UofM School of Public Health Welcomed the Harvard-JPB Environmental Health Fellowship Workshop

Featured sessions with federal agency fellows and UofM, Memphis, Shelby Co. and community leaders.

The University of Memphis (UofM) School of Public Health (SPH) hosted the first all-member workshop for Cohort III of the Harvard-JPB Environmental Health Fellowship Program from March 13-16, 2023. Attendees included four Harvard professors serving as directors and 17 fellows, who were early-career faculty and researchers from US universities and federal agencies.

The UofM FedEx Institute of Technology (FIT) and Shelby County Health Department (SCHD) co-sponsored the workshop. President Bill Hardgrave, Interim Provost Abby Parrill-Baker, and SPH Dean Ashish Joshi met with the fellows and shared their research and administrative experiences and visions. Dr. Chunrong Jia, professor of Environmental Health in SPH and a Cohort-I Fellow of this program, reflected on his successful fellowship experience and Dr. Michelle Taylor, director of Shelby County Health Department, helped host the fellows.

The Harvard professors conducted two seminars for UofM researchers and students and SPH organized a social dinner, a community meeting, and a tour of South Memphis for the group. The workshop provided the group with a deeper understanding of the social and environmental challenges faced by Memphis and, through this workshop, the Harvard-JPB Fellowship Program showed great interest in developing collaborations with SPH and SCHD. Dean Ashish Joshi and Dr. Jack Spengler from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health are exploring ways to expand this collaboration.

About the Harvard JPB EH Fellowship Program

The Harvard JPB EH Fellowship Program (https://ehfellows.sph.harvard.edu/) supports early-career academic and federal agency scientists who are engaged in innovative multidisciplinary research on both the social and environmental determinants of health in vulnerable communities. The Fellows are working on environmental and social justice issues in their communities across the U.S. One of our Senior Fellows Dr. Chunrong Jia is an Associate Professor of Environmental Health in the School of Public Health, University of Memphis.

Program Directors:

Director: Jack Spengler, PhD

Director: Gary Adamkiewicz, PhD

Co-Director: Laura Kubzansky, PhD

Co-Director: Marc Weisskopf, PhD

For more information on this program or workshop, contact Jia at cjia@memphis.edu.

President Bill Hardgrave and Dean Ashish Joshi presented to the fellows

Directors and fellows of the Harvard-JPB Environmental Health Fellowship Program

Dr. Michelle Taylor interacted with the fellows

The Harvard-JPB directors and fellows met with Memphis community leaders