 1999 and 2000. Published in the International Journal of Epidemiology, their study confirmed that polio shots given during the poliovirus incubation period can provoke paralytic poliomyelitis.

2000s

Yael Lipton, 01MPH, is a senior program coordinator in the education department of Planned Parenthood of New York City, focusing on pregnancy prevention.

Heather Noll, 01MPH, is a veterinary medicine student at University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She lives in Louisville, Tenn.

MARRIED: Megan Ann Benoit and Jonathan Jay Ratcliff, both 01MPH, on October 12, 2002, at Glenn Memorial United Methodist Church on the Emory campus. She is working towards her PhD in clinical psychology at the University of Georgia. He is a senior project research coordinator in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Emory. They live in Lawrenceville.

Megan and Jonathan Ratcliff, both 01MPH

Connor Simmons

Stephen Soroka and friend

Born: To Gretchen Simmons, 01MPH, and her husband, Christopher, a son, Connor Boyd, on October 27, 2002. She is a research associate for ORC Macro, a research and evaluation consulting firm in the Atlanta area. They live in Suwanee, Ga.

Stephen D. Soroka, 01MPH, is a data analyst for the CDC. He lives in Decatur, Ga.

Charul Patel, 02MPH, is a consultant with The Strategy House, Healthcare Advisors in Atlanta.

MARRIED: Ami Shah, 00MPH, and Bruce Brown, 01MPH, on August 31, 2002, in Philadelphia. Ami is a PhD candidate at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Bruce recently finished a second master’s degree in International Development at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and currently is working as CEO for Phyto-Riker Pharmaceuticals, a company based in Accra, Ghana. The couple reside in the Baltimore/Washington, DC, area.

Ami Shah (MPH ‚00) and Bruce Brown (MPH Œ01)

Assistant Dean of Development and External Relations Kathryn Graves (second from left) is pleased to welcome new staff members to the RSPH development and alumni relations team. They are (L to R): Director of Development Rebecca Baggett, Administrative Assistant Debbie LePage, and Assistant Director of Development Rachel Donnelly, who will work closely with alumni.

Faculty News

Constance C. Conrad, a former RSPH faculty leader, and husband, J. Lyle Conrad, a longtime adjunct faculty member, remain active in public health in Georgia. The couple is working with the DeKalb County Board of Health as members of a steering committee to develop neighborhood help centers where citizens could go or get more information in the event of a natural or man-made disaster.

“There are so many retired CDC and Emory public health faculty living in this area that DeKalb County decided to enlist their abilities to better prepare the community in case of a bioterrorism attack,” says Lyle Conrad. According to Connie Conrad, they are preparing for a mock anthrax drill at a local high school this fall, and they are recruiting volunteers to act as healthcare workers or victims of the attack. “We think setting up these help clinics is an important first step toward preparedness,” Conrad says.

Commencement 2003

“When it comes to public health, there is no them. It is just us,” Allan Rosenfield said in his address to the 2003 graduating class of the Rollins School of Public Health. The dean of Columbia University’s School of Public Health, Rosenfield (top, right) welcomed more than 300 graduates from the ranks of students to the active group of public health practitioners, to the group of “us.” In all, the RSPH awarded 272 MPH degrees, nine MSPH degrees, 12 dual degrees, and eight PhDs.

As a result of recent global events from terrorism to SARS, the field of public health is in the spotlight, said graduate speaker Rebecca Joy VanderMeulen. “We have an audience, but that doesn’t mean we can stop listening. If we don’t listen, we won’t do a very good job.”

Among students who received special recognition at the ceremony were: Dana Robinson, who won the James W. Alley Award for providing service to disadvantaged populations, and Jeremy Hess and Sanjat Kanjilal, who shared the Eugene J. Gangarosa Award for demonstrating a creative approach to solving public health problems in the international arena. Biostatistics student Anna Susan Moss was the 2003 Charles C. Shepard Award recipient for the best scholarly research paper. Professors of the Year chosen by the Student Government Association were Martha Alexander, adjunct professor of Behavioral Science and Health Education; Melvin Myers, adjunct professor of Environmental and Occupational Health; and Lance Waller, professor of Biostatistics. Woodruff Professor of International Nutrition and Chair of the Department of International Health Reynaldo Martorell won the Thomas F. Sellers Jr. Award for his mentoring of junior faculty.

The 2003 Commencement carried particular significance for Dean James Curran whose daughter, Kathryn G. Curran, received her undergraduate diploma from Emory College (below, left).