In a small village in the lush blue-green hills of Tanzania’s southern highlands, farmers are sharing their biggest challenges with a group of graduate students from University of Maryland. 

Mia Owens’ younger brother, who was born premature, displayed symptoms of autism growing up. However, despite visiting multiple doctors, he wasn’t offered a diagnosis until his teenage years.  

This week, the School of Public Health celebrated its 2024 Winter graduates with  students, faculty and staff joining together on Dec. 10 to commemorate the new graduates’ achievements and honor their milestone. 

“Every time I talk with our SPH graduating students, I am so heartened by the intellect, compassion and skills they’re bringing to the world of public health,” said SPH Dean Boris Lushniak. “This year’s graduates are going out into the world ready to be leaders, to do public health good. I can’t wait to see all that I know they will accomplish.”

THE STATELY 23-STORY HOTEL OPENED AT the height of the Jazz Age, but less than a year later, Wall Street’s 1929 crash snuffed out revelry in the opulent ballroom and secret speakeasy. That’s when the property, then one of Baltimore’s tallest buildings, supposedly began accumulating ghosts: failed businessmen, wiped-out tycoons, even a bankrupt couple reputed to have jumped to their deaths on a downtown street with their young daughter.

As a kid, Joanne Pérodin ('05 BS, ’09 MPH) loved to take things apart and put them back together again, like her bicycle or keyboard, and thought she might become an engineer. By the time she began her studies in kinesiology in 2001 at UMD’s School of Public Health, she had already lived through the tumult of political violence in her home city of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, along with the increasingly disastrous effects of extreme weather events on Haiti’s environment and population. 

Early on summer mornings, while mist lingers on the river and great egrets pick their way along the shore, the Anacostia’s beauty rests easy. While the air is still cool, residents of Prince George’s County and D.C. bike, walk and row along a stretch of the Bladensburg waterfront.

Devon Payne-Sturges, an associate professor in SPH’s Department of Global, Environmental, and Occupational Health (GEOH), has won the

2024 Fall semester is off to a great start with new graduate students gathering for orientation, connecting across diverse specialties and backgrounds, hearing from inspiring faculty, getting involved in a lively resource fair and, of course, enjoying ice cream! 

Congratulations to SPH faculty and staff who received annual awards honoring outstanding teaching, public health practice, service, mentoring and commitment to the school’s success and community during the 2023-2024 academic year! 

A University of Maryland review of scientific literature suggests domestic cats can contract the rapidly evolving bird flu H5N1, potentially putting owners, veterinarians and others at risk if the virus continues to circulate unabated.