News from the School of Public Health

The School of Public Health would like to recognize and welcome the following faculty and staff to our community. Some are already part of our community and are being recognized for new roles/titles, while others are joining us this academic year. Welcome and congratulations to all!

Alice Horowitz, who retires from the University of Maryland this summer at age 89, has been a leading advocate and researcher in dental public health and in health literacy efforts. One of her crowning achievements was establishing SPH’s Herschel S. Horowitz Center for Health Literacy (HCHL), named after her late husband, an internationally renowned dental epidemiologist, educator and public health advocate. 

A new law passed by the Maryland General Assembly establishes the

Heather Platter PhD ’19 received a Cancer Prevention Fellowship Program (CPFP) Merit Award for her work at the NIH’s National Cancer Institute. This merit award is given to fellows who have distinguished themselves throughout their CPFP fellowship by rising to the highest level of science, leadership and service. 

The Gamma Zeta chapter of the Delta Omega Honorary Society in Public Health at the University of Maryland School of Public Health is pleased to announce its 2022 inductees. At the virtual induction ceremony and poster awards reception on May 6, 2022, Dean Boris Lushniak, Principal Associate Dean Dushanka Kleinman, inducted 17 students, four faculty members, two alumni and one honorary member, Dr. Dianna Abney.

The tobacco industry has a long and disgraceful history of marketing to specific groups identified as susceptible to addiction, including LGBTQ people. A new research initiative funded by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Maryland Department of Health’s Center for Tobacco Prevention and Control and led by the UMD Prevention Research Center aims to reduce tobacco related health disparities among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer or questioning communities in Maryland.