PUBLIC HEALTH WHEN A RESEARCH COLLEAGUE ASKED COLLEEN MCBRIDE IF SHE’D LIKE TO JOIN HIM ON A SAILING TRIP ALONG THE TURKISH COAST, SHE ACCEPTED IMMEDIATELY. No matter that she did not know the other four people
who were taking the trip. Or that she didn’t know how to sail. Or that she is prone to seasickness. So why would she go? “Why not?” says McBride, a behavioral epidemiologist. Colleen McBride, the new chair of the Department of Behavioral Sciences and
McBride, whose sailing adventure turned out just fine, brings that venturesome spirit to her new post as chair of the Department of
Health Education, plans
Behavioral Sciences and Health Education. She plans to build on her
to build on her previous
previous work as the founding chief and senior investigator of the So-
work at the National Hu-
cial and Behavioral Research Branch of the National Human Genome
man Genome Research
Research Institute (NHGRI). In that position, McBride was among
Institute, where she was
the first to focus on using genetic information to inform public health
the founding chief and senior investigator of the
interventions—the public health equivalent of personalized medicine.
Social and Behavioral Research Branch.
18
public health magazine
spring 2015
by Martha McKenzie
spring 2015 public health magazine
19