WashU announced that Sandro Galea, MD, DrPH, one of the world’s most influential public health leaders, will become the inaugural Margaret C. Ryan Dean of the university’s planned School of Public Health, effective January 1. Galea also will hold the Eugene S. and Constance D. Kahn Distinguished Professorship in Public Health.

In this critical leadership role, Galea will help shape and launch WashU’s first new school in 100 years. The school is part of WashU’s 10-year strategic plan to make both the university and St. Louis a global hub for solving society’s deepest challenges.

Galea

"I can think of no more important time to create a school of public health than today. And I can think of no better place to do so than at Washington University, with this institution’s deep and rich tradition of excellence in scholarship and in thought".

— Sandro Galea

Epidemiologist, Physician, Author...

Galea holds a medical degree from the University of Toronto, graduate degrees from Harvard University and Columbia University, and an honorary doctorate from the University of Glasgow. He is one of the most widely cited scholars in the social sciences. He has published extensively in the peer-reviewed literature about the social causes of health, mental health, and trauma. Read more about Galea's many published works.

In addition to his many literary and research accomplishments, Galea has made a name for himself as a knowledgeable, powerful, and articulate speaker and storyteller. See examples of his work below:  

Galea appeared as the 2023 keynote presenter at the Public Health at WashU Annual Conference. In his presentation, he discusses many social and environmental elements that can impact a population, or a person, over a lifetime. 

Galea looks at how hate, injustice, trauma, and bias impact human health. He points us beyond our understanding of Social Determinants of Health to observe how feelings such as love and hate can shape health just as greatly as one's environment can.

In this PBS production, Galea explores the fascinating world of the human immune system, offering a deep dive into the complex mechanisms that protect us from diseases and infections.

Kruk

Kruk to join WashU Medicine faculty

Margaret E. Kruk, MD, MPH, will also join WashU's faculty. Kruk is a professor of health systems at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and director of the QuEST Centers and Network, a multicountry research consortium generating evidence to build high-quality health systems. Her research focuses on how health systems can produce better outcomes for people living in low- and middle-income countries. Working with global research and policy partners, Kruk develops new measures of health system quality and evaluates the effects of large-scale health-care reforms. 

Click here for a detailed SPH development timeline. 

Development of the Arts & Sciences Public Health & Society undergraduate program continues as does a proposal for the full Public Health & Society major. Student registration is currently underway for the fall semester Foundations in Public Health course. New staffing and hiring has commenced for both the minor and major programs with additional teaching positions posted online. 

Learn more about the program on our new Public Health & Society webpage.

Facilitators of the planned School of Public Health are excited about forming Research Networks, which are designed to cultivate collaborative research that addresses salient public health challenges. With their development led by the Office of the Provost, these networks will foster cooperative environments, and encourage the sharing of scientific advances and resources to build cross-disciplinary capacity. Initial phases of consultation and stakeholder engagement in partnership with existing public health-related centers have begun. A phased approach from 2024-2026 will lay the groundwork for the strategic implementation of the research networks and will be further refined with Sandro Galea as the new dean.

Brown School associate professor of practice, Ryan Lindsay, MSW, LCSW, works with community partners to close gaps for individuals and families dealing with suicidal ideation or risk. Find out why he’s in our May Spotlight!

A supplementary food — developed at the Washington University School of Medicine — is now being evaluated in major randomized controlled trials funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and carried out in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF. Read more about this world-changing research.

Ziyad Al-Aly, MD, a clinical epidemiologist at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, and Public Health Faculty Scholar, has been named to the inaugural Time100 Health, a new, annual list of 100 individuals who have most influenced global health. Learn more about Al-Aly’s work.

St. Louis and the Midwest have some of the highest rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in the U.S. Through a five-year, $2.5M grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Division of Infectious Diseases at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, led by Professor Hilary Reno, MD, PhD, professor and principal investigator, is expanding STI treatment in north St. Louis County. The grant helps fund no- to low-cost STI treatment in areas that historically, have had minimal access to sexual health care. Read more on expanded services.  

Photo: Program co-directors, Hikabasa Halwiindi, far left, Elvin Geng, and Mosa Moshabela, far right, welcome keynote speaker, Elizabeth Bukusi

Facilitated by WashU’s Center for Dissemination & Implementation Science, a new Africa-based hub of their HIGH IRI program will launch soon. Center leaders recently convened with a consortium of D&I specialists from University of KwaZulu-Natal, University of Zambia and others to ‘train the trainers’ on a new era of implementation science within the African context. Read about the workshop.

Presented by WashU’s Center for Advancing Health Services, Policy & Economics Research, this event saw record attendance and gave audience members the opportunity to learn more about using health and social data to impact policy. National policy expert and keynote speaker, Jose Figueroa, MD, MPH, discussed the “Plight of the Dual-Eligible Medicare & Medicaid Beneficiaries: Consequences of a Broken System”, which centered on evaluating how policy interventions and payment reforms are currently working to improve quality care and controlling costs, and how they affect safety-net providers and hospitals.