Celebrating the Class of 2026: ‘Go forward with hope and courage’  

A joyous cheer arose from inside Woolsey Hall as Dean Megan L. Ranney, MD, MPH, led the Yale School of Public Health commencement procession on May 18^th.

Professor Shelley Geballe, JD ’76, MPH ’95, followed, carrying the school’s new ceremonial mace—its blue glass and stainless-steel top catching the sunlight pouring through the historic hall’s soaring windows.

“I am so proud of you!” Ranney told the graduates.

Then, she began her address with a question: “What does it mean to enter a field that is being rewritten in real time?” she asked.

“The global work of public health may feel chaotic, confounding, even disjointed,” she said. “But the story you are stepping into is not blank. What you are inheriting as you graduate is something more complex: a page covered with earnest markings from all the generations of public health professionals who came before you.”

She explained that the word for that kind of page is palimpsest. “A page that has been written on, scraped down, and written on again.”

The field of public health, too, is a palimpsest, she said.

“Every generation has a chance to decide what to keep, what to scrape away, and what to write anew. But always with the goal of advancing the health of humans — a perennial quest, as technology changes, as diseases emerge and recede, as our political systems shift,” Ranney said.

Ranney praised the Class of 2026 for their accomplishments, including launching the school's Compassionate Dialogue series, assisting lawmakers with new policies, and starting new companies.

“You’ve been the most generative class I’ve had the privilege to work with yet. Starting today? You get to harness that creativity to write the next chapter of public health,” Ranney said.

Ranney’s address was followed by the keynote speaker, Sylvia Mathews Burwell, a former U.S. Health and Human Services secretary who has worked across government, philanthropy, and higher education. Burwell urged the graduates to “dream about the future.”

“I don’t have to tell you that it is not an easy time to enter this field. You already know that. But I will tell you that, while there are no guarantees, amazing things can happen in the most challenging times.”

An example is the founding of the Yale School of Public Health (YSPH) in 1915 and its leadership under Charles-Edward Amory Winslow. At the time, public health was abysmal, Burwell said. The country’s infant mortality rate was 100 deaths per 1,000 live births, and the average life expectancy was about 55 years.

“In the century since, this remarkable place has produced an endless array of public health experts, practitioners and researchers — a line of graduates that you join today,” she said.

“Winslow’s challenges were no less daunting than yours. But they were different. Your challenges will be how to renew public health at a moment of nearly unimaginable technological progress and unrelenting mistrust.”

Quoting Winslow, she said, “I leave you with this charge! ‘Go forward with hope and courage.’”

Student Speaker Casey Wells, MPH ‘26 (health policy), spoke on a similar theme: “Our class of 2026 is unique. We didn’t learn and grow into public health professionals under ideal conditions. We fell in love with it when it was messy, contested, and exhausting.”

But “this community,” she said, “showed up and that says everything about who we are.”

She said the people whose voices impacted her the most were from the New Haven community. They told her not to expect people to change just because you arrived with answers. Expect yourself to change. Go in curious enough to learn what the answers should actually be, she said.

“And that’s it. That’s the whole job," she said. “Every framework we’ve studied, every policy analyzed, every R code built — it all comes back to the voices who know their community best.

“Class of 2026 — we were trained for this moment. Not the easy one. This one. Now let’s go make it better!”

The graduates included 19 students who earned Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degrees, 301 who earned Master of Public Health (MPH) degrees, and 72 who earned Master of Science degrees in public health. Thirteen joint MPH degrees were awarded to students enrolled in graduate programs at Yale in the Schools of Forestry, Management, Divinity, Medicine, Nursing, and the Physician Associate Program.

Bob Schwartz, MPH ’76, was the last person to walk the stage. Schwartz had been unable to attend his own commencement, but 50 years later, the Class of 2026 welcomed him to theirs. As his moment arrived, Woolsey Hall erupted in cheers, and the audience stood to applaud him.

Graduates and their guests gathered earlier in the day for the annual commencement luncheon at the Omni Hotel where Dean Ranney announced this year’s student awards. The students were honored for their work in global health and in local communities; they researched cardiovascular disease, and explored epigenetics and environmental impact, using Long Island Sound oysters as a model organism.

Dean Ranney also celebrated the 19 PhD students who attended a special hooding ceremony the day before with Andrew DeWan, PhD, MPH, director of graduate studies, and Melinda Irwin, PhD, MPH, associate dean of research.

Irwin recognized Xinyi Shen with the 2026 PhD Student Research Prize. Shen was honored for her paper OncoSexome: the landscape of sex-based differences in oncologic diseases, published in Nucleic Acids Research. Her work presents a comprehensive knowledge base that integrates clinical, molecular, environmental, and microbial data across 71 cancer types. It illuminates how sex shapes disease etiology, progression, and treatment response, and provides a foundational resource for precision oncology.

“This ceremony honors the academic achievements of PhD recipients: the highest and most prestigious degree that we confer," Ranney said. “I know that each of you will shape the future of public health,” she added, “as experts and leaders in your respective fields.”