Welcoming Steini Brown as Interim Dean & Global Health Achievements
April 7/2017
Dear Colleagues,
First, many of you have seen the Provost’s announcement that Professor Adalsteinn (Steini) Brown will serve as Interim Dean for the Dalla Lana School of Public Health beginning on July 1, 2017 when I transition into my administrative leave/sabbatical.
As you all know, Steini has served as Director of IHPME for the past five years and also served capably as the co-chair of the 2016-2021 DLSPH Strategic Planning Committee, a core member of the Dean’s Leadership Team and School-wide Executive Committee, co-chair of the Healthy Barrie initiative, and co-chair of the DLSPH-IHPME steering committee that orchestrated the transition of IHPME from the Faculty of Medicine to the DLSPH. He has also served in countless other unnamed roles providing leadership, advice and guidance to the DLSPH.
I have the utmost confidence in Steini’s abilities and I know he will provide superb leadership for the DLSPH as it operationalizes the School’s plans to meet the recommendations of our external reviewers as well as the objectives of our new strategic plan, all while meeting the budgetary and other challenges that confront the School during these challenging times.
I will do everything I can ensure a smooth transition over the next few months. Transition plans are being arranged and I will share them with you once finalized, including who will serve as the Interim IHPME director.
Please join me in congratulating Steini and wishing him well in his new role beginning July 1.
Second, since becoming a stand-alone Faculty in 2013 and spreading its wings, few things have embodied the DLSPH’s aspirations and plans to increase its impact and visibility in the world more than the global health initiatives it has been gradually developing and launching. Among these, the best involve our students, and two recent accomplishments deserve mention.
It is with enormous pride that I congratulate the success of our first-ever entry into the Emory University Global Health Case Competition. A multidisciplinary team of University of Toronto graduate students — including three from DLSPH, and three from the Rotman School of Management — placed second and received the Participants’ Choice Award after competing against 23 other teams from around the world. You can read about the students, faculty mentors, and their case here.
The other accomplishment was the successful application of a partnership between our Office of Global Health Education & Training, led by Professor Erica Di Ruggiero and the Centre for Global Health Research at St. Michael’s Hospital, run by Professor Prabhat Jha to secure funding from the Canadian Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Advanced Scholars Program. This funding will support 20 scholars from Ethiopia, India, Mexico, Mozambique and Canada will learn to apply novel multidisciplinary research methods to develop surveillance systems and enact policies to improve maternal and child health.
We clearly attract some of the best students in the world, and we are creating some of the best training programs in the world in which they can thrive. These two accomplishments augur well for the DLSPH’s future.
Warmly, as always,
Howard Hu