Three Drexel Faculty Members Selected as Erasmus Mundus Europubhealth Scholars

March 24, 2014

Faculty members from the School of Public Health and School of Law at Drexel University have been selected as Erasmus Mundus Europubhealth Scholars in the European public health masters program EUROPUBHEALTH.

The selected School of Public Health professors include Darryl Brown, PhD (image left talking with students in Europe), an assistant professor, and Seth Welles, PhD, ScD, a professor and interim department chair. In addition, Robert Field, PhD, JD, MPH, a professor at both the School of Public Health and School of Law, was also chosen as an Erasmus Mundus scholar.

EUROPUBHEALTH is an integrated two-year program that provides public health students with international experience, public health training and interdisciplinary competencies with a focus on population health. Students in the degree program are trained within a consortium of prestigious European universities, including the Ecole des Hautes Études en Santé Publique (EHESP), The French School of Public Health; the University of Sheffield School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR); University of Granada Andalusian School of Public Health; University of Copenhagen Institute of Public Health; Jagiellonian University in Krakow; University of Rennes 1; and Institut d’Etudes Politiques of Rennes (IEP).

“The Europubhealth Scholars program will provide an opportunity for the selected faculty to further develop our ongoing partnership, and promote long-lasting collaborations in the European Public Health MPH program through teaching in areas of their expertise, leading and participating in seminars or workshops, serving on thesis committees, and helping to develop global classrooms and other innovative partnership activities,” said Shannon P. Márquez, PhD, MEng, the associate dean for academic affairs and director of global health initiatives at the School of Public Health.

Marquez was selected as an Erasmus Mundus Europubhealth Scholar at the ScHARR and EHESP in 2010, and also served as a visiting professor in the EHESP MPH Program in Paris during the 2011-2012 academic year.

As selected scholars, the faculty will serve as visiting professors and will teach and conduct research with at least one of the European partner institutions.

Professors Welles and Brown will be teaching at the EHESP in France, and Field will teach at the University of Copenhagen’s Institute of Public Health in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Previously, Brown and Welles were members of an invited delegation of faculty and students from the Drexel School of Public Health and Maastricht University to participate in a mixed-methods research symposium sponsored by EHESP. They presented their research at the symposium, which was held at the Ministry of Health in Paris, to a network of nine public health doctoral programs in France.

“There is a different academic culture in encouraging funded extramural research and scholarship between the U.S. and France. This is where U.S. schools like Drexel can help overseas institutions expand their research and benefit from initiatives and training from American researchers,” said Brown at the time of the symposium. “At the same time, our students can benefit by gaining cross-cultural experiences and direct research opportunities.”