Dean’s Medal Awarded to Sid Lerner

Michael J. Klag, MD, MPH, dean of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, has awarded the Dean’s Medal—the School’s highest honor—to Sid Lerner, chairman of the Monday Campaigns, for his vision and leadership in improving the health of the public through the Meatless Monday Campaign.

The Dean’s Medal recognizes individuals who have made a significant contribution to the field of public health. Lerner was presented with the Dean’s Medal on October 17, 2013, at the Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Md., during a celebration marking the 10th anniversary of the Meatless Monday Campaign.

Sid Lerner started the Meatless Monday campaign in 2003 at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, advising Americans to cut out meat one day a week for their health and the environment. It has since become a global movement, taking hold across the U.S. and growing in 29 countries around the world to date.

Lerner now chairs the Monday Campaigns, Inc., a national healthy behavior initiative working with Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, Columbia and Syracuse University Schools of Public Health. A member of the Mailman School Board of Advisors and a Bloomberg School guest lecturer, Lerner is also president of Biorings LLC, which is developing new contraceptive/STD devices and he is a co-inventor with Weill Cornell medical researchers.

A graduate of the Syracuse University School of Journalism (now the Newhouse School of Public Communications), his advertising and marketing career included work with Norman, Craig and Kummel, and Benton & Bowles advertising agencies as a creative director. Clients included Procter & Gamble, General Foods, and Texaco. Lerner later started Sid Lerner Associates, Inc., a creative consulting business. SLA also designed, co-produced and marketed licensed tennis, gifts and sporting good products for the gift and stationery trades.

He has created and produced six non-fiction books: Monday Morning Quarterback (Holt Rinehart & Winston), From the Desk of: (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich), The New Words Dictionary (Barnes & Noble), Trash Cash, Fizzboes and Flatliners (Houghton Mifflin), The Facts on File Dictionary of New Words (Facts on File) and The New New Words Dictionary (Ballantine Books.)

“Sid Lerner is a true champion of public health. The Meatless Monday campaign is a prime example for turning research into an effective social movement for improving health and saving lives,” said Klag. “I admire Sid’s energy and enthusiasm and we thank him for his commitment to improving the public's health.”

Previous recipients of the Dean’s Medal include Suzanne and Bob Wright, the founders of Autism Speaks; William Foege, MD, MPH, celebrated epidemiologist and physician instrumental in smallpox eradication; Richard Besser, MD, health and medical editor for ABC News; Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet; Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Oshinsky; David Heymann, MD, Assistant Director-General for Health Security Environment and Representative of the Director-General for Polio Eradication at the World Health Organization; Sam Thier, MD, President, Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences; HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn of Thailand; Carol Bellamy, Executive Director, UNICEF; Anthony Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; and Alfred Sommer, dean emeritus, Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health media contact: Tim Parsons at 410-955-7619 or tmparson@jhsph.edu.