International Health Faculty Receive Student Assembly Awards for Mentoring and Teaching

Every year the Student Assembly at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health recognizes faculty for excellence in teaching and student support. This year, two International Health faculty were honored for their outstanding contributions and commitment to students.

Jeremy Shiffman, PhD, a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor in the Department’s Health Systems Program and at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International, received the Golden Apple for a medium-sized class. Since 1971, students have presented this annual award for excellence in teaching. The award is based on nominations and subsequent popular vote of the student body at large. There are four awards each year—for large-sized, medium-sized, small-sized, and offsite or online classes. Shiffman was honored for his third-term course, Health Policy Analysis in Low- and Middle-Income Countries. Shiffman’s work intersects political science and global health policy. He studies the behaviors of global and national health policy communities—groups that shape which public health issues receive attention, which policies get adopted, and how these policies are implemented. He examines the political dynamics within and between these groups to better understand how global health resources are allocated, especially as it pertains to social equity and social justice in low-income countries.

Vanessa Garcia-Larsen, PhD, MSc, MEd, an assistant professor in the Department’s Program in Human Nutrition, received the AMTRA Award (Advising, Mentoring, & Teaching Recognition). The AMTRAs are given to faculty who demonstrate excellence in teaching, advising and mentoring students and who make significant contributions to student quality of life. Recipients are chosen by the Awards Committee of the Student Assembly, based on nominations and testimonials by students. Garcia-Larsen is the Master of Science in Public Health (MSPH) Coordinator for Human Nutrition. She teaches several courses within this MSPH program, including Principles of Human Nutrition in Public Health, and is guest faculty to several postgraduate courses within the Bloomberg School of Public Health. Her research focuses on the role of diet and other lifestyle-related factors in the preservation of lung health and the prevention of allergies, asthma, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). She leads a thriving international research group of graduate and visiting scholars with whom she works on population-based surveys in low- and high-income countries in Europe, Latin America, and Africa