Georgetown’s drive to do its very best work in service to the common good has shaped centuries of growth and progress.
Today, it animates the university’s $3 billion campaign ambition, calling us to invest in areas of great strength for Georgetown— and even greater opportunity.
Through Called to Be: The Campaign for Georgetown , we are answering the call with resources and action, empowering new generations of professionals to transform health outcomes.
What does it mean to be well—and why is that out of reach for so many? How can we usher in a healthier future for all?
These questions become more urgent and complex with every passing day. The forces eroding our global population’s health—novel threats to public health, shifting policy landscapes, a changing climate, widespread disparities, and far more—are placing immense stress on individuals, health professionals, and health care systems as a whole.
It’s time to evolve the conversation around well-being and health, and to meet our biggest challenges with interdisciplinary solutions.
At the School of Health, we are laying the groundwork for a world where health is considered a core value, enabling a better outlook for communities near and far.
What exactly is ‘well-being’?
The term “well-being” can be tough to pin down. Some, including the World Health Organization, consider it to be the fullest embodiment of mental, physical, psychological, and spiritual health, achieved through healthy relationships, social ties, a sense of empowerment and belonging, and emotional resiliency, among other variables. But it can also be defined by the absence of ills, such as disease, loneliness, isolation, violence, racism and bigotry, political disenfranchisement, and exclusion.
Despite a growing recognition of the many factors that influence well-being, most policies are developed to address an overly narrow definition of health. The School of Health takes a more holistic approach, preparing future leaders who can pursue multifaceted solutions to pressing health problems.
Building a legacy in the health sciences
The School of Health is one of two schools (along with the School of Nursing) launched in 2022 as part of an organizational change at Georgetown that unlocked new opportunities for growth and collaboration. It is a new school with the strength of a decades-old foundation established when its three inaugural departments were housed in Georgetown’s former School of Nursing & Health Studies.
School of Health departments
Department of Human Science
Department of Global Health
Department of Health Management and Policy
School of Health degree programs (as of academic year 2024-25)
Bachelor of Science in Human Science**
Bachelor of Science in Global Health
Bachelor of Science in Health Care Management & Policy
Master of Science in Global Health (Administered by the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences with support from the School of Health)
Master of Science in Health Systems Administration
Executive Master’s in Clinical Quality, Safety & Leadership
Global Health Minor
Public Health Minor
Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Minor
Executive Certificate in Clinical Quality, Safety & Leadership
We look forward to expanding this suite of degree offerings and programs, as well as our team of faculty, in the years to come.
** Students who earn a BS in Human Science also now have the option to complete an accelerated master’s degree within one semester after graduation, focusing on areas such as bioinformatics, pharmacology, physiology and biophysics, or integrative neuroscience.
A pathway to unleash our potential
This is a defining moment for our commitment to advance the health and well-being of people locally, nationally, and globally. We are called to educate a new generation of leaders who understand the historical and systemic factors at work—and have the skills to confront both entrenched and emerging health problems.
Innovative research, interdisciplinary education, and transformative community engagement are all essential to this ambition. Donor support makes them possible.
Investments in student scholarships, experiential learning, and our faculty will fuel our growth and help solidify our role as a world-class destination for talented leaders ready to forge a healthier future.
We will strengthen the talent pipeline for health careers.
Numerous factors underpin health and well-being. That’s why we champion meaningful reforms across every sector of society—and it’s why we seek to develop a workforce that understands the challenges faced by all of the populations our graduates will serve.
Scholarships are the most powerful tool we have as we strive to broaden access across our programs, ensuring that the School of Health community includes the full array of perspectives needed to confront deep-seated health problems.
What do we mean by ‘social determinants of health’?
The phrase was first popularized in the 1990s by epidemiologists, referring to factors beyond traditional health that can have an equal, if not greater, effect on well-being than genetics or biology. Think: food insecurity, substandard housing, and poverty— situations that exacerbate health disparities worldwide.
Consider a patient who receives a prescription that must be taken during a meal— but who can’t afford food. Or a child who is treated for asthma in the hospital—but returns home to the unsafe housing conditions that caused his respiratory symptoms in the first place.
We need a more holistic approach, one that meets patients where they are and acknowledges their unique circumstances. By making a Georgetown education more accessible, we will help cultivate a workforce attuned to the many drivers of health disparities.
However, the significant expense associated with pursuing health careers has made it challenging to foster a diverse workforce. Cost concerns not only deter potential applicants but also limit students’ career choices. Too often, looming student debt prevents graduates from choosing roles based on their passions, blocking the flow of talent to positions that address the health of populations in greatest need.
Giving to scholarships is one of the most direct ways to strengthen the School of Health’s capacity to offer students a world-class experience. With donor support, we will increase the affordability of our undergraduate and graduate programs, support students pursuing community-based work, and enable more Hoyas to pursue a master’s degree in health sciences immediately upon completion of their Georgetown undergraduate degree.
“This scholarship represents opportunity—it lets me immerse myself in a field I’m truly passionate about and pushes me to grow, both personally and academically. Thanks to this support, I’ve been able to dedicate more time to actively engaging with my local communities, whether it’s playing the guitar at the VA or Children’s National or volunteering at more service events.”
—Alina Watson (H’26), Health Care Management & Policy major
“In order to build a future where a sense of well-being is essential to health, we have to start with ourselves.”
—Jessica Kritz, Assistant Professor in the Department of Global Health and Director, Initiative on Health and Peace
Global Health majors Alaina Anderson (H’24) and Seareen Maaita (H’24) during their time interning with the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium.
A CORE PILLAR OF OUR ACADEMIC APPROACH
Throughout their careers, our graduates will face numerous challenges to delivering care, support, and services to individuals in need. Some will encounter distrust of health care professionals rooted in past discrimination. Others will grapple with the cost concerns of uninsured or underinsured patients. Health professionals who have developed a greater cultural understanding will be uniquely ready to navigate these scenarios.
We are committed to educating these kinds of leaders, ensuring that School of Health graduates can create solutions in partnership with their communities, across all sorts of sectors—clinical care, public policy, scientific research, health systems administration, community engagement, and more.
CO-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES THAT DEVELOP VALUABLE SKILLS
Extending traditional classroom learning with programming focused on cultural understanding and humility is a key part of this preparation. Through research opportunities, workshops, seminars, and other educational offerings, School of Health students acquire vital knowledge and competencies.
Philanthropy will play an important role in enhancing the co-curricular activities available to School of Health students. Support for a program coordinator, for instance, would help establish a role dedicated to expanding and overseeing experiential and longitudinal learning opportunities. Having a coordinator skilled in educational strategy, partnershipbuilding, and curricular development would enhance our capacity to facilitate meaningful internships, hands-on learning, and professional development activities.
A unique opportunity for students to present their research
Each year, dozens of Georgetown students from health- and science-related majors seize the opportunity to present their research to peers and faculty at the university’s Undergraduate Research Conference (URC). Established in 2003 by the Department of Human Science, the URC is made possible by the generous support of the Wietlisbach family.
Student-led research projects provide meaningful opportunities for undergraduates to connect their personal and academic interests with their scholarly work. The URC enriches this process, teaching students critical presentation skills, from creating a coherent scientific story to writing a concise abstract and creating a thoughtful poster.
The conference has grown into a centerpiece of the student research experience and plays an instrumental role in fostering greater collaboration between the School of Health and other Georgetown programs.
PREPARING FOR LASTING, MEANINGFUL CAREERS
Experiential learning not only teaches students about the world around them but also allows them to understand how this work affects their own individual well-being.
School of Health students are attracted to health-oriented careers for the opportunity to engage in fulfilling work and drive positive change. At the same time, many of them discover that those environments and professions come with their own distinct stressors and challenges. By helping students process these circumstances in an educational setting, we foster a vital level of internal awareness that may both improve their personal welfare and equip them to excel in their future professions.
With your support, we will provide more opportunities for transformative, realworld experiences, deepening students’ cultural awareness and impact.
Flexible resources to fuel rapid progress
Generously established by Laura (NHS’03) and Mike Yaeger (B’03), the School of Health Dean’s Leadership Priorities Fund supports the operations, programming, and research of the School of Health. Gifts to the fund will help provide critical resources for the School of Health as it continues to seize new opportunities to enhance student learning.
Faculty We will foster a dynamic community of scholars.
Faculty are the driving force behind the School of Health’s distinctive educational and research opportunities. Through their instruction, guidance, and mentorship, these talented instructors equip Georgetown students for success in their future health professions.
With experts across an array of specialties, the School of Health is also a crucial convener, accelerating the creation of interdisciplinary solutions. Investments in expanding and empowering our faculty will be pivotal in order to realize the School of Health’s potential for impact within and beyond the classroom.
SERVING THE WHOLE UNIVERSITY COMMUNITY
Led by these esteemed experts, the School of Health’s degree programs attract students from a wide variety of backgrounds and academic disciplines. In fact, many students participating in our minor programs—which are available university-wide—are from Georgetown’s other undergraduate schools.
We embrace, and seek to expand, the School of Health’s role as a hub for students and scholars contributing to this work across the whole university. This community of scholars includes a number of centers, initiatives, and schools that engage with the health sciences field, including:
• Georgetown School of Nursing
• Georgetown School of Medicine
• Georgetown Global Health Institute
• Center for Health Equity
• Center for Men’s Health Equity
• Medical Humanities Initiative
• Office of Minority Health and Health Disparities Research
• Center for Global Health Policy & Politics
• Center for Global Health Practice and Impact
• Center for Global Health Science and Security
• O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law
• Health Justice Alliance
Enduring support for faculty research and mentorship
Since its creation in 2019, the Dekkers Endowed Chair in Human Science has been instrumental in supporting faculty and student research at the School of Health.
The endowed chair was made possible by the generosity of Dr. Marijn Dekkers and Andra Dekkers (Parents’19,’21,’21), in hopes of stimulating students’ scientific and discovery skills in new areas of human biochemistry.
Inaugural Dekkers Chair and Associate Professor Blythe Shepard, whose research is centered around cellular signaling as a means to regulate kidney and liver physiology, says the resources facilitated her mentorship of more than 20 undergraduate students in the lab resulting in the publication of numerous scientific articles. In addition to significantly expanding her research portfolio, Shepard established cross-campus collaborations and obtained additional research support from the National Institutes of Health.
Following Shepard’s term, Georgetown in 2024 awarded the Dekkers Endowed Chair to Associate Professor Jan LaRocque, whose research focuses on genome integrity. LaRocque has mentored dozens of undergraduate students during her time at Georgetown and serves as a faculty coadvisor for the university’s Undergraduate Research Conference (see page 16). The Dekkers Chair will further strengthen LaRocque’s lab, accelerating her research productivity, enabling travel to national conferences, and supporting student-driven investigations of the fundamental processes that maintain our genome.
Creating impact at the intersection of health, policy, and law
Recognizing that law and policy can be especially powerful health interventions, Georgetown’s School of Health and O’Neill Institute for National & Global Health Law in 2023 built on an existing initiative to form the Center for Global Health Policy & Politics.
The cross-campus center brings together lawyers, social scientists, epidemiologists, and policy experts with decades of experience in global health. Through research and strategic convening, they address the political determinants of health and support the creation of legal and policy environments that help stop pandemics, expand equity in access to medical technologies, tackle health inequalities, and save lives.
Philanthropic support for School of Health faculty will increase our ability to pursue similarly impactful collaborations that address concerning global health challenges.
EMPOWERING TEAMS TO PURSUE ‘BIG IDEAS’
The School of Health’s “Big Ideas” initiative was born out of this ambition for high-impact interdisciplinary work. Launched in 2023, the project invited faculty to propose unconventional, interdisciplinary approaches that could advance knowledge and solutions to seemingly intractable health problems.
The school greenlit two initial proposals, both noteworthy for their potential to influence the formation of the School of Health and make a distinct contribution to the university.
Global Mental Health & Well-Being Initiative
One of the selected projects involves a coalition of more than 40 faculty, staff, and students pursuing research, pedagogy, and advocacy related to psychiatric, mental health, and psychosocial issues at home and abroad. The Global Mental Health & Well-Being Initiative convenes stakeholders from the School of Health, School of Foreign Service, College of Arts & Sciences, School of Medicine, Center for Global Health Science and Security, and Law Center.
Among its research projects, the initiative is exploring the relationship between climate-related stressors and emotional dysregulation, sleep disruption, and adverse mental health outcomes in Bangladesh. Another effort focuses on achieving equity in the diagnosis of Black men’s distress and depression.
Initiative for Health Economics, Financing, and Outcomes
The second selected project is a faculty-initiated research hub focused on issues encountered by health care systems domestically and globally. Through thought leadership and inquiry, the Initiative for Health Economics, Financing, and Outcomes hopes to support evidencebased decision-making processes for health sector stakeholders such as governments and international agencies.
Early projects through the initiative have explored issues related to vaccine manufacturing in low-income countries, adverse health outcomes experienced by refugees, and the economic impact of COVID-19 on health care workers.
Through these projects, and others like them, the School of Health will forge transformative solutions to emerging health threats—and educate new generations of leaders ready to mount a collaborative response. Philanthropic partners will make it possible to dream even more expansively about the School of Health’s work to change the health landscape.
With your support, we will expand our faculty and incubate novel solutions to complex health problems.
Georgetown alumni, parents, and friends are essential partners in our work to usher in a new era of health and well-being.
Thank you for your generosity, now and always, as we build on the university’s strengths to educate new generations of leaders who can promote innovative, holistic, and interdisciplinary solutions to the world’s most pressing health challenges.
