Fall 2025 Snapshot.
SPH Snapshot: Fall 2025 Orientation
Campus buzzed with energy during Orientation Week, as faculty, staff, and alums converged to welcome new students to the SPH community.
A student descends the stairs in front of the Talbot Building.
Students chat with one another as they cross Talbot Green.
The School of Public Health welcomed new students to campus for a multi-day orientation experience organized to introduce them to various facets of graduate student life. On the agenda were campus tours, department open houses, community meals, seminars on academic resources, a scavenger hunt, and various other activities designed to connect the new arrivals with faculty, staff, and one another.
Students gather to chat between sessions during orientation.
Student-led tours are a great way to learn about the campus.
Dean Adnan Hyder addresses students during the orientation keynote.
Student Experience Fair
Student organizations and student-facing offices tabled under a tent on Talbot Green, offering new students the opportunity to learn more about membership and resources.
A new student tries on a BUSPH sweatshirt.
Bean, BU’s community resource dog, stands with her paws on a table, presumably inquiring about joining a student organization.
Current members of SPH student organizations (left) share information with new students (right) from across a row of tables.
Students discuss the SPH Student Senate.
Students pick up copies of the 2025 SPH Reads book “Ripples of Hope in the Mississippi Delta: Charting the Health Equity Policy Agenda” by David Jones.
The Latino Caucus for Public Health table.
Students crowd around a table.
The Healthcare Management Student Association table.
Students get more information about Public Health Post, the School’s digital health magazine.
A student purchases a BUSPH sweatshirt.
A student poses in a BUSPH sweatshirt.
Academic Toolkit Speaker Series
Deans Yvette Cozier and Craig Andrade familiarized new students with SPH’s mission and facilitated thoughtful conversations about who the “public” in public health refers to and what the “for the health of all” in the school’s purpose statement means. Dean Cozier presented data on mortality from the sinking of the Titanic to illuminate how systems effect health outcomes, such as the influence of socioeconomic status on a passenger’s likelihood of survival. Dean Andrade asked students to reflect on the school’s proximity to Mass and Cass, the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard and the epicenter of Boston’s homelessness and substance use crises. The students impressed Dean Andrade with their nuanced understanding of the issue before having begun their courses.
Other sessions sought to bolster the students’ resilience for the semester ahead with Megan Healey, clinical associate professor of epidemiology, sharing smart study habits and tips for managing a graduate workload; Sarah Lipson, associate professor of health law, policy and management, exploring the often overlooked but important role of rejection and “failure” in academia; and Beverly Chen, director of BU’s Student Wellbeing, sharing a variety of strategies for bolstering different aspects of wellbeing from the physical and emotional to the spiritual and interpersonal.
“Understanding Our Mission: For the Health of All” with Dean Yvette Cozier.
“Master Your Time & Boost Your Resilience” with Beverly Chen, Director at Student Wellbeing.
“The Art of Failure: Normalizing Rejections and Setbacks in Academia” with Sarah Lipson, associate professor of health law, policy & management.
Newly matriculated students discuss their own past experiences of rejection or “failure” and their mindsets going into their graduate studies.
Alumni Dinner
New students gathered in Hiebert Lounge for a lively dinner and Q&A with a panel of SPH alumni. The recent graduates shared background on their own experiences at the school and their advice for smoothly navigating graduate studies.
Cam Haufpauir (SPH’23) discusses his current role as shared services manager for the Town of Brookline and his experience as an MPH student at SPH in the health law, policy and management (HLPM) and community assessment, program design, implementation, and evaluation (CAPDIE) certificates.
Ojasvi Pranav Vachharajani (SPH’25) discusses her experience as an MPH student at SPH in the epidemiology and biostatistics certificate.
Center for Health Data Science Poster Session
The Center for Health Data Science hosted the annual Health Data Science Poster Session, showcasing innovative scholarship from across the university. Debbie Cheng, professor of biostatistics and center director, introduced the event to a diverse audience of attendees, including students, researchers, and industry professionals.
Debbie Cheng, assistant dean of data science and the founding executive director of the Center for Health Data Science, introduces the poster session.
Patricia Fabian, associate professor of environmental health and associate director at the Institute for Global Sustainability, smiles during a discussion with other poster session attendees.
Center for Health Data Science pilot funding awardees 2024-2025.
An attendee views a research poster.
A presenter explains their research to an onlooker.
Samantha Hall, a PhD student in environmental health, presents her research on prediction of chronic kidney disease of unknown origin.
