Dornsife School of Public Health at Drexel University

Surrounded by loved ones, peers, faculty, and staff, the Dornsife Class of 2026 officially became ! 🎉🎓 Their commitment to advancing health equity and applying evidence-based practices will help shape the bright future of public health. Congrats, Grads!

We are one week away from celebrating the Dornsife Class of 2026! Their hard work, dedication, and perseverance have brought them to this milestone moment. 🎓✨

Learn more about what to expect on the big day:

Dornsife School of Public Health Join Drexel in celebrating the Dana and David Dornsife School of Public Health graduates.

The Lindy Center for Civic Engagement awarded Amy Carroll-Scott, PhD, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Community Health & Prevention, the Dr. Donna M. Murasko Distinguished Faculty Award for Innovation in Civic Engagement this week. Congrats, Dr. Carroll-Scott!

This annual award is presented to a faculty member who incorporates the value of civic engagement into their teaching, research, clinical practice, or other academic pursuit or activity in new and innovative ways.

Co-led research out of Dornsife’s Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics established a first-of-its-kind county-level cardiovascular health score based on the American Heart Association's Life's Essential 8 framework, a tool previously used only to assess individual health risk. Drawing on publicly available data from the CDC's PLACES database and the County Health Rankings and Roadmap, the team mapped cardiovascular health across thousands of U.S. counties, revealing striking geographic disparities:
https://drexel.edu/dornsife/news/latest-news/2026/May/cvh-scores-using-life-essential-8/

Dornsife students used data developed by the Drexel Urban Health Collaborative’s Research and Data Core to take part in a Data Challenge. Students worked together to identify a meaningful research question, conduct an analysis to answer their question using UHC data, and create/share a presentation to tell the story about what they discovered: https://drexel.edu/uhc/news-events/news/2026/May/Drexel-Undergrads-Use-UHC-Data

Drexel Undergrads Use UHC Data Earlier this year, as a part of undergraduate courses available through Drexel’s Dornsife School of Public Health, students used data developed by the UHC's Research and Data Core to take part in an annual Data Challenge.

Dornsife Commencement is 2 weeks away! We will celebrate the Class of 2026 at the Academy of Music in the heart of Philadelphia. 🎉🎓 Learn more about our speakers, how to live stream the event, and more: https://drexel.edu/dornsife/news/events/commencement/

Jessica Tortu, Academic Advisor at Dornsife, won one of two Outstanding Academic Advisor Awards for the University. Congrats, Jessica! 👏🎉

Several Dornsife students were recognized at the 2026 Drexel Student Life Impact Awards and the Graduate Student Excellence Awards. Congrats!

🏅 Chizoba Okorie, MPH student, won the Graduate Student Leader of the Year Award
🏅 Mark Hernandez, PhD student, and Victoria Rodríguez Villareal, MPH student, won the Drexel Common Good Award
🏅 Dornsife’s Maternal and Child Health Student Organization won the Outstanding Civic and Community Engagement Award presented by the Graduate Student Association

https://drexel.edu/dornsife/news/latest-news/2026/May/students-recognized-during-award-season/

What does research look like when community voices lead the conversation? Join the Promise Zone Research Connection for West Philly Research Day 2026 next week (Thursday, May 28) to connect and reimagine research partnerships:

West Philly Research Day 2026 What does research look like when community voices lead the conversation? Join WPRD 26 to connect and reimagine research partnerships.

Thank you to this year's 2026 Jonathan Mann Health and Human Rights Memorial Lecture speaker, Gregg Gonsalves, PhD, professor at Yale School of Public Health & co-director of the Global Health Justice Partnership, for joining us last week! His lecture titled "Rights Were Never Enough: Politics, Power and Public Health" explored our nation's history, lessons learned from social movements, and where we stand in the fight for health and human rights.