After the Election: What’s Next for Health?

Daniele Fallin, PhD, is the James W. Curran Dean of Public Health at the Rollins School of Public Health. With more than 250 scientific publications that have been cited more than 22,000 times, Fallin’s globally-recognized research focuses on applying genetic epidemiology methods to studies of neuropsychiatric disorders including autism, Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder and to developing applications and methods for genetic and epigenetic epidemiology, as applied to mental health and development.

Fallin has led multiple CDC- and NIH-funded projects regarding how environments, behaviors, genetic variation, and epigenetic variation contribute to risk for psychiatric disease, particularly autism. She led the Maryland site of the Study to Explore Early Development (SEED) and of the Early Autism Risk Longitudinal Investigation (EARLI) for over a decade. She was also the inaugural principal investigator of the B’more Healthy Brain and Child Development (HBCD) study, one of 25 sites of the NIH’s newly initiated HBCD study, where she currently serves as an associate director of the administrative core to guide epidemiologic design. Given her commitment to public mental health broadly, Dean Fallin also co-led the Maryland POE Center for Workplace Mental Health and continues to be engaged in workplace and school-based mental health as key tools for promoting population mental health.

Prior to joining Rollins, Fallin worked at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health for 22 years, where she served as chair of the Department of Mental Health, Sylvia and Harold Halpert Professor, Bloomberg Centennial Professor, and held joint appointments in the Bloomberg School’s Departments of Epidemiology and Biostatistics and the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine’s Departments of Medicine and Psychiatry. While at the Bloomberg School, Fallin directed the Wendy Klag Center for Autism and Developmental Disabilities and previously served as director of the genetic epidemiology area within epidemiology prior to becoming chair of the Department of Mental Health in 2013.

Fallin completed a Bachelor of Science from the University of Florida–Gainesville and earned a PhD in genetic epidemiology from Case Western Reserve University.

Hilary Godwin is dean of the UW School of Public Health and professor in the Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences. She has 15 years of experience as an academic leader with expertise in interdisciplinary collaborative research on nanotoxicology and the chemistry of lead poisoning and its impact on public health. She is trained in chemistry and biophysics, and has supervised research programs in mechanistic toxicology and environmental health for more than 20 years.  Dean Godwin previously served as associate dean for academic programs as well as chair of environmental health sciences for the Fielding School of Public Health at the University of California, Los Angeles. She also served as chair of the chemistry department at Northwestern University, where she was the first woman hired into a tenure-track position.

Dean Godwin has received numerous awards, including the Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar award, the Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, the National Science Foundation CAREER award, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Toxicology New Investigator award and the Camille and Henry Dreyfus New Faculty award. She also received a $1 million award from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professors Program to develop a program to help students interested in the sciences, particularly those at risk, to transition from high school to college.

Lynn R. Goldman, a pediatrician and an epidemiologist, is the Michael and Lori Milken Dean and Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at the George Washington University. She is a renowned expert in pediatric environmental health and chemicals policy. Dr. Goldman has contributed academic scholarship that has helped shape this field of study. She also has translated research to policy by writing policy analyses and congressional testimony in service of successful efforts by Congress to enact reforms to federal pesticide law (the 1996 Food Quality Protection Act) and federal chemicals law (the 2016 Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act for the 21st Century). Previously, Dr. Goldman was Professor of Environmental Health Sciences at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University (1999–2010); Assistant Administrator for Toxic Substances at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, where she directed the Office of Chemical Safety and Prevention (1993–1998);and Chief of the Division of Environmental and Occupational Disease Control (as well as other positions) at the California Department of Public Health. Dr. Goldman is a member of the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) and received the NAM Walsh McDermott Award for service to the academy. She is a recipient of the Heinz Award for Global Environmental Change and the American Public Health Association Environment Section’s Homer M. Calver Award. She has received alumna awards from Hopkins (Woodrow Wilson Award for Excellence in Government and Society of Scholars); UC San Francisco (150th Anniversary Alumni Excellence Award); and the UC Berkeley School of Public Health (Alumna of the Year and its Influential Alumni Award). Dr. Goldman serves on the Environmental Defense Fund Board of Trustees; immediate past chair of the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health, and previously served on the NIH National Advisory Environmental Health Sciences Council and the Advisory Committee to the Director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dr. Goldman earned her BS and MS from UC Berkeley, an MD from UC San Francisco; an MPH from Johns Hopkins University; and completed her pediatric residency training at the UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital in Oakland

Melinda M. Pettigrew became the eighth dean of the University of Minnesota School of Public Health (SPH) in December 2023. Prior to joining SPH, Dean Pettigrew was the Anna M. R. Lauder Professor of Epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health. While at Yale, Dean Pettigrew held several leadership positions including interim dean, deputy dean, senior associate dean for academic affairs, and deputy title IX coordinator.

Pettigrew’s research focuses on the epidemiology of respiratory tract infections, the microbiome, and the One Health threat of antibiotic resistance. The bacterial pathogens that she studies asymptomatically colonize mucosal surfaces, such as the tissues that line the inside of the nose, and are important causes of hospital and community-acquired bacterial infections. Pettigrew is nationally known for her research and leadership in her roles on the steering and executive committees for the Antibacterial Resistance Leadership Group (ARLG). The ARLG is a National Institutes of Health sponsored initiative that supports a national network of scientists to develop, implement, and manage a clinical research agenda to combat the public health crisis of antimicrobial resistance. As the associate director of the Scientific Leadership Core for the ARLG, she leads efforts to implement and integrate principles of equity, diversity, and inclusion throughout the network.

Pettigrew’s research has been supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and private foundations. She is a member of the Edward Alexander Bouchet Graduate Honor Society and was elected as a fellow of the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering in 2023. Dean Pettigrew is a passionate educator who is highly regarded for her teaching; she received the Yale School of Public Health Distinguished Teaching Award and the Inspiring Yale Award in 2018. She serves on the editorial board of the journal mBio.

Pettigrew received a PhD in the epidemiology of microbial diseases from Yale University and a BA in biology from Grinnell College. She conducted a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Michigan prior to joining the Yale School of Public Health as a faculty member in 2002.