News from the School of Public Health

Rising Family Science senior Erin Sullivan was recently chosen as a 2017-2018 UMD Philip Merrill Presidential Scholar. This scholar program recognizes the academic excellence of a select few University of Maryland seniors, as well as the instructors these students identify as mentors who had the greatest impact on their academic achievement.

College Park, Md. – People living near natural gas compressor stations may be subject to high environmental noise exposures, according to a study published in PLOS ONE by environmental health researchers at the University of Maryland School of Public Health (UMD SPH). Compressor stations are necessary to concentrate and move pressurized natural gas, which has been extracted through hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”), along gas pipelines.

Could the initiation of a simple walking exercise program help older adults to reverse declines in key brain regions? A new study led by the University of Maryland School of Public Health researchers adds more information about how physical activity impacts brain physiology and offers hope that it may be possible to reestablish some protective neuronal connections.

As a part of Graduate Student Appreciation Week, the Graduate Student Government (GSG) hosted the annual Graduate Research Appreciation Day (GRAD) on April 5, 2017. Graduate students from all programs and disciplines across campus presented their research and work. Below are the GRAD 2017 winners from the School of Public Health, who were selected as the best presentations from their respective subject-themed oral, poster, and elevator-speech presentation sessions.

A Maryland bill that permanently bans hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, in the state has received final approval from the Senate with a 35-to-10 vote. Once Gov. Larry Hogan, who announced his support for the anti-fracking legislation on March 17, signs the bill, Maryland will become the third state, following Vermont and New York, to prohibit fracking.

A new “Fearless Ideas” course led by School of Public Health faculty is turning a group of 15 UMD undergraduate students into researchers, innovators and entrepreneurs tasked with reimagining our broken healthcare system.