Sten Vermund, M.D., Ph.D., assistant vice president for Global Health and a member of the Vanderbilt University faculty since 2005, has been named dean of the Yale School of Public Health. He will begin this new role at Yale on Feb. 1, 2017.
Vermund, the Amos Christie Professor of Global Health and professor of Pediatrics, Health Policy, Medicine and Obstetrics and Gynecology at Vanderbilt, directs the Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health. An infectious disease epidemiologist and pediatrician with special experience in adolescent and women’s health, he is known internationally for his leadership of projects aimed at HIV/AIDS prevention, care and treatment, HPV/cervix cancer prevention, and on maternal and child health in low resource regions.
“Sten has developed an outstanding portfolio of research, education and clinical service programs in global health,” said Robert Dittus, M.D., MPH, Executive Vice President for Public Health and Health Care. “He has given Vanderbilt a world-class presence in global health through his preeminent stature in the field and the excellence of his and colleagues’ work. He has established a very strong and resilient foundation upon which to build our future in global health.”
A member of the National Academy of Medicine of the National Academies, Vermund is known for leading international projects in Zambia, Mozambique, China, Pakistan and elsewhere. Among other successes, these projects have brought to scale the prevention of HIV transmission from mothers to their infants. He also has spearheaded efforts to ease the burden of tropical and childhood diseases.
Vermund is a fellow of the Infectious Disease Society of America, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the American College of Preventive Medicine. He is also principal investigator of the National Institutes of Health (NIH)/Fogarty Global Health Fellows Program, a consortium of Vanderbilt, Emory, Cornell and Duke Universities that supports the training of global health researchers.
Before coming to Vanderbilt, he served as chief of the vaccine trials and epidemiology branch of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ AIDS Division, and as chair of Epidemiology and director of the Sparkman Center for Global Health at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
“Vanderbilt is an extraordinary institution and I have learned a tremendous amount about the public health sciences and the academic enterprise in my 11½ years here. The talent, dedication, creativity and community-spirited faculty, staff and students with whom I have worked have been a daily inspiration,” Vermund said.
The Yale School of Public Health is known for its international training programs.
This year’s entering MPH class has 155 students, a size that fosters close ties with classmates, faculty and community. The school concentrates on improving health across the globe through research, education and community engagement.
Faculty research includes chronic and infectious diseases, implementation science, environmental health, behavioral determinants of health and policy and administration. Public Health alumni live and work in 69 nations around the world.
A search for a successor to lead the Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health is underway.