Harvard Appoints First African-American Faculty Dean

📸: Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer

Michelle A. Williams, S.M. ’88, Sc.D. ’91, a distinguished epidemiologist and award-winning educator known for her influential studies of maternal and child health around the world, will become the next dean of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, starting in July.

Since 2011, Williams has been the Stephen B. Kay Family Professor of Public Health and chair of the Epidemiology Department at the Harvard Chan School.

The principal investigator on several international research projects and training grants funded by the National Institutes of Health, and co-author of more than 400 published research papers, Williams is also the faculty director of the Harvard Catalyst’s Population Health Research Program and the Health Disparities Research Program. Her scholarship is especially known for its creative integration of epidemiological, biological, and molecular approaches to a range of public health challenges, and her teaching and mentoring have been recognized with awards from Harvard, the University of Washington, the American Public Health Association, and the White House.

Read the full story via the Harvard Gazette: Harvard Appoints First African-American Faculty Dean