Autumn 2023

As an intern with the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy, Alex Ochoa spent his summer gaining hands-on experience working on public health policy. 

Meet College of Public Health alumna Rachel Hardin ’16 BSPH, who brings a passion for affordable housing to her role as volunteer and community resource manager for Habitat for Humanity-MidOhio.

Health and community leaders gathered at the Ohio Union on Oct. 13 and 14 for the 2023 Equity through Diversity, Action and Learning Conference, cosponsored by the college, The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and Columbus Public Health.

Meet Micah Berman, an international expert in tobacco policy and the College of Public Health’s new Stephen F. Loebs Professor in Health Services Management and Policy. 

Berman shares the big questions that guide his work, his aim to support innovative research partnerships and the moments that make him most proud to work in public health. 

Going into the annual Everett V. Fox Student Case Competition, Master of Health administration student Elijah Hendrix said he was eager to put the skills he’s learned at the College of Public Health into practice. It was out of his comfort zone, and? a step in the right direction. 

On the first Friday after a large tobacco regulatory conference in Bethesda, Maryland, Assistant Professor Joanne Patterson assembled what she calls her “dream team” to debrief.

Public health truly is everywhere. 

I knew something about the breadth of public health’s reach coming into my interim dean role, having spent decades on prevention work aimed at understanding and preventing nearsightedness — work that is clearly about optometry, my primary discipline, but is, at its core, about public health. 

College of Public Health graduate students Aparna Mangadu and Nandini Rangan have been named This is Public Health ambassadors by the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health (ASPPH).

Mangadu is a second-year student in the MPH-environmental health sciences program and Rangan is a fourth-year BSPH/MPH-VPH combined degree student.

College of Public Health student Adebimpe Adelaja has been named a 2023-24 Columbus-Athens Schweitzer Fellow, the Ohio State University Office of Outreach and Engagement announced. The Schweitzer Fellows Program supports and trains emerging health-focused graduate and professional students in creating and carrying out service projects to address unmet community needs.

JaNelle Ricks, assistant professor in the College of Public Health’s Division of Health Behavior and Health Promotion, received a national award from the Society of Family Planning to support her with training and mentorship to expand her expertise in sexual and gender minority health research.

Master of Public Health-Epidemiology student Rachel Saadey went into the summer thinking she might be interested in a career focused on infectious disease. Now, she’s sure of it. 

Saadey spent her summer interning with Columbus Public Health’s Office of Epidemiology where she worked on their 2022 summary of reportable diseases. The annual report summarizes data on infectious diseases that must be reported to state and local health departments, illnesses such as Lyme disease, measles and sexually transmitted infections.

Long waits for appointments, out-of-date information about health care providers and the risk of discriminatory treatment are just a few of the hurdles facing Americans seeking adequate, accessible health care. A “secret shopper” project co-led by College of Public Health Associate Professor Wendy Xu aims to quantify these challenges and expose students to research designed to better understand and, ultimately, improve health care.

Throughout her academic career, epidemiology PhD student Maddy Lewis keeps coming back to one question — what is missing that is simple?

A team led by College of Public Health faculty will establish a community of scholars dedicated to investigating pressing global challenges with new Good-to-Great Grant Program support from the Office of Academic Affairs. 

Homecoming is a great opportunity to build camaraderie among the CPH community and forge new connections across the college. We hope to see you again next year!