Gina Lovasi Appointed Dean of the Dornsife School of Public Health

The following message was sent to the Drexel community:

Dear Students and Colleagues, 

Following a national search, we are pleased to announce that Interim Dean Gina Lovasi, PhD, MPH, has been appointed Dana and David Dornsife Dean of the Dornsife School of Public Health.

Since her appointment as interim dean last September, Dr. Lovasi has skillfully led the School through this period of transition, focusing particularly on communications and community-building. Internally, these efforts have included written communications such as the Dean’s Weekly newsletter, events such as the Population Health Spotlight series, an inclusive scheduling initiative, and regular, bidirectional communication with students through student government, collective resilience fellows and “caffeine with the dean” events. Externally, Dr. Lovasi hosted an alumni event at the American Public Health Association’s annual meeting, celebrated adjunct faculty in the spring, and engaged in peer networking and media contact supportive of the School’s visibility and reputation. She is the ideal collaborative leader to bring Dornsife SPH into its next phase of evolution. 

As an expert in urban health, Dr. Lovasi’s research agenda draws on both large datasets and local systematic data collection to address urban health challenges around health disparities, cardiovascular disease and geographic environments. Her work on the health relevance of retail establishments, policies to improve air quality, and urban trees and greenspaces has been widely cited and used in policy documents in the U.S. and globally. For this work, she has been awarded more than $5.3 million in external funding as principal investigator (PI) or one of multiple principal investigators while at Drexel, including her current NIA-funded project “Communities Designed to Support Cardiovascular Health for Older Adults.” She has also played key collaborative roles, such as Co-PI for a recent $12M grant from the Wellcome Trust for the project “What Makes Cities Healthy, Equitable, and Environmentally Sustainable? Lessons From Latin America.” 

In addition to publishing over 140 peer-reviewed articles, Dr. Lovasi is coeditor of the book “Urban Public Health: A Research Toolkit for Practice and Impact” (Oxford University Press, 2020) and codirector of the Global Alliance for Training in Health Equity Research (GATHER), a training grant funded by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities. She is a frequent mentor and instructor of epidemiology and urban health methods to graduate students working toward MPH and PhD degrees. 

We would like to thank the search committee, chaired by Dean Brandt-Rauf, as well as all of the faculty, professional staff and students from the School who put their time and effort into the search. 

Please join us in congratulating Dr. Lovasi on her appointment as dean of the Dornsife School of Public Health.  

Sincerely, 

John Fry
President

Paul E. Jensen
Executive Vice President
Nina Henderson Provost