Marylou Sudders to Deliver 2016 Convocation Address.
Marylou Sudders, the Massachusetts state secretary of health and human services, will deliver the 2016 School of Public Health Convocation address.
Appointed secretary of the Executive Office of Health and Human Services (EOHHS) by Governor Charlie Baker in January 2015, Sudders leads the largest executive agency in state government—a $19.4 billion state budget with 22,000 dedicated public servants—and oversees critical services that touch one in four residents of the Commonwealth.
Sudders served as Massachusetts commissioner of mental health from 1996 to 2003, championing legislative reforms including insurance parity, fundamental patient rights, and the first children’s mental health commission. In 2012, Sudders was appointed to the state’s Health Policy Commission (HPC), and she remains on this commission in her capacity as Secretary.
For almost 10 years, Sudders headed the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Prior to her appointment as secretary, Sudders was an associate professor and chair of health and mental health at the Boston College Graduate School of Social Work. Sudders has served on many charitable boards throughout her career, including the Pine Street Inn, Massachusetts Association for Mental Health, and the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
Sudders received an honorary doctorate from the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology and was named Social Worker of the Year by the Massachusetts Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers. She was also nationally recognized with the Knee-Whitman Outstanding Achievement for Health & Mental Health Policy from the National Association of Social Workers Foundation.
“We are delighted to be honoring someone who is at the forefront of improving the health of citizens of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, who has led by action and example throughout a career of service to the health of the public,” said Dean Sandro Galea.
Student Speaker
Faiz Kidwai, an MPH recipient committed to equality, equity, and human rights, has been named the student speaker at the 2016 SPH Convocation.
Kidwai is currently a fellow with Health Care For All (HCFA), coordinating and assessing the advocacy organization’s statewide network of Patient & Family Advisory Councils (PFAC). He previously worked in the Office of Ethics at Boston Children’s Hospital.
In a personal essay submitted to the selection committee, Kidwai described emigrating from Pakistan when he was 16 and struggling to find an identity in his Indiana high school. “Moreover,” he writes, “I was living in cooperative housing that subsidized the needy, received free lunches at school, all the while making excuses as to why I wouldn’t try out for the soccer team—I couldn’t afford a physical. I was so grateful for the lunch, I never questioned why the state of Indiana felt I was poor enough for a free meal, but not quite enough for Medicaid.”
Kidwai went on to volunteer in homeless shelters, emergency rooms, and free health clinics, an experience that brought his life into focus: “I quickly realized that the only reason I sat on this side of the ‘table’ was due to nothing more than good fortune.” He came to SPH committed to fighting inequality in healthcare and beyond.
At SPH, Kidwai served as president of the Health and Human Rights Caucus, which invited a former CIA analyst to speak at the School—virtually, because he was under house arrest for releasing evidence the US government committing acts of torture. Kidwai was also the student representative for the SPH Practice Committee, and contributed as a teaching assistant for the “LW725: Ethical Issues in Medicine and Public Health” course.
Leonard H. Glantz Award for Academic Excellence
Jennifer Masdea, an MPH recipient and manager of education programs at BNI-ART Institute, is the winner of the 2016 Leonard H. Glantz Award for Academic Excellence.
The Glantz Award is the highest award granted to a graduating MPH student at SPH. The award is named in honor of Leonard H. Glantz, professor emeritus of health law, policy & management, who served for 30 years as academic dean and demanded rigorous standards in curriculum and teaching throughout the academic program.
Glantz Award winners are nominated by faculty, and should demonstrate exceptional academic performance, creative and critical thinking, and seriousness and professionalism in public health.
Masdea completed her MPH as a part-time student while overseeing all training operations for the BNI-ART Institute, which teaches healthcare providers to address unhealthy alcohol and drug use in medical and community settings. Prior to that role, Masdea served as a member of the research and evaluation team for more than six years at Children’s Hospital Neighborhood Partnerships, the community mental health program at Boston Children’s Hospital.
Writing collectively to nominate Masdea for the award, a group of Maternal and Child Health faculty said, “Jen’s brilliance is in her ability to integrate her commitment to academic excellence with her utter commitment to use her knowledge (and the power that comes with it) for the purpose of racial and social justice—in the Boston communities in which she was raised and in the world.
“During her time at BUSPH,” they wrote, “Jen has worked full time in a very demanding position, been an active member of the CHS and BUSPH community, and with her sister ‘finished’ raising her younger brother through his teen and college years. Her academic accomplishments are stellar in any case, but, in this light, particularly remarkable.”
Norman A. Scotch Award for Excellence in Teaching
Gouri Gupte, an assistant professor of health law, policy & management, is the winner of the 2016 Norman A. Scotch Award for Excellence in Teaching.
The Scotch Award is presented annually to an individual who has made outstanding and sustained contributions to the education program of SPH. The award is meant to recognize individuals, faculty, or others who have substantially enriched the educational experience for the students at the School.
At SPH, Gupte has been engaged in developing more learning-centered and activity-driven curricula. Also an assistant professor at the School of Medicine, she has collaborated with colleagues to pair MPH students with medical residents to learn about collaborating with providers on systems improvements.
Gupte currently consults on quality improvement projects at Veterans Affairs and Boston Medical Center, and her research includes the designing and teaching of quality improvement curriculum for fellows and residents, as well as physician productivity, e-consults, and improving flow in units.
In one of many nomination letters from students and faculty, a colleague wrote, “Gouri’s collaborations in education have cut across department, schools, and institutional boundaries, and she has developed a cadre of community partners who now come to her seeking our students for applied projects. There is generally a line of students waiting to see her, particularly international students who value her expertise and empathy in navigating the complexities of CPT, OPT, ISSO, and the practicum process. She gives her heart and soul to students in every way she can.”
Faculty Award for Excellence in Research & Scholarship
Jonathan Levy, a professor and associate chair of environmental health, is the winner of the 2016 SPH Faculty Award for Excellence in Research & Scholarship.
This honor is given annually to recognize a faculty member for a distinguished body of scholarly or scientific work on a specific topic or within a general area of expertise.
Levy has extensive experience assessing air pollution exposure and its relationship to health, focusing on urban environments and issues of inequity and environmental justice. His research has included evaluating the influence of indoor environmental exposures on pediatric asthma in low-income housing, modeling the health effects of combined exposures to multiple chemical and non-chemical stressors, characterizing spatial patterns of air pollution in complex urban terrain, and quantifying the health benefits associated with energy policy measures or emissions control strategies.
He has received multiple research awards, including the Walter A. Rosenblith New Investigator Award from the Health Effects Institute and the Chauncy Starr Distinguished Young Risk Analyst Award from the Society for Risk Analysis. He has served on several National Research Council committees, including the Committee on Science for EPA’s Future and the Committee on Improving Risk Analysis Approaches Used by the US Environmental Protection Agency. Levy also served on the Advisory Council on Clean Air Compliance Analysis, which provided guidance to the EPA on the impact of the Clean Air Act on health, the economy, and the environment.
Dzidra J. Knecht Staff Award for Distinguished Service
Amparo “Chary” Ortiz, financial administrator for the Department of Biostatistics, is the winner of the 2016 Dzidra J. Knecht Staff Award for Distinguished Service.
The Knecht Award recognizes a staff person who has made outstanding and sustained contributions to the administrative functioning of their department, and therefore the School. It is named in honor of Dzidra J. Knecht, the School’s first associate dean for administration, who spent 30 years working for the University, 20 of them at SPH.
Oritz joined the Biostatistics Department in 2007 as an administrative coordinator, and was promoted to financial administrator in 2010. Over the last nine years, Ortiz has supported the rapid growth of her department—which added four new faculty members and one new postdoctoral fellow in the last year—and organized events from small department get-togethers to the 2012 New England Statistics Symposium hosted by SPH.
She is also an active member of the community beyond SPH, serving on the board of the South End Community Health Center and the Blackstone Community Center.
In her nomination letter for the award, Interim Chair Josée Dupuis wrote, “We could not have done it without Chary.”
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