2022 Alumni News

Stathis Antoniades, MPH ’99, was chosen as president of University Hospitals (UH) Cleveland Medical Center. Antoniades brings more than 20 years of large health system and academic medical experience to UH. Following graduation from YSPH, he joined Massachusetts General Hospital and served in increasingly responsible roles until joining Lahey Hospital & Medical Center in 2013 as vice president, medical services, research, and education. He became chief operating officer in 2017 and managed the organization through a financial turnaround as well as the COVID-19 pandemic. With his leadership, Lahey earned the CMS Five-Star rating for 2020 and 2021 and ranked in U.S. News & World Report as the fourth-best hospital in Massachusetts in 2019, 2020, and 2021. 

Rebecca Bakal, MPH ’17, was named to the 10th annual “Double Chai in the Chi: 36 Under 36” list of young Jewish movers and shakers in Chicago who are making major contributions through their work, and in the Jewish community and beyond. Bakal worked full time in the Jewish community for four years, first as a health educator and then as a program manager at the Norton & Elaine Sarnoff Center for Jewish Genetics. In this position, she visited Jewish organizations throughout Illinois to educate the community about Jewish genetic conditions and encourage genetic testing. She is also a doula, providing support during pregnancy, birth, and afterward. She serves on a community engagement workshop at the National Human Genome Research Institute at the NIH, the Associate Board of EverThrive Illinois, and Northwestern University’s Biomedical Institutional Review Board. 

Heidi Boerstler, MPH ’81, DrPH ’87, is a professor emeritus of health administration, law, and ethics at the Business School, University of Colorado, where she teaches ethics and health law in the Executive MBA/HA program. She is also a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania, where she is doing research on the stories people tell about turning points in their lives, collecting narratives from an ethnically and culturally diverse group of older Americans as they describe their lives and the socioecological and cultural factors that influenced the choice to make a change or not. Heidi would love to hear from classmates and friends at heidi.boerstler@ucdenver.edu.

Darryl Crompton, MPH ’76, published a paper in the Journal of Health and Life Sciences Law. The article is titled “President Biden’s Executive Order 13995 on COVID-19 and Health Equity: Seeking Justice in a Public Health Crisis.” Crompton looks at the feasibility of the president’s executive order and makes specific recommendations to improve its chances of success. 

Peter Gorton, MPH ’79, published a historic novel, The Boys of Cortlandt & The Iron Men of Croton, a story that follows two sets of friends from the two eras and examines their friendships and the theory of historic recurrence, or the repetition of patterns through heredity and ancestry. In a subtle way, the novel examines the potential of Nietzsche’s beliefs of connectivity through time as it may include personality, human behavior, family, and ancestry/heredity and how culture may also repeat.

Lianne Epstein Jacobs, MPH ’14, and Daniel Jacobs, MPH ’12, PhD ’16, welcomed their daughter, Rebecca Brooke Jacobs, on February 14, 2022. They currently live in Chicago, where Lianne works in health communication strategy for Vitality Group and Daniel is the managing director at Pathway Bioventures, an early-stage biotechnology venture fund. 

Barmak Kusha, MPH ’98, was promoted to director of infection prevention and control at HCA Florida Trinity Hospital, a 340-bed acute care hospital in the Tampa area. Kusha joined Trinity Hospital as an infection preventionist in 2019.

Yuna Lee, MPH ’09, PhD ’17, was elected Academic-at-Large of the Health Care Management Division of the Academy of Management. AOM is the preeminent professional association for management scholars and practitioners. Lee will be representing the views of academics and leaders who specialize in health care management across a global community that spans over 120 countries.

Luis Lozano, MPH ’13, is a physician assistant, specializing in internal medicine and migrant health. He completed his physician assistant training at Northern Arizona University. Lozano provides medical care to a culturally diverse group of patients, most of whom do not speak English. Additionally, he volunteers as a medical provider for a free clinic in Tucson and continues a family tradition of urban farming.

Kevin Nelson, MPH ’92, a health care executive and prominent advocate for children, has been elected to Intact America’s board of directors. Nelson, CEO at Aetna Better Health of New York, has spent more than 30 years in the health care and humanitarian fields and is passionate about protecting children’s health and welfare. Intact America is a national organization working to end the routine circumcision of baby boys. 

Edward Rafalski, MPH ’90, PhD, is co-editor of a new book, Healthcare Analytics: Emergency Preparedness for COVID-19. He is the chief strategy and marketing officer for BayCare Health System in Clearwater, Florida. As a clinical assistant professor at the University of Illinois School of Public Health, his health services research and teaching interests include the effects of market economics on health care services, health care decision support, quantitative methods, managerial epidemiology health disparities, marketing, and strategic management.

Kayoko Shioda, MPH, DVM, PhD ’20, was selected as a recipient of the inaugural Marie Sklodowska Curie Award. This award recognizes Japanese female researchers in the early phases of their careers. There were 80 applicants this year, and Shioda was one of four recipients. Her research spans infectious disease outbreak response work in more than 30 countries. 

William Toms, MPH ’71, MD ’71, has written a book of stories about his patients and medicine called Quiet Lives. Toms has practiced family medicine for over 45 years. During these years he has gotten to know many people who came to him as patients and ended up becoming his friends. Over the years he has written stories he has heard and witnessed and includes them in the book out of respect, admiration, and affection for so many of these “patient-friends.” His greatest honor has been the trust that his patients placed in him to be their doctor. He hopes these stories help to illuminate the truth and power in the quiet lives of these “patient-friends.”

Patti Rose Trueheart, MPH ’85, has written a book titled A Return to Black Love: The Joys of Black Fatherhood, Motherhood and Marriage Revealed. The book offers insight into Black fatherhood, motherhood, and marriage featuring six heartwarming, intimate, and delightful interviews about Black love including conversations with a professional basketball player, a college president, a DJ, a music producer, teachers, an actress and more. 

Have an update? Your classmates want to hear about you! Send your news (and photos) to ysph.alumni@yale.edu.