Advancing public health at Washington University

As part of its strategic vision, “Here and Next,” Washington University in St. Louis is mobilizing research, education and patient care to establish the university — and St. Louis — as a global hub for transformative solutions to our deepest societal challenges. That focus includes public health.

“We have the opportunity — from here in St. Louis — to transform public health to improve lives across the nation and our globe,” Provost Beverly Wendland said. “As we emerge from the pandemic, we have seen the strengths and shortcomings of public health as it has been practiced for decades. We have the talent to reimagine the future of public health to address unmet needs and, with the right investments, WashU can change lives for the better at an unprecedented scale.”

While WashU already has deep bench strength in public health faculty expertise, research and degree programs, the university is expanding its commitment to the field. Work is underway to create a new School of Public Health to meet the evolving needs of the city, region and world. WashU’s first new school in a century will expand the well-established academic and applied public health excellence that already exists here.

Public health dean search begins

The intent to build the School of Public Health was announced last October, when the university unveiled its 10-year strategic plan. Two new committees comprising WashU faculty on both the Danforth and Medical campuses recently received their charge to identify the school’s inaugural dean. The Nominations and Recruitment Committee will suggest an initial set of leading decanal candidates. The Interdisciplinary Consulting Committee will add to the target nomination list with a particular emphasis on finding potential leaders from a broad range of disciplines as well as local and global contexts. Together, the committees will work to leverage their expansive networks and support recruitment of a leader who will contribute to the development of WashU’s next era of public health.

“These committees are working collaboratively and in an extremely targeted way to identify our next world-class dean,” Wendland said. “WashU is fortunate to have many public health faculty leaders with expanded networks to reach those highly qualified to help us launch our new school. This is a once-in-a-century opportunity, one that will allow us to mobilize our strengths and position WashU as a standard-bearing institution for public health.”

The new School of Public Health will drive equitable, evidence-based public health initiatives — here in St. Louis and globally — and provide an exceptional training ground for new generations of researchers and practitioners.

“Improving the health of the public is the ultimate goal of everything we do in the academic medical center, including patient care, education and biomedical research,” said David H. Perlmutter, MD, the George and Carol Bauer Dean of the School of Medicine, executive vice chancellor for medical affairs and the Spencer T. and Ann W. Olin Distinguished Professor.

“We’re living at a time when technological advances have profoundly accelerated the impact of medical science, and the School of Public Health is an essential next step in translating that impact for the good of our communities. This includes key aspects of implementing novel therapeutics and preventive strategies in a way that leads to improved outcomes for all communities — including urban and rural, economically strong and underresourced, and those in our local area, our region or across the globe.” 

The WashU community is invited to assist in the search effort. Two virtual town hall meetings, scheduled Oct. 19 and 23, are designed to gather recommendations from faculty, students and staff. In addition, members of the WashU community are encouraged to nominate specific individuals for consideration. (See a complete list of committee members below.)

Furthering the public health discussion

The Public Health at WashU annual conference, titled “Focusing on the Public in Public Health,” will be held Oct. 23-24. The conference will highlight the impactful work already conducted by WashU faculty, staff and students across all eight schools and explore new directions for the field of public health.

Among topics to be discussed will be strengthening the vital public health-related collaboration between the university and its community as well as the collaboration between state, regional and local leaders on critical public health issues.

Keynote speakers are:

•  Darrell J. Gaskin, an internationally recognized expert in health and health care disparities and director of the Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and 

• Sandro Galea, dean at Boston University School of Public Health, past chair of the board of the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health, and past president of the Society for Epidemiologic Research and of the Interdisciplinary Association for Population Health Science.

Visit the event page for more information about the conference and to register; all members of the WashU community are invited to attend.

Gupta to address WashU

The university is also bringing Sanjay Gupta, MD, CNN’s multiple Emmy Award-winning chief medical correspondent and an associate professor of neurosurgery at Emory University Hospital, to campus.

Gupta’s Assembly Series talk, scheduled for Nov. 15 in Graham Chapel, will center on medicine and the media.

More information about the event, including registration, will be forthcoming.

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Public Health Dean Search Nominations and Recruitment Committee

Public Health Dean Search Interdisciplinary Consulting Committee