Gloomy weather outside Battell Chapel did little to dampen the mood inside as hundreds of people gathered to celebrate a new generation of public health professionals.
“I’ve really developed a deep sense of optimism for our future,” Paul Cleary, dean of the Yale School of Public Health, told the 118 students earning their M.P.H. degrees in front of celebratory friends and family. “You’ve chosen careers that will lead to better futures for us all.”
Cleary introduced commencement speaker Howard K. Koh, M.D. ’77, as a consummate public health professional. “I can think of no better role model for your careers,” said Cleary, noting that Koh’s many contributions to health even earned him an invitation to throw out the first pitch at a Red Sox game.
Koh, assistant secretary of health for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, recalled his days as a student at Yale, when he listened to the late William Sloane Coffin, a clergyman and peace activist, speak inside the same ornate chapel where Monday’s Commencement was held. Coffin talked about the widespread human suffering found throughout the world and asked his audience what they would do to lessen it.
The question is just as relevant today and it is now up the Class of 2011 and others to address.
“We need each of you to add your healing touch,” Koh said. “We hold in our hands the promise of better health.”
Koh described public health as a “unique passion” that “seeps into the soul” of its practitioners. He also told the graduates that their sense of wonder would grow as they pushed deeper into public health and that they would come to see that the discipline in connected to nearly all other fields, including law, economics, business and politics. “Opportunities abound,” he said.
He thanked the graduates for their commitment to public health and promised a long, rich journey. Perhaps one day, he noted, the graduates would return to their alma mater to share with a future class of students the “everlasting difference” that public health has made in their lives.
Shelley Geballe, J.D., M.P.H., who was chosen by the graduates as this year’s Mentor of the Year, told the audience that health expands or limits one’s capacity for everything. She urged the graduates to plug away until they have identified the root causes of public health problems and solved them. On a personal note, Geballe said that the confidence and trust students showed in selecting her as Mentor of the Year brought tears to her eyes. “I feel very humbled.”
Her colleague at the School of Public Health, Tené Lewis, Ph.D. was selected by students as Teacher of the Year. Lewis said that she loves conducting research on health disparities and sharing this interest with others. “Teaching allows me to share that passion with others,” Lewis said. “It has been wonderful to share this journey with you.” Lewis’ primary area of research is in the area of psychosocial epidemiology, with an emphasis on cardiovascular disease (CVD) in women. She has a particular interest in understanding how social and psychological factors contribute to the disproportionately high rates of CVD morbidity and mortality observed in African-American women compared to women of all other racial/ethnic groups.
The student address was given by Lindsey Smith, who reminisced about two remarkable years at the School of Public health and said that it was a combination of curiosity, passion and a desire to make people healthier that drew her and many others to the School. “We’re here because of a basic instinct to make the world better around us.”
A new student award was presented for the first time this year, the Brandon James Brei Memorial Award. It is in honor of Brei, a former student who died in 2003 while on a Yale-sponsored research trip to Puerto Rico. Brei drowned while attempting to help another student who was struggling in the water. The inaugural award for commitment and achievement in field of vector-borne diseases was presented to Eliza Little.
The following awards and fellowships were presented during the 2011 Commencement:
Distinguished Student Mentoring Award
Shelley Geballe, J.D., M.P.H.
Award for Excellence in Teaching
Tené Lewis, Ph.D.
Dean’s Prize for Outstanding M.P.H. Thesis
- Alan Fu, Molecular Epidemiology of Chronic Diseases: Genetic and Epigenetic Association Studies and Functional Analysis in Cancer and Asthma
- Fleur Porter, Urban Ecology of Rattus Norvegicus and Zoonotic Leptospirosis in Salvador, Brazil
- Benjamin Simms, Epidemiology of Hookworm Infection Among School Aged Children in Kintampo North District: An Evaluation of Nutritional Status, Albendazole Efficacy, and Implications for Future Control Efforts
Brandon James Brei Memorial Award
Eliza Little
Henry J. (Sam) Chauncey Jr. Inspiration Award
Jessica Hardy
LowellLevin Award for Excellence in Global Health
Jonathan Smith