Edith Sylvia Needell Baum, MPH ’75, of Fairfield, Connecticut, died on February 22, 2024, with family by her side. She was mar­ried for 62 years to her late husband, Dr. S. James Baum, MD. She attended the Jul­liard School of Music and the University of Bridgeport and earned a master’s degree in public health from the Yale School of Public Health. Immersed in philanthropic endeavors, supporting meaningful causes, and serving on many boards and commit­tees throughout her life, she was an active community member in Fairfield and the Greater Bridgeport area. She was affiliated with local associations and served on the board of directors of Grasmere Eldercare Center, Jewish Family Services, and LifeBridge. She was a long-time member of Congregation B’nai Israel. For nearly four decades, she sold homes for William Raveis Real Estate Southport.

Constance Austin Bean, MS ’50, longtime resident of Wayland, Massachusetts, wife, mother, author and advocate of environ­mental and women’s health issues, died December 18, 2023. She was predeceased by her husband, Orville E. Bean in 2019 and her son, David R. Bean in 2022. Born March 25, 1928, in Providence, Rhode Island, she attended Lincoln High School. She earned her BA from Mount Holyoke College in 1949 and a Master of Public Health degree from Yale University in 1950. She was a co-founder of the Boston Association of Childbirth Education, Inc. An author, she wrote eight books, the most recent being “Nine Lives and Counting—A Memoir of Hope, Caring, and Healing.” She was a member of the American College Health Association, Education Section, and the International Childbirth Education Asso­ciation. After her retirement from MIT, she devoted herself to elevating awareness and promoting proper treatment of Lyme disease, which she herself was affected by, through research, publications and speaking engagements.

Haotian (Tian Tian) Cai, MPH ’16, died December 5, 2023, in a bus accident while traveling in Egypt. Born August 13, 1988, she arrived in Fairbanks, Alaska with her mother when she was 3 years old from Anhui, China. She attended the University of Chicago where she studied anthropol­ogy, graduating with honors. At Yale, she was awarded the Francis Black Memorial Scholarship, the Lindsay Fellowship for Research in Africa, and the Thomas Rubin and Nina Russell Global Health Fellow­ship. Her academic journey launched her into a career as an epidemiologist, first with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and later with Doctors Without Borders. She published numerous studies related to health interventions and traveled extensively in Africa. She was a prolific knitter, an accomplished curler with Yale’s curling club, a scuba diver, a stand-up paddleboarder, and a dancer of all styles. She is survived by her parents, Hengjin Cai and Xiaoying Fan, numerous aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends.

Dr. Kirby Orrin Kolter, MS, MPH ’74, ScD, formerly of Old Saybrook, Connecticut, and Sarasota, Florida, died July 13, 2023, at Lawrence + Memorial Hospital in New London, Connecticut. He graduated from the University of Vermont in 1967 with a BS in zoology, served two years in the Peace Corps in Africa in Basutoland (now Lesotho) and returned to Connecticut where he completed an MS in clinical parasitology at the University of Connecticut in 1972 and his MPH at Yale. Subsequently, he returned to Africa and spent time researching in Senegal. He received a ScD in tropical medicine from Tulane University in 1981. He worked as an entomologist in New Orleans, then as a professor at the Univer­sity of Florida, Florida Medical Entomology Laboratory. In the 1990s, he worked with the Branford Connecticut Inland Wetlands Department and taught biology courses at the University of New Haven, Albertus Magnus College, and Mitchell College. He also taught secondary school biology at St. Bernard’s Catholic High School in Montville, Connecticut.

John A. Lutz, MPH ’84, a long-time YSPH advocate, volunteer, and AYAPH board member, died on July 24, 2024, after a brief battle with acute myeloid leukemia at age 64. He earned his bachelor’s degree in chemistry at SUNY Oneonta in 1980 and spent his early career at Bassett Medical Center in Cooperstown, New York. He advocated for patient care throughout his career as a health care leader. He joined Albany Associates in Cardiology in 1989, later serving as CEO. In 1997, he was a major driver in the formation of Prime Care Physicians and was CEO until his transition to national consulting in 2006. In 2020, he joined Capital District Physicians Health Plan in Albany, New York, as executive vice president of integrated delivery services where he was a leader in the strategy and execution of the CDPHP affiliation with Community Care Physicians. He was a candidate for Florida’s Sarasota County Hospital Board, for which he was actively campaigning at the time of his illness.

Thomas Robert Mayhugh, Sr., MPH ’62, of Pen­sacola, Florida, died on June 13, 2024. He was born in Princeton, Indiana and grew up in Louisville, Kentucky. He graduated from the University of Kentucky College of Pharmacy in 1952, then enlisted in the Air Force serving in the Korean and Vietnam wars. He received a Master of Public Health/Hospital Administration degree from Yale University in 1962 and a master’s degree in business administration from George Washington University in 1967. He retired from the Air Force as a lieuten­ant colonel in January 1973, and returned to Louisville where he began working for State Farm Insurance. He also maintained his pharmacy certifications and continued to work part-time as a pharmacist until 2002. He was involved in many service clubs including the St. Matthews Kentucky Lions Club, the Kentucky Chapter of The Retired Officers’ Association, the Louis­ville Kentucky Chapter of the Military Order of the World Wars, National Sojourners, the Air Force Association, the Pensacola Historical Society, and the Pensacola Heritage Foundation. He had been a Mason since 1963.

Rosario (Saro) Palmeri, MPH ’70, died on October 30, 2023. Born in Palermo, Italy in 1931, he earned his medi­cal degree at the University of Palermo, and subsequently came to the United States where he in­terned at Union Hospital in Fall River, Mas­sachusetts. He completed his residency at Worcester City Hospital, Worcester, Massachusetts, and joined a private pedi­atric practice in Quincy, Massachusetts. He moved to Wethersfield, Connecticut to work at the Connecticut Department of Public Health as a pediatric specialist and was involved with the Yale University Child Study Center. He obtained a master’s degree in public health at Yale. Following his retirement as chief of the Handicapped Children Section of the Connecticut Department of Public Health, he and his wife settled in Wellesley, Massachusetts where he consulted for the Massachusetts Disability Determination Services. During his lifetime he contributed to numerous areas of research and practice in the field of early child development.

Dr. Ruby Tomberg Senie, PhD ’84, died on September 26, 2023, at the age of 87 following a long and distinguished career as a scientist, researcher, public health nurse, and educator. She received a BS from Cornell University in 1957, a BSN from Cornell School of Nursing in 1975, an MA from Teachers College, Columbia University, in 1978, and a PhD from Yale School of Public Health in 1984. Over the course of her career, she was director of the department of community health at Beth Israel, an assistant professor in the department of community medicine at Mount Sinai, a senior epidemiologist in the women’s health and fertility branch at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an associate epidemiologist of breast surgery at Memorial Sloan Ket­tering, a seminar leader in epidemiology at Cornell University Medical School, and an associate professor of public health at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University.

Samuel Blatchley Webb, Jr., BA ‘ 61, MPH ’63, died peacefully on his 85th birthday, January 7, 2024. He was a resident of Palm Beach, Florida. He was born in New York City and attended the Buckley School and then Groton School, graduating in 1957. He graduated from Yale University in 1961 before earning a master’s in public health from the Yale School of Public Health in 1963. Upon his honorary dis­charge from the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, he earned his PhD from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1970. He served as a tenured professor at Yale and was director of the Yale Program in Hospital Management. He also served as assistant to the president at the University of Vermont. For many years, he was a board member and then president of both the Kingsley Trust As­sociation in New Haven, Connecticut, and the Shelburne Museum in Vermont. He was also a board member at Groton School, and the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, Wyoming.

Send obituary notices to ysph.alumni@yale.edu.