Community Health Sciences

In Memoriam: Deb Bowen

Deborah Bowen, a former professor and chair of Community Health Sciences and an enthusiastic mentor to many students and colleagues, passed away on August 20 after a long illness.

Known to all as Deb, she was the first chair of the Department of Community Health Sciences, which was formed in 2007 from the merger of two separate departments: Social and Behavioral Sciences, and Maternal and Child Health. Bowen helped shepherd the growth of the department from its infancy into one of the School’s largest, offering guidance and mentorship to a cohort of faculty and alumni.

Bowen left BUSPH in 2014 to return to the University of Washington, where she spent the bulk of her early career and where both she and Linda McBlain, her wife of more than 30 years, had well-established roots. 

At both BU and UW, she was a well-respected and influential scholar who authored or co-authored more than 400 peer-reviewed publications and devoted her career to studying behavioral determinants of healthcare delivery and health promotion, including cancer prevention and genomic medicine, said the University of Washington in a warm remembrance supplemented by remarks from friends and colleagues. At BU, she was the Director of the Prevention Research Center, which focused on improving the health of public housing residents.

She also served as the principal investigator of several NIH-funded grants focused on biobehavioral cancer prevention and health communication. She served in the coordinating centers of three large multi-center prevention trials: the Carotene and Retinol Efficacy Trial (CARET), the Women’s Health Trial: Feasibility Study in Minority Populations (WHT:FSMP) and the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI).

After learning of Bowen’s passing, friends and former CHS colleagues gathered to remember and honor her, said Lois McCloskey, associate chair of community health sciences, and director of the Center of Excellence in Maternal and Child Health.

 “We shared stories and reflected on what she meant to us as individuals and to us collectively as the first chair of our ‘blended family.’  There was a common thread, loud and clear—Deb was all about hands-on mentoring and support of our research.  And she did not mince words when it came to how we could be successful.”

Candice Belanoff, a clinical associate professor of community health sciences, said she arrived at BUSPH as a newly-minted ScD graduate in 2009, and Bowen was “absolutely instrumental” in helping launch her academic and teaching career.

“She encouraged my grant writing, took a chance on me teaching as much as I could, and showed a confidence in me that I’m not sure I had in myself at the time! It’s clear that I was only one of many early-career colleagues who benefitted from her mentorship. I really do owe a lot to her, and I know she will be missed.”  

Sophie Godley, a clinical associate professor of community health sciences, was a student of Deb Bowen at the University of Washington School of Public Health in the late 90’s while earning her MPH in social and behavioral sciences. “Deb was a supportive professor who stood out as someone invested in students,” Godley said. “In 2010 when I joined BUSPH full time she was chair of Community Health Sciences, and she encouraged me to pursue the Doctorate of Public Health degree. I will always be grateful to Deb for her role in my career at BUSPH.”

At the start of each year, Bowen and McBlain would invite all department faculty, staff and students to their home, helping knit the department into a cohesive whole. “As a mentor, Deb Bowen was unprecedented,” said Catherine Wang, an associate professor of community health sciences. “She would go out of her way to provide anyone with the opportunity to shine. She was selfless, genuine, inspirational, and the biggest cheerleader anyone could hope for.” 

McCloskey said Bowen’s passionate approach to mentorship could take many forms. “For one faculty member that meant encouraging—strongly!—the pursuit of a doctoral degree, for others it meant endless ‘in the weeds’ coaching on how to write specific aims, and for the department it meant supporting existing leadership of MPH and DrPH educational programs.”

For her personally, McCloskey said, “it meant Deb expressing faith in me in a somewhat vulnerable transition moment. ‘Lois, it looks to me like you can do anything choose to do and succeed.’  It came as a surprise, and I’ve not forgotten her words.”