2O36 CAMPAIGN

THE FUTURE STARTS HERE

Emory’s new campaign aims to transform the future

Emory University has launched its most ambitious campaign to date to raise $4 billion to advance its mission of serving humanity through knowledge.

Named for Emory’s bicentennial, 2O36 is about investing in people for the benefit of people.

“When there is an important issue, a tough question, I want them to think, ‘I wonder what’s going on at Emory? I wonder how they’re solving this? I wonder what research is addressing this question,’ ” says University President Gregory L. Fenves.

Emory kicked off the community phase of its visionary 2O36 campaign in late October 2021 with events on the Emory Quad. Five geodesic domes and a grand stage were erected to tell the stories behind the campaign. Dean Curran and other deans and administrators shared their priorities for the future of Emory. Dr. Briana Woods-Jaeger, assistant professor of behavioral, social, and health education sciences, discussed her work regarding stress and trauma-related health disparities in mental health in collaboration with community partners in Atlanta and across other regions. The work of Dr. Rachel Waford Hall, a clinical psychologist and assistant professor in global health, which centers on identifying and helping young people with psychosis get into treatment, was also featured.

The university had already raised $2.6 billion through the preceding four-year silent phase of the campaign. It now hopes to raise the remaining amount over the next three years.

In addition to supporting priorities across all nine of the university’s schools, multiple centers and institutions, and Emory Healthcare, the campaign will place special emphasis on three core areas—student flourishing, faculty eminence, and research excellence.

Central to all of these goals is increasing Emory’s endowment. Endowed scholarships to ensure that cost doesn’t deny top students the benefit of an Emory education. Endowed faculty positions to enable the university to continue to attract and retain the most talented and accomplished faculty in their fields. And endowed funds earmarked for research to answer the most pressing questions and address the crucial needs of tomorrow.

The campaign is guided by a Campaign Council led by Susan Cahoon 68C, John and Cammie Rice, Sarah Beth Brown 89B, Adam Rogers 92C 96M P19 P21, and Stephanie Rogers 92C P19 P21. Amy Rollins Kreisler, Mary Ann Lanier, and Melissa Lowe serve on both the university Campaign Council and the Rollins Campaign Committee.

“If we boldly invest in student flourishing, faculty eminence, and research excellence, Emory will contribute as never before,” says Fenves. “And the 2O36 campaign will empower our students, faculty, and staff to accomplish our mission: service to humanity. The future at Emory starts now.”

2O36 AT ROLLINS Rollins had already raised $208 million by the time the futuristic domes were erected on the Quad. A very generous gift of $65 million for the R. Randall Rollins Building enabled the school to meet one of its highest campaign

priorities. Thirty donors have established their own endowed scholarship funds through an innovative scholarship-matching initiative that matches gifts ranging from $50,000 to $125,000 on a one-to-one basis. This program has added almost $22 million to the Rollins endowment.

Rollins has been focused on building a strong endowment for more than 25 years. Great strides were made toward this goal when shortly after the campaign launch, Rollins received the largest gift in the school’s history. The O. Wayne Rollins Foundation committed a landmark $100 million gift to create two new endowed funds, the Rollins Fund for Faculty Excellence and the Rollins Fund for Student Success.

The Rollins Fund for Faculty Excellence will be dedicated to recruiting and retaining exceptional senior faculty by nearly doubling the number of the school’s endowed faculty positions and by providing early career support for Rollins assistant professors.

Faculty are crucial to achieving success securing millions of dollars each year from private foundations and corporations including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Ray C. Anderson Foundation, the Robert W. Woodruff Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Giliad, and many others.

The Rollins Fund for Student Success will be used to increase the number of merit scholarships given to public health students. This fund may also provide students with career-enhancing experiences through the Rollins Earn and Learn work-study and global field experiences.

“This campaign will allow Rollins to achieve transformative advances by attracting top-tier students and stellar faculty,” says Curran. “It will fuel ground-breaking research. Investments in our school through the 2O36 campaign will have a wide ripple effect, improving the health and well-being of populations around the globe.” n

Landmark $100 million gift

Leaders from Emory and the Rollins Foundation celebrated a transformative $100 million gift from the O. Wayne Rollins Foundation. They include (from left): Jonathan S. Lewin, Emory executive vice president for health affairs, Woodruff Health Sciences Center executive director and Emory Healthcare CEO; John Rice, Emory University Board of Trustees; Pam Rollins, O. Wayne Rollins Foundation trustee; James Curran, dean of Rollins School of Public Health; Amy Rollins Kreisler, O. Wayne Rollins Foundation executive director; Emory President Gregory L. Fenves; Timothy C. Rollins, Emory University Board of Trustees and O. Wayne Rollins Foundation trustee; M. Daniele Fallin, incoming dean of Rollins School of Public Health; Robert C. Goddard III, Emory University Board of Trustees chair; and Ravi V. Bellamkonda, Emory provost and executive vice president for academic affairs.

ROLLINS CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE

Rhona Applebaum, PhD Ami Shah Brown 00PH, PhD Bruce Brown 01PH, MA Lisa Carlson 93PH, MCHES Bert Clark Jr., JD Alisa Golson 98PH Johanna Hinman 98PH, MCHES Amri Johnson 96PH Ann Estes Klamon 65C 76JD Amy Rollins Kreisler, JD Mary Anne Lanier Melissa Lowe David Martin, RN Michael Ugwueke 86PH, DHA, FACHE

ROLLINS ALUMNI CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE

Amri Johnson 96PH – Chair Anne Arwood 06PH 20B Carmen Ganga 12PH Keisha Hunt 03PH Heather Ingold 00PH Emily Kraus 08PH Angie McGowan 98PH Melissa Miller 04C 06PH Cheryll Thomas 99PH

Celebrating service and leadership

Rollins alumni receive three of five top Emory honors

Each year, Emory University honors outstanding alumni

with awards celebrating their achievements in service

and leadership. The Community Impact Award recognizes school’s curriculum. The organization aims to break two large barriers for Black children learning to swim: access and affordability. Miller is shining a light on the racial disparities and health inequities that have alumni who, whether through professional or volunteer service, have made significant and positive impact on the lives of others and embody the values represented in the university’s vision. The J. Pollard Turman Alumni Service

Award is given to an alumnus/a who demonstrates exceptional volunteer leadership. This award comes with a $25,000 gift from the Tull Foundation, which the recipient can direct to any Emory school, division, or program.

The highest of all alumni awards, the Emory Medal honors its recipient for service to Emory, service to the community, and achievement in business, the arts, the professions, government, or education.

Due to an overwhelming number of candidates, two

Community Impact Awards and two Emory Medals were given this year. Lisa M. Carlson, Trish Miller, and Jean O’Connor (l-r) were honored with Emory University’s top recognition for alumni. Of the five 2022 awardees of Emory’s top honors for alumni, three hailed from Rollins.

Let’s meet the winners.

COMMUNITY IMPACT AWARD

TRISH MILLER 17MPH was 19 years old when she dove headfirst into 12-foot-deep water. It was spring break, and after a 15-minute swim lesson from friends, she mustered the courage to take the leap. Adrenaline soaring, her body crashed into the water. It was a frantic few moments before Miller realized that she had no idea how to float or tread water.

Luckily, her friends sprang into action and saved her life. She went on to learn that experiences like hers were far too common. In fact, drowning deaths are the second-leading cause of death in children 17 and under.

For Black children, the rates are even higher than for their Hispanic and white counterparts. Faced with her own experience and alarming statistics, Miller knew what she had to do. In 2017, she founded SwemKids. The school-based water safety and swimming instruction program transports elementary and middle school students to local pools as part of their persisted for generations. With each lesson given at SwemKids, she is envisioning a new way for Black communities to approach swimming.

J. POLLARD TURMAN ALUMNI SERVICE AWARD

LISA M. CARLSON 93MPH has spent the last three decades dedicating her life to public health and Emory. She first came to Emory in 1992 as a first-generation college student and Woodruff Scholar. Carlson credits the effortless sense of community she found as a student, her successful career, and her marriage to fellow alumna, Johanna Hinman 98MPH, as the reasons why she’s stayed so closely tied to the university. Carlson carries dual roles at Emory as an affiliated instructor at Rollins and executive administrator of research administration at the Emory School of Medicine. She has inspired hundreds of students to think critically about today’s public health issues while championing public health on the national level. Carlson has served as president of the American Public Health Association and made history as the youngest president to be elected to the Georgia Public Health Association. She has made it her mission to serve Emory in a multitude of ways, from committees and boards to fundraising and individual giving. A former president of the RSPH Alumni Board and member of the Emory Alumni Board, a perennial mentor, speaker, and panelist, Carlson never declines an opportunity to share her knowledge and experience with others. She was instrumental in raising funds for Rollins during Campaign Emory and is again guiding fundraising efforts through the 2O36 campaign as a member of the RSPH Campaign Advisory Committee. She also leads the effort to endow a scholarship in honor of Dr. Nancy Thompson to support student thesis projects at Rollins. Her lifelong leadership, service, and mentorship at Emory and beyond is truly remarkable, embodying the service and commitment to Emory and the community

at large that the award was created to recognize. Carlson has paired personal gifts from her wife, herself, and their parents with the $25,000 gift from the Tull Foundation to create the Hinman-Carlson Family Scholarship, which will benefit MPH students at Rollins.

THE EMORY MEDAL DR. JEAN O’CONNOR 98C 01L

01MPH has spent more than two decades as a public health leader ensuring communities are healthy— and stay that way. She previously worked for the State of Georgia as the chief policy officer and chronic disease prevention director. In that role, she oversaw $30 million in statewide grants and programs related to risk factors for chronic disease, health equity, the state’s health improvement planning process, and partnerships across sectors. She also worked at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for 10 years as a health scientist and was the acting associate director for policy for the Center for Preparedness and Response. She has taught at Rollins since 2003 and the doctoral program at the University of Georgia since 2017. While working and teaching, she earned a doctor of public health in 2009 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. O’Connor has always been deeply committed to public service. She’s the past-president of the US National Association of Chronic Disease Prevention Directors and serves on several nonprofit boards, including Heluna Health. In 2018, she was named to the Fulbright Specialist Roster for global health and law. The same verve O’Connor has committed to public service has kept her involved with Emory. While attending Emory, she volunteered extensively for Emory EMS, and she has continued to contribute to many committees, organizations, and groups during the past 25 years. n

CLASS NOTES

1900s

PERRI ZEITZ RUCKART 98MPH of Atlanta received a doctor of public health degree from the University of Georgia on December 17, 2021. She is an epidemiologist at the CDC’s National Center for Environmental Health and has previously worked for the US Department of Health and Human Services’ Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.

2000s

GORAN ABDULLA SABIR ZANGANA 09MPH is a medical doctor and associate research fellow with the Middle East Research Institute in Iraq. He is a Healthcare Information for All (HIFA) country representative for Iraq and is currently based in the United Kingdom. In January 2022, Zangana was named the HIFA Country Representative of the Year for 2021. HIFA is a global human rights based community of more than 20,000 members committed to improving the availability and use of reliable health care information and protecting people from misinformation.

2010s

MARRIED: JOSEPH M. GERTH 16C 18MPH and SARAH E. SEYLER 15B of Boston were marred October 22, 2021, in New Orleans, La. Gerth is a surveillance epidemiologist with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, and Seyler is a principal associate with Education Resource Strategies.

IN MEMORIAM

1900s

STACEY ROBIN HILL 89A 91MPH of Kennesaw, Ga., on February 24, 2022. Hill was born November 30, 1966, in Monticello, NY. She earned an MPH in 1991 and had a successful career as a pharmaceutical sales representative and registered dietician. She is survived by her two daughters Samantha Hill and Sarah (Hill) Dagher, son-in-law, mother, father, and step-mother.

2000s

JAMIE L. MILLER 01MPH of Richmond, Calif., on December 7, 2020. Miller worked for 37 years at the CDC as a public health advisor. She was one of the first women to be hired as a public health advisor and was assigned to local and state health departments in many locations before joining the California Department of Public Health in 1988 where she worked until her retirement. Miller twice served as co-chair of the Contra Costa County Juvenile Justice Commission, volunteered as a writer’s coach at Richmond High School, was a docent at the Rosie the Riveter National Park, and served as annual dinner co-chair of the development committee for the Rosie the Riveter National Trust. She died from complications of a rare stomach cancer and is survived by her husband, Stephen Purser, a brother, and many nieces and nephews.

RONALD PRESTON PETERSON 07MPH on February 28, 2022. Peterson was a member of St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church in Atlanta and previously of St. Edward the Confessor Episcopal Church in Lawrenceville and St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church in Snellville. He graduated from Berkmar High School in 1987 and left for St. Andrew’s Presbyterian College in Laurinburg, NC, where he earned a degree in chemical physics and mathematics. He continued his advanced education at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville where he held a teaching assistant position in the chemistry department. He earned an MS in computer science from Georgia Institute of Technology and an MPH from Rollins even as he began his 26-year career at the CDC as a computer specialist. He is survived by his parents.

A champion of the world’s newborns

Joy Lawn’s connection with newborn survival is personal. She was almost a newborn casualty when her mother had an emergency cesarean delivery in a remote bush hospital in northern Uganda and was saved by a medic who had done surgery before but not a cesarean.

“From an early age, I was motivated by social justice issues,” Lawn says. “Living in Uganda until I was a teenager had a lasting effect, despite close experiences with President Idi Amin, and then moving to Belfast during the Troubles.” Lawn 00MPH is now director of the Maternal, Adolescent, Reproductive, & Child Health (MARCH) Centre at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and one of the world’s leading experts on global perinatal data and evidence. She was responsible for the United Nation’s first authoritative national and global estimates on many major perinatal outcomes—2 million stillbirths, 2.5 million neonatal deaths, and other relevant measurements. She has led several Lancet series, one of which catalyzed the first SDG (sustainable development goal) on neonatal survival. Though she has traveled far, she never left her African roots behind. Lawn chose a medical school in Nottingham, UK, where she could complete an intercalated degree in epidemiology in western Kenya studying the experience of pregnant women. After her medical degree, she trained in pediatrics and neonatal health, intentionally gathering those special skills to return to African countries. She met and married a fellow medic who specialized in TB and AIDs. Spurred by the desire to enable African-led change within African learning communities, Lawn chose to teach and practice at a large hospital and medical school in Ghana on a local wage rather than sign on with a more prestigious, white-led research institution. “The experience was very formative,” Lawn says. “We daily saw newborn babies who were dying who shouldn’t have died. At that stage there were no global numbers of newborn deaths, almost no WHO guidelines mentioning newborns, and it was impossible to get any funding.” In 1997, Lawn and her family moved to Atlanta, where she was a fellow at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) WHO Center in Perinatal Care and Health Services Research while she earned an MPH in global health. “Very early on I met several heroes of global health at Rollins, including Deb McFarland, Stan Foster, and Bill Foege,” says Lawn. “These mentors and the classes I took really shaped me. I was incredibly fortunate to receive the Woodruff scholarship. I would have never been able to afford that master’s degree without it.” She recalls a highlight from her experience as a Rollins student. “Bill Foege ran a small class of about 12 students on global health leadership, and it truly inspired me both to believe you can make change, but also seeing a pathway to make it,” Lawn says. “Even years later, I still process things I learned from him. He was incredibly humble, yet so insightful of global health architecture and politics.” Lawn’s time at Emory and the CDC was a turning point in her career. Her newfound skills helped her to better generate the global data needed, design large-scale research, and navigate policy change within national and global health structures. “Something can be a big problem, with a huge number of deaths, but change on the global agenda is also influenced by framing it in a way that is personal and actionable,” Lawn explains. Most of the global evidence for newborn health care at that time focused on high-income countries, in intensive care units with expensive equipment. At that point 60 million of the world’s births were still at home in Africa or South Asia and saving such lives was considered too hard. “Getting the evidence and making a case for community-based interventions was a critical shift then. Now 20 years later, we are making another big shift,” says Lawn. “Now, we are able to transform hospital systems in low-income countries for newborn care with a bundle of innovative devices and large-scale programs such as NEST360, an international alliance aimed at ending preventable newborn deaths in African hospitals.” Lawn was honored to receive Emory’s Sheth Distinguished International Alumni Award in 2015. Lawn was humbled by the award and the experience. “I was overwhelmed when they gave me a standing ovation,” she says. It was well deserved.—Camile Matthews

Would you like to share your story or nominate someone to feature?

Let us know with an email to the editor: martha.mckenzie@emory.edu

Rollins School of Public Health Dean’s Council

Ms. Angela Z. Allen Dr. Rhona S. Applebaum Ms. Yetty L. Arp Dr. Raymond Bain Mr. Chris Barker Ms. Constance Barkley Lewis Ms. Paula Lawton Bevington Dr. Celeste Bottorff Ms. Susan M. Boyd Dr. Ami Shah Brown Mr. Bruce Brown Mr. Jason Carter Mr. Bert Clark Dr. Marlene Cole Ms. Connie Cousins-Baker Ms. Sally A. Dean Dr. Walter C. Edwards Dr. Brenda C. Fitzgerald Ms. Pegi Follachio Dr. Sandra Ford Mr. Jonathan Golden Ms. Alisa Golson Ms. Leslie J. Graitcer Mr. Shelby R. Grubbs Mr. John B. Hardman Ms. Kathy Harkey Ms. Virginia Bales Harris Ms. Gail Hayes Mr. Richard N. Hubert Ms. Ellen Hale Jones Ms. Randy Jones Mr. Stanley S. Jones Jr. Ms. Anne H. Kaiser Mr. Mark A. Kaiser Mr. Alfred D. Kennedy Dr. William Kenny Ms. Ann Estes Klamon Ms. Amy Rollins Kreisler Ms. Mary Anne Lanier Ms. Barbara W. Levy Ms. Melissa H. Lowe Mr. Carlos Martel Jr. Mr. David A. Martin Dr. Barbara L. Massoudi Mr. Michael Melneck Ms. Mary Lu Mitchell Mr. John S. Mori Mr. Horace Disston Nalle Ms. Nancy McDonald Paris Dr. Rajan Patel Mr. Cecil M. Phillips Mr. Glen A. Reed Dr. Cindy Reedy Mr. Gary Reedy Ms. Teresa Maria Rivero Ms. Patricia B. Robinson Ms. Donna C. Rohling Ms. Kathleen W. Rollins Dr. Nalini R. Saligram Dr. Dirk Schroeder Dr. John R. Seffrin Ms. Jane E. Shivers Ms. Margaret Stagmeier Ms. Sandra L. Thurman Mr. William J. Todd Dr. Kathleen E. Toomey Ms. Linda Torrence Ms. Sheila L. Tschinkel Dr. Michael Ugwueke Dr. Jennie Ward-Robinson Ms. Arlene Warshaw Dr. Walter B. Wildstein Dr. Shelby R. Wilkes Ms. Melody Wilder Wilson

Melissa H. Lowe, Chair

Dr. James W. Curran, MD, MPH, James W. Curran Dean of Public Health Ms. Kathryn H. Graves, MEd, MPH, Senior Associate Dean for Advancement and Alumni Engagement

EMORY UNIVERSITY ALUMNI RECORDS OFFICE 1762 CLIFTON ROAD ATLANTA, GA 30322

Create your lasting legacy at Rollins by purchasing a seat in one of our two tiered classrooms in the R. Randall Rollins building when it opens this fall.

With a one-time gift of $500, your name—or that of a respected colleague, mentor, professor, student, or loved one —will be engraved on a 5-inch by 1-inch brushed stainless steel dedication plaque. Each plaque will be displayed on the front edge of the classroom tables to ensure the most prominent and permanent placement.

Your gift to the Seating Our Future Campaign will support students through scholarship, unless otherwise directed. Help us shape the future of public health by seating the next generation of public health leaders.