Honoring Our Own
Alumni Day 2014 celebrates outstanding graduates and faculty.
Coming to the Bloomberg School means joining a community of professionals contributing impactful and inspiring work worldwide. During Alumni Day 2014, Heritage Award recipients were applauded for their enduring efforts in public health.
Robert S. Lawrence, MD, a professor of Environmental Health Sciences, Health Policy, International Health, and Medicine, led the creation of the Center for a Livable Future (CLF) in 1996. As much a “do-tank” as a think-tank, CLF confronts public health issues stemming from industrial agriculture and trains leaders in the reformation of our nation’s food system. Lawrence, who joined the School 19 years ago, will soon join the emeritus faculty.
“I hope I have been a role model for our students by showing them that you can be a good scientist, paying close attention to evidence, and also engage in the political process and try to change things,” says Lawrence.
Frank L. Hurley, PhD ’71, Chief Scientific Advisor of RRD International, LLC—a pharmaceutical development company—serves as Chair of the Bloomberg School Health Advisory Board. Since 1999, he has advised the Dean on advancing the School’s initiatives, and guided faculty in procuring funding for research and moving new technology to market. Also a University Trustee, Hurley has ventured to South Asia, South America and Africa to witness the profound impact of the School’s research efforts.
“I am inspired by the people working day-to-day on the frontline of public health, facing real world challenges, making life better,” he says.
Esta de Fossard-Nelson, MEd, worked for nearly a decade as senior advisor in entertainment-education for the School’s Center for Communication Programs. She directed radio programs and television serial dramas aimed at improving the quality of life of audiences in developing countries. Fossard-Nelson’s projects ranged from teaching families in Vietnam to keep fire and cookware away from curious, crawling babies, to informing Gambian mothers about immunizing their young.
“The Bloomberg School opened for me all the doors that made it possible to do what was the most wonderful thing in life: to help other people and see truly positive changes in their lives,” she says.
—Salma Warshanna-Sparklin
See the Complete List of Alumni Award Recipients.