From the Associate Director's Desk

I am thrilled by the opportunity to return to my medical alma mater to join the Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health. After graduating from VUMS in 1978 and completing residency and fellowship training, I have enjoyed rewarding opportunities to encourage and facilitate the education of students and the training of residents and clinical research fellows in my medical subspecialty, clinical nutrition. I welcomed an open door that enabled me several years ago to begin shifting my focus toward a global health emphasis with encouragement from Sten Vermund, who was then at the institution where I served. A sabbatical as a Fulbright Scholar in Zambia whetted my appetite for deeper global health engagement, so it is a privilege to be able to join the Institute to participate in the expansion of its rapidly developing mission.

My efforts will encompass all the educational and training initiatives of the VIGH, which were outlined in the Director’s column in the last issue of this newsletter. I will particularly assist the supremely capable staff who manage the Institute’s largest training programs, the Fogarty International Clinical Research Scholars and Fellows Program (Cat Lem, MPH), the AIDS International Training and Research Program (Holly Cassell, MPH), and the VUMS Emphasis Program (Julie Lankford, BA), as well as others. It will also be a privilege to facilitate the development of new curricular initiatives that span the entire Vanderbilt-Peabody campus, with a goal of potentiating the expertise and energies of faculty and staff members in all of its schools. We hope to be able to offer opportunities for students and faculty members across the university to engage in overseas global health experiences in which they expand their horizons and hone their vision while providing strategically directed services in resource-constrained settings.