Apr 22, 2024
Dear colleagues,
We are pleased to announce that Bernadette Boden‐Albala has been reappointed to an additional five-year term as Director and Founding Dean of the Program in Public Health, beginning July 1.
This decision follows a thorough review, which included materials submitted by Dr. Boden‐Albala and feedback from faculty, staff, campus administrators and community colleagues. We are grateful to the review committee and its chair, Dean Frank LaFerla, for their efforts throughout the process.
Dr. Boden-Albala played a critical role during the COVID-19 pandemic, for both UCI and the Orange County community. Under her leadership, the Program in Public Health became the key academic partner for government agencies and community organizations in addressing COVID-19 in the region.
Under Dr. Boden‐Albala's leadership since 2019, the Program has grown from a single department to four distinct departments and the proposal to move from program to school is currently under review at the UC Office of the President. The Program now has nearly 1,300 undergraduate students, 200 graduate students, 20 post docs, 90 staff members, 47 Senate faculty, 10 clinical faculty and 45 research specialists. Enrollment in the Master of Public Health program has increased from 25 to 100 students and six endowed graduate scholarships have been added. The Program has generated significant external support, including a $14 million grant from the Irvine Health Foundation, as well as a strong research portfolio that has nearly tripled in the last five years.
Among the many contributions during her first term, Dr. Boden-Albala is lauded for her ability to articulate a clear and effective strategic vision and her development of health equity as a focus for the Program. She also received praise for her contributions to inclusive excellence in student and faculty recruiting. Dr. Boden-Albala's own community-centered research is focused on cardiovascular disease and stroke risk reduction, particularly among Latino and African American communities.
In addition to her service at UCI, Dr. Boden-Albala serves as a board member-at-large for the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health and co-director of the UCLA-UCI Center for Eliminating Cardiometabolic Disparities in Multi-Ethnic Populations.
Please join us in congratulating Dr. Boden‐Albala on this reappointment.
Sincerely,
Hal Stern
Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor
Chancellor's Professor, Department of Statistics
Steve A.N. Goldstein, M.A., M.D., Ph.D., FAAP
Vice Chancellor, Health Affairs
Distinguished Professor, Pediatrics, Physiology & Biophysics,
and Pharmaceutical Sciences
Susan & Henry Samueli College of Health Sciences