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  From the Alumni President  
     
       With summer approaching, opportunities for renewal and growth abound.
     For RSPH alumni, this time of year brings new connections and new opportunities. Personally, I am thrilled to welcome our first director of alumni and constituent relations to the RSPH. Michelle James joined the staff in January and has already established herself as an active and energetic partner for the Alumni Association. In keeping with alumni groups across the university’s various units, the board of the RSPH Alumni Association has been reviewing our structure and operations. We look forward to making changes that will allow us to plan for growth while involving more and more alumni along the way.
     Many of you have taken the time this year to get involved by participating in programs or providing resources to support student scholarships. I would like to thank you for sharing your gifts and your time. As we renew our energies this spring and summer, I hope you will continue to renew your connections to the RSPH.
     Please consider how you would like to stay connected and contact me at jhinman@sph.emory.edu or Michelle James in the RSPH Office of Development at 404-727-4740 or mjames4@sph.emory.edu. Tell us how we can help you renew your ties to your fellow alumni and current students and faculty. We look forward to working with you.

Johanna M. Hinman

Johanna M. Hinman, 98MPH, CHES
President, RSPH Alumni Association
Project Director, Emory Prevention Research Center


Michelle James (left) recently joined the RSPH Office of Development as director of alumni and constituent relations. She works closely with Kathryn Graves (center), associate dean for development and external relations, and Karla Daniels, director of special gifts.
 
     
   
         
 
1970s
Virginia Bales Harris, 71C, 77MPH, was elected to the national board of directors of the YMCA. She retired from the CDC as the director of the Division of Adult and Community Health and currently is a member of the RSPH Dean’s Council.

1990s
Teresa Maria Rivero, 85OX, 87B, 93MPH, was elected an alumni trustee of Emory's Board of Trustees. She serves as a senior program officer for the education program division of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Washington, DC. Rivero is a member of the Emory Comprehensive Campaign Cabinet and the RSPH Dean's Council. She is also past president of the Emory Alumni Board and chairs its campaign committee.

Patricia A. Thomas, 93MPH, recently took a new position as a health scientist with the Office of Career and Workforce Development at the CDC. She previously worked for the Georgia Department of Human Resources.

BORN: To Dinamarie Cruz Garcia-Banigan, 96MPH, and her husband, Brian Banigan, a daughter, Xavia Helene Garcia-Bani-gan, on Aug. 16, 2006.
MARRIED: Minka Marsh, 97MPH, to John Burt III on May 28, 2006, in Montego Bay, Jamaica.

MARRIED: Ashley Peck, 97MPH, to Mary Riccardi on July 3, 2006. The couple lives in Atlanta.

Thomas Hoff Prol, 89Ox, 91C, 97MPH, has been named to the New Jersey Law Journal’s "40 Under 40" list. Prol practices environmental and land use law with Scarinci & Hollenbeck in Lyndhurst, NJ.

Layla Aljasem, 98MPH, moved back to the United States this spring after working in Kuwait for 21 years. She served as the director of health education for the Ministry of Health in Kuwait. She now lives in Asheville, NC, where she plans to volunteer with nonprofit organizations that promote health and the prevention of chronic diseases.

Heather Christian Monnet, 98MPH, left her position in January 2006 with the polio eradication initiative at WHO headquarters in Geneva to stay home with son Ryan Emmett Monnet, born Nov. 28, 2005. She is now a consultant for WHO. She married Capt. Gregoire Monnet, an officer in the Swiss Military, in July 2004 in Geneva.


MARRIED: Leslie Teach, 98MPH, to Steven Levine on July 14, 2006. The couple lives in Centennial, CO. She is a senior policy specialist with the National Conference of State Legislatures.

BORN: To Rebecca Baggett, 99MPH, and Moshe Haspel, 96G, 98G, a daughter, Lila Anne, on Aug. 22, 2006. She joins big sister Katya.

MARRIED: Nicole Chere’ Syphax Young, 99MPH, to George Thomas Wood III on July 29, 2006. The couple lives in Baltimore, MD.

2000s
MARRIED: Ilyssa Asman, 00MPH, to Matthew Tabor, 99C, 00MPH, on Nov. 5, 2005. The couple resides in Duluth, GA.

Linda Sampson Danavall, 00MPH, 04MPH, is a PhD candidate in race and urban sociology with a medical focus at Georgia State University.

Kelley Brittain Hise, 00MPH, was recently promoted to Pulsenet database unit chief in the Enteric Diseases Laboratory Branch at the CDC.

Todd Christopher Knudson, 00MPH, received a medical degree from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in May 2006. He is completing an internship at Tripler Army Medical Center in Hawaii, where he serves as an Army captain.


MARRIED: Tarek Khalil, 01MPH, is licensed to practice medicine in Canada. He moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, in 2004 and married Nancy Azer in 2005.

MARRIED: Jennifer White, 01MPH, to Thomas Charrette on Aug. 5, 2006. The couple resides in Yarmouth, ME. Jennifer is manager of accreditation and regulatory affairs at Maine Medical Center in Portland.

Elin Begley, 02MPH, and her partner, Angie Terrell, celebrated their commitment ceremony and 10-year anniversary on Sept. 23, 2006. Elin is an epidemiologist with the CDC in Atlanta.

MARRIED: Darcy Freedman, 02MPH, to Heath Blackard on Aug. 5, 2006. Darcy is a research assistant at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN.

Heather Gomes, 02MPH, received her medical degree from the University of Nebraska Medical Center in May 2006. She began her residency in otolaryngology/head and neck surgery at Tufts-New England Medical Center in Boston in June 2006.


Kimberly Jackson Leeks, 02MPH, received her doctorate in health education and promotion from the Ryals School of Public Health of the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She currently works as a research public health analyst with Research Triangle Institute International in Atlanta.

Sima Rama, 96OX, 99C, 02MPH, and her business partners opened an Atlanta boutique that carries couture clothing and precious stone Asian jewelry.

Tamara Stewart, 03MPH, is now project director in the RSPH for a breast cancer education and outreach program for underserved women in metro Atlanta. She became engaged to Kenneth Mason in December 2005.

Kristina Weis, 00OX, 01C, 03MPH,
is working on her PhD at the Norman J. Arnold School of Public Health at the University of South Carolina. Her dissertation is based on her work with the state's Department of Health and Environmental Control regarding a population-based study that examines missed opportunities for earlier identification of HIV cases.


David A. Bray, 01C, 04MPH, 09G, was selected by the Brookhaven Rotary Club to receive an Ambassadorial Scholarship to study at Oxford University before returning to Emory to complete his PhD dissertation in information systems at the Goizueta Business School. He previously served as the associate director of informatics for the HIV/AIDS Prevention and Bioterrorism Response Programs at the CDC. Bray received the Matthew Lee Girvin Award from the RSPH Alumni Association for 2005.

MARRIED: Megan Connolly, 02C, 04MPH, to Matthew Edwards on Sept. 24, 2005. She is a clinical research coordinator at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Raymond J. (Ray) Kotwicki, 04MPH, was named medical director and vice president for clinical affairs of Skyland Trail, an Atlanta-based adult psychiatric treatment center supported by the George West Mental Health Foundation. Kotwicki previously was medical director for community outreach services in psychiatry at Grady Memorial Hospital and a staff psychiatrist with Emory Healthcare.

Anthony Santella, 04MPH, 05MPH, received his doctorate in health systems management from Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine this spring. He works as an account supervisor at Phase Five Communications in New York, NY.

Edgar Simard, 04MPH, was accepted into the epidemiology doctoral program at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey School of Public Health.

Katherine Wheeler, 04MPH, completed a CSTE/CDC Applied Epidemiology Fellowship with the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. She remained with the department to work in environmental health surveillance.

MARRIED:
Angela Canzater, 05MPH, and Gerald Griggs, 98OX, 00C, on March 20, 2006, in Lexington, SC.

MARRIED:
Cara Exten, 05MPH, to Kevin Rice on Sept. 3, 2006, in Asheville, NC. She is director of an adult and family development project in the Department of Psychology at Arizona State University.

Christine Gray, 05MPH, was assigned to the Yellowstone City-County Health Department as part of a three-year fellowship in the Public Health Prevention Service of the CDC.

Hilary Oliphant, 05MPH, spoke at the avian influenza summit in Geneva in November 2006. She works as a program administrator with CDC/Northrop Grumman in Atlanta.

Amy Parker, 05MSN/MPH, co-authored a study, "Implications of a 2005 Measles Outbreak in Indiana for Sustained Elimination of Measles in the United States," in the August 3, 2006, issue of New England Journal of Medicine.

Jennifer Potter, 05MPH, is now certified as a health education specialist. She works as a public education and outreach specialist at the Georgia Cancer Center for Excellence at Grady Health System.

Joseph Barker, 06MPH, has moved to Kampala, Uganda, to serve as the data coordinator and project administrator for two ARV-adherence trials. The project is funded by the CDC and The Mildmay Center.

Susan Hochman, 06MPH, now works as a health educator for the Alice! Health Promotion Program at Columbia University in New York.


MARRIED: Cristina Kase, 06MPH, to Johnathon Cope in June 2006. She is an Association of Schools of Public Health Fellow at the CDC.

Ramon Parrish, 75OX, 77C, 81M, 06MPH, has been named associate professor of family medicine at the Medical College of Georgia after a brief stint at the Rubin White Indian Clinic in Poteau, OK.

BORN:
To Samantha Brooke Schmidt, 06MPH, and her husband, Jae, a daughter, Jemma Sloane, on June 27, 2006.

MARRIED:
Rebecca Thompson, 06MPH, to Kirk Miller on June 24, 2006. She is a Presidential Management Fellow at the CDC's National Center for Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities.


Amanda Nickerson, 06MSN/MPH, is a public health fellow in the Division of Nursing with the Health Resources and Services Administration, Department of Health and Human Services, in Rockville, MD.
   
         
     
 

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