Public Health Magazine: Spring 1996, Vol.4, No.1
Student News

Osborn Addresses Graduates

June E. Osborn, M.D., an international expert on AIDS and emerging infections, spoke to the 245 graduates of the Columbia School of Public Health Class of '96 at commencement exercises held Wednesday, May 15, 1996, at 5:30 p.m. in the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center garden.

Chair of the U.S. National Commission on AIDS from 1989 to 1993, Osborn most recently oversaw the World Health Organization's Task Force on Global Blood Safety. She is a professor of pediatrics and communicable diseases at the University of Michigan Medical School, as well as professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan School of Public Health where she served as dean from 1984 to 1993.

Public Health Workers to Get Scholarships

The Public Health Scholars Program, designed to make public health education more accessible to state, federal and local public health employees, provides financial assistance for government public health professionals seeking a Masters of Public Health at CSPH. This year, ten scholars will be chosen to receive a scholarship for one half of the tuition for the 1996-1997 academic year.

Last year's (1995) scholarship recipients include:

Angela Bauer (Division of General Public Health), supervising public health advisor for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, New York City Department of Health (NYC DOH). Assigned to supervise California and New York, Bauer has also had previous experience in the Sexually Transmitted Diseases Program and the Tuberculosis Control Program. She received her B.S. in biology and psychology from the University of Richmond in 1991.

Dr. Susan Blank (Executive MPH Program) is a NYC DOH medical epidemiologist at the Bureau of Sexually Transmitted Disease Control and Prevention. She has worked for the CDC Epidemic Intelligence Service and as a medical epidemiologist for NYC DOH's Environmental Epidemiology Unit. Blank received her M.D. from the University of Pittsburgh in 1987 and her B.S. in Applied Biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1983. During her studies at Pitt, she spent several months of elective time in a Tanzanian hospital. Blank is a 1995 Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics and has been a U.S. Public Health Service lieutenant commander since 1990. Her recent work has been published in The Lancet, American Journal of Public Health and Contemporary Pediatrics.

Alesia Sadosky (Division of Epidemiology), a NYC DOH laboratories research scientist 2, was a 1990-1994 postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, where she studied molecular pathogenesis of Legionnaires disease. She received her Ph.D. from Penn State in 1990, and her B.S. from the University of Vermont in 1984.

Margaret Thurer (Division of Epidemiology), NYC DOH director of governmental affairs, has worked as an analyst and project planner with the Mayor's Office of Operations Health and Human Services Unit. She received her B.A. in Political Science from Wellesley College in 1991, and is currently involved with Project Ezra, a community-based organization which serves the elderly of the Lower East Side.

Ruth E. Wangerin (Division of Population and Family Health), NYC DOH senior public health educator, is a 25-year resident of Washington Heights/Inwood, and has been involved with adolescent literacy, low-income youth and drug rehabilitation programs. She has been a teacher of anthropology for over ten years at Queens College and the College of Staten Island. Wangerin received her Ph.D. in Anthropology from the City University of New York in 1982, and her B.A. in Anthropology from Valparaiso University in 1968. She has also lived in Teheran, Iran. SMS Student Wins Literary Prize

Linda Janet Holmes (left) and Margaret Charles Smith, authors of Listen to Me Good: The Life Story of an Alabama Midwife.

Margaret Charles Smith, a ninety-one-year old Alabama

midwife, had thousands of birthing stories to tell. Linda Janet Holmes, former journalist and a student in CSPH's Division of Sociomedical Sciences, took notes-with prize-winning results. Their book, Listen to Me Good: The Life Story of an Alabama Midwife, won the 1995 Helen Hooven Santmyer Prize in Women's Studies. The $2500 prize, including publication by Ohio State University Press, is for the best manuscript on the contributions of women, their lives and experiences, and their roles in society.

Sifting through nearly five decades of providing care for women in rural Greene county, Holmes and Smith relate the tales that capture the life and death struggle of the birthing experience and the traditions, pharmacopeia and spiritual attitudes that influenced Smith's practice. The image of the complacent southern granny midwife is debunked as the determination, talent and complexity of midwifery comes through.

Holmes works for the Division of Family Health Services at the New Jersey Department of Health. She is also a member of the National Women's Health Network Board and the New Jersey Women and AIDS Network Board. Listen to Me Good will be published this July.