2021 In Memoriam

Barbara Abraham, M.P.H. ’83, died on May 30, 2020, at her home in Trumbull, Connecticut, at the age of 76.

Christina Frazi Er, Ph.D. ’77, of Saint Augustine, Florida, died on March 19, 2021, at the age of 73 after a long illness. She had a productive career in research and education at Southeast Missouri State University, where she was a tenured professor of biology for more than 35 years until her retirement in 2014. She was also an advocate for women’s equality.

Bruce Goldman, M.P.H. ’73, died of sepsis in September 2020, at Chest-nut Hill Hospital in Philadelphia at the age of 70. He had a long career as an administrator at various hospitals in the New York, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. areas, bringing better-quality health care to under-served communities. After retiring in 2014, he pursued entrepreneurial interests in the medicinal marijuana field, first founding AGRiMED, and then selling that company and found-ing Sativeo Investors LLC.

Joe Bales Graber, M.P.H. ’45, died on May 30, 2020, in Annapolis, Maryland, at the age of 99. She worked two stints at the U.S. Public Health Service. She assisted with the development of the first field training program for the PHS Office of Malaria Control in War Areas (now the Communicable Disease Control Center). While with the PHS, which became part of the old Department of Health, Education and Welfare, she developed and promoted programs for the aging at the National Institutes of Health; Office of the Secretary at HEW; and the PHS Division of Chronic Diseases. These efforts contributed to establishing the National Institute on Aging and the Administration on Aging. She also worked in the Drug Related Studies Program at the old Center for Health Services Research, where she focused on developing advanced training programs and delivery systems related to pharmacy. She was also director of health resources for the Indian Health Service.

John Michael “Mike” Granville, M.P.H ’70, died of COVID-19 complications on February 4, 2021, at the age of 76. He worked at Hughes Aircraft in Arizona before starting his own business in Southern California.

Marvin Lavenhar, M.P.H ’59, Ph.D. ’69.

George P.A.Newby Jr. , M.P.H. ’80, died on October 17, 2020, at the age of 64. He dedicated his professional life to “serving the least of these” in seeking accessible health care for all. After working in hospitals for several years, he changed his focus to community health. He moved to Spartanburg, South Carolina, to serve as CEO of ReGenesis Community Health Center. After receiving his doctorate, he entered academia and became an adjunct professor at the University of South Carolina Upstate.

Gregory Paladino, M.P.H. ’84, of Bedminster, New Jersey, died on July 1, 2020, of lymphoma. He was 62. After graduating from Yale, he started his career at Lederle Laboratories (now Pfizer) in pharmaceutical sales and became district sales manager for the North Atlantic region. From there, he moved into the medical education industry, working with pharmaceutical and biotech companies on health care practitioner educational programs.

David Pearson, Ph.D. ’70, died on May 21, 2021, at the Whitney Center, Hamden, Connecticut, at the age of 86. During the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, he served in the U.S. Public Health Service in the old Department of Health, Education and Welfare. He was instrumental in establishing the government’s first program associated with prepaid medical group practice plans and was associated with various programs, including Medicare, Medicaid, Regional Medical Programs, Comprehensive Health Planning and Mortgage Insurance for Group Practice Programs. For more than two decades, he was on the faculty of the Yale School of Medicine’s Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, and he was associate dean for public health for more than a decade. In retirement, he served as professor of public health at Southern Connecticut State University.

Catherine Rebmann, M.P.H. ’99, died on November 2, 2020, in her home in Atlanta. She was an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Rudolph V. Se Llers, M.P.H. ’66.

Jan A.J. Stolwijk, Ph.D., emeritus professor of public health, died on February 17, 2021, at the age of 93. He was recruited to the John B. Pierce Laboratory in New Haven in 1957, where he studied human physiology, and rose to serve as associate director from 1974 to 1989. He moved next door to Yale, first as director of graduate studies, and then as chair of the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health from 1982–1989, and again as acting chair from 1994–1995. He retired as the Susan Dwight Bliss Professor Emeritus of Epidemiology and Public Health. His leadership and many contributions played key roles in Yale School of Public Health’s development and growth.

Shirley J. Tirrell, M.P.H. ’85, of Killingworth, Connecticut, died on May 19, 2021, at Artis Assisted Living and Memory Care of Branford at the age of 73. During her career, she worked with some of the most dangerous known pathogens. She helped maintain the WHO Reference Center for Arbovirology at Yale and trained scientists from around the world in laboratory procedures. She also helped set up a virology laboratory in Fairbanks, Alaska, for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station in New Haven. Eleven of her scientific articles were published in medical journals, and her work was presented at several national and international medical conferences.