The Institute for Public Health Faculty Scholar Program (2014 -2025) was instrumental in supporting, connecting and promoting public health work by faculty at all eight WashU schools.
“Whether through funding opportunities, encouraging multidisciplinary engagement, or by accentuating their individual work, the program helped provide value-added benefits to our scholars’ academic career pursuits related to public health.”
William G. Powderly, the Larry J. Shapiro Director of the Institute for Public Health
Initiated in 2014 and continuing through June 2025, the Institute for Public Health Faculty Scholar Program encompassed more than 380 faculty from multiple disciplines across WashU, providing a supportive infrastructure for meaningful collaborative exchanges. A critical part of the program’s success was its portfolio of strategies suited to aid scholars in various disciplines, at different stages in their careers, and with distinctive pathways toward success. The institute worked with scholars to spark productive collaborations, remove barriers to collaboration, and to offer an easy pathway for scholars to broaden their networks for public health research, practice, advocacy and teaching activities.
Responding to the needs and interests of faculty working in public health, the Institute provided rich opportunities and convenient tools for connection, for learning about their colleagues’ work and for fostering collaborations to ultimately advance their public health pursuits.
What is a faculty scholar?
An Institute for Public Health ‘faculty scholar’ is defined as a WashU faculty member engaged in research, practice, advocacy, education (i.e., teaching) or another scholarly activity that is relevant to the aims of public health. Faculty scholars were actively selected to join the program based on their desire to collaborate with other disciplines to help to expand their own work, refine research questions, enhance development of interventions, improve practice delivery, enrich teaching, etc.
Some faculty considered themselves fully immersed and engaged in public health work with an ongoing portfolio of related projects and activities, while others did not consider themselves as working solely in public health but may have had an occasional project or activity relevant to public health. Even further, the institute engaged with groups of faculty who were interested in public health and sought to explore work in the area.
Program objectives
The Institute for Public Health Faculty Scholar Program encouraged and promoted cross-disciplinary connections related to public health between faculty across university schools and departments and connected scholars to public health spheres beyond the university that included:
- Broad high-priority public health impact agendas (e.g., global, national, state & local levels)
- Expanded research and practice settings and community agencies
- Experts that can complement a scholar’s individual work
- Populations that might be positively impacted by ongoing public health work
Program benefits
In all, the Faculty Scholar Program was successful in its ability to help faculty:
- Connect to one another or to useful resources and networks, to solve public health challenges
- Plan and implement unique scholar-driven activities related to public health practice, research, education and advocacy
- Engage in special funding opportunities or awards
- Receive support from the Institute’s communication infrastructure to disseminate news about scholars’ public health work through multiple channels including website, email newsletter, social media or other tailored approaches
- Receive comprehensive communications about public health events and opportunities
- Be placed at the top of wait-listed events, forums or other public health-related activities