Fellowship Offers Unique Teaching Opportunities for Doctoral Students

The Bloomberg School of Public Health, together with the Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences at Johns Hopkins University, established the Gordis Teaching Fellowship in 2012. Named in honor of Leon Gordis, MD, DrPH, MPH, Professor Emeritus with the Bloomberg School’s Department of Epidemiology and director of the Johns Hopkins Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program, this teaching fellowship is designed to enrich the Zanvyl Krieger School’s undergraduate curriculum with innovative courses which highlight trends and topics in public health. In addition, the Fellowship creates new teaching opportunities for doctoral students and allows undergraduates the opportunity to take seminar size classes that build on their foundation courses.

In 2023, Department of Epidemiology doctoral student Tom Carpino was awarded the Gordis Fellowship to teach his course “Sex and Syndemics” during the Spring 2024 semester.

“The Gordis Fellowship has been an incredible way for me to connect with students about pressing public health issues relevant to my doctoral studies,” Carpino said. “In my course, I get to discuss sexual health and STIs while introducing the concept of syndemics: colliding epidemics which synergistically result in worse health outcomes for populations. It was a huge surprise how much interest there was in this course, with several students joining the waitlist.”

The creation of the Gordis Teaching Fellowship is in recognition of Gordis’s commitment to excellence in teaching and tremendous contributions to the Bloomberg School. Gordis was an award-winning teacher and author of the book, Epidemiology.

The fellowship program supports up to 10 fellows per year to teach small, seminar-style courses in the Undergraduate Program in Public Health Studies. Each Gordis Fellow receives $8,000 for teaching a course. All Bloomberg School doctoral students are eligible to apply for the Gordis Fellowship program, with the application cycle typically opening in April or May each year. The selected fellows will teach a 3-credit, 13-week course for one semester and may be invited to return if selected by the program director.

“For anyone at BSPH interested in teaching and engaging their passions in different ways, I highly recommend this fellowship,” Carpino added.

Questions related to the Gordis Fellowship program should be directed to Natalie Boyd, nhicks5@jhu.edu.