July 16, 2014

Drexel University celebrated its 127th commencement on June 13, when 186 public health students received their degrees. Programs included the MPH and Executive MPH, PhD in Epidemiology, Dr.PH in Health Policy and Social Justice, DrPH in Community Health and Prevention, MS in Biostatistics and Certificates in LGBT Health and in Epidemiology and Biostatistics.

The graduating MPH students also presented their community-based research for which many were individually honored at the school's annual awards ceremony.

The keynote speaker was Jeffrey Sachs, widely considered the world's leading expert on economic development and the fight against poverty. Sachs is the Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development and professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University and director of The Earth Institute.

Honorary degrees were also given to Mark Baiada, founder and president of BAYADA Home Health Care and Ann Baiada, director of BAYADA Home Health Care and a champion of the nursing profession.

Aleksander Kecojevic, a DrPH graduate, received the Outstanding Dissertation Award.

At a prior awards ceremony on June 9, additional honors were presented.

Exemplary CBMP Awards were given to Allison Insley for "Human Health Risk Assessment of a Northeast Philadelphia Chemical Manufacturing Plant" and Marie Plaisime for "A Qualitative Anaylsis: Healthcare Providers' Formation Experiences with Race and Interactions with Black Male Patients in Urban Hospital Environments."

An honorable mention for Exemplary CBMP was awarded to Gregory Caplan and Teresa Moore for "Using Design Thinking to Create Innovative Solutions to Behavioral Health Problems: A Philadelphia Retail Clinic Pilot Program."

Phoebe Jones and Rikki Ward received awards for Academic Excellence in the full-time MPH program and Matthew Metcalf (Sacramento) and Rachel Greenberg (Philadelphia) received awards for Academic Excellence in the Executive MPH program.

Carmen Cronin was honored for Excellence in Communications, Andrew Issa received the Service to SPH award and Amanda Malik, the Community Service Award. Student Government School and Community Awards were given to Alexis Adams, Triza Brion, Gregory Caplan and Rachel Greenberg.

Golden Apple awards for outstanding teaching went to Dr. Jennifer Taylor and Nancy Epstein.