Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Names Two New Deans
Laura Morlock, PhD, MA, has been appointed the inaugural executive vice dean for academic affairs at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Elizabeth Stuart, PhD, MA, a professor in the Department of Mental Health at the School, has been named the School’s associate dean for education.
Morlock served as the interim senior associate dean for academic affairs during the past academic year. Before that, she had been associate dean for education since January 2012. Stuart, who joined the School in 2006, will continue her faculty appointment in the Department of Mental Health.
In her new role, Morlock will oversee the major academic offices that serve to facilitate and coordinate educational programs, providing direction in developing a strategic vision for the educational programs of the School, as well as in their assessment and continuous improvement. Working closely with other School leaders, she will develop and implement new academic programs, particularly online learning and international initiatives. She will also develop consensus among departments regarding major academic initiatives and ensure that the School maintains policies and educational programs consistent with the requirements of governmental agencies and accrediting bodies.
“A well known and admired leader, Laura’s decades of experience will be invaluable as she serves in her new role,” says Michael J. Klag, MD, MPH ’87, dean of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “Laura has made outstanding contributions to the University, driven the Bloomberg School’s development of PhD and DrPH education and has been instrumental in bringing Johns Hopkins curricula to far corners of the world. I am very grateful she has accepted this additional institutional responsibility.”
Morlock earned her doctorate in sociology from Johns Hopkins University. She has been a professor in the Bloomberg School's Department of Health Policy and Management (HPM) since 1989, and also served as a deputy chair of the Department and director of the schoolwide DrPH program. In 1997, she received the Ernest Lyman Stebbins Medal for Teaching Excellence for leading efforts to develop a PhD program for HPM and to establish the HPM Summer Institute. She also helped create the part-time DrPH in Health Management and Leadership, which became a model for the School’s international DrPH programs. She was recently honored by the University’s alumni association with the Heritage Award for exceptional contributions to Johns Hopkins.
Morlock’s research explores how organizations can affect the quality and costs of health care. Her research projects have included evaluations of a number of quality improvement and patient safety initiatives in teaching hospitals, rural hospitals, community health centers and community mental health centers. She also has led or collaborated in health system and health insurance reform initiatives in Maryland as well as in Taiwan, Ecuador, Turkey and Romania. She has led educational initiatives on behalf of the School in Taiwan; Hyderabad, India; Trinidad and Tobago; and the United Arab Emirates. She has also taught a number of courses on managing health services organizations and currently co-teaches a course on Patient Safety and Medical Errors.
“I am honored to serve in a position that helps create an environment and academic programs—in the classroom, laboratory, online and in the community—that bring faculty and students together in a way that encourages transformational educational experiences,” says Morlock. “We are the largest school of public health in the world with the most diverse and extraordinary faculty and students, and our academic programs are the cornerstone that unites the two.”
A trained statistician, Elizabeth Stuart joined the Bloomberg School in 2006. In her new role, Stuart will focus on creating and leading a culture of educational research and innovation, including improving the quality of the School’s educational initiatives. She will also work to build on the School’s reputation—at home and abroad—as the No. 1-ranked U.S. school of public health.
In addition to the Department of Mental Health, Stuart will continue her appointments in the departments of Biostatistics and Health Policy and Management.
“Elizabeth’s interest in educational research and her ability to collaborate make her the perfect person for this leadership role,” says Klag. “In addition to being an incredible teacher, mentor and colleague, she is a well-respected leader in multiple research areas. Her ability to communicate statistical ideas to broader audiences has garnered national and international respect. She is a welcome addition to the School leadership team.”
She has participated on numerous national advisory panels. Most recently, Stuart was chair of the Inaugural Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) Clinical Trials Advisory Panel, which works to develop the best ways to design and implement trials. Other distinctions include the Mid-Career Award from the Health Policy Statistics Section of the American Statistical Association. She serves as the Methodology Editor of the Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness.
Stuart has also been recognized for her teaching. She received the JHSPH Golden Apple Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2010 and the JHSPH AMTRA Advising, Mentoring, and Teaching Recognition Award in 2010 and again in 2015.
Stuart specializes in randomized trials, including handling complexities such as missing data, clustering, mediation analysis and noncompliance. Before joining the Bloomberg School, Stuart was a researcher at Mathematica Policy Research in Washington, D.C., where she worked on a number of large-scale randomized trials of social interventions, including evaluations of two education programs, Upward Bound and the Quantum Opportunity Program.
Stuart completed her doctoral studies at Harvard University, where she also earned her master’s. She is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Smith College, where she majored in mathematics.
Several other School leaders have been given new titles to align them with counterparts in other divisions of the University; their roles will remain the same. They are:
Jane Schlegel, MBA, formerly senior associate dean for finance and administration, now executive vice dean for finance and administration.
Janet DiPietro, PhD, formerly associate dean for research and faculty, now vice dean for research and faculty.
Michael Ward, MEd, formerly associate dean for student affairs, now associate dean for enrollment management and student affairs.
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Media contacts for the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health: Barbara Benham at 410-614-6029 or bbenham1@jhu.com and Lauren Mari at 433-287-5054 and lmari1@jhu.edu.