News from the School of Public Health

Our Happiness and Wellness Initiative shares "Some Good News" from the SPH and our extended community. You can submit your own good news by email to: happyandwell@umd.edu.

This story was written by Nina Branwell '23.

The University of Maryland School of Public Health’s Community Engagement, Environmental Justice, and Health (CEEJH) group, has received an $800,000 gift from the Bezos Earth Fund to expand efforts focused on air quality monitoring in communities exposed to traffic-related pollution across the Mid-Atlantic region.

The School of Public Health community has lost a devoted alumna whose engagement with the University of Maryland has spanned decades and included many roles, most recently as an advisor to Dean Boris Lushniak as a member of the school’s Dean’s Council. Ayne Furman ’77 died on September 26, 2021 after a struggle with cancer. She was 64 years old.

New parents may soon have a reliable and easy way to find information to guide them through the uncertainty of caring for a new baby—a chatbot named Rosie. 

If the last two years have done anything, they have highlighted the importance of public health and the increased need for attention to global health across almost all aspects of our interconnected society.

But Rachel Bell ‘93 (Accounting) and Anthony Samer already knew this. 

Every three seconds, someone in the world develops dementia. With a growing aging population, the number of dementia cases is expected to triple by 2050. Because there’s no cure, researchers like fourth year PhD student Daniel Callow are focusing their efforts on prevention measures.