Dear Colleagues,
Stefano Bertozzi has announced that he will be stepping down as Dean of the School of Public Health (SPH) and rejoining the faculty full-time July 1, 2018. An interim dean will be appointed to lead SPH while we conduct a search for Dean Bertozzi’s successor.
During Stef’s five years as dean, he has led the School during a challenging financial time, both for the School and the campus, and has effectively charted a financially sustainable future for Public Health. As part of this effort he has partnered with University Development and Alumni Relations (UDAR) to rebuild the School’s fundraising team and development strategy, has made substantial progress in reducing SPH’s operating deficit, and has overseen considerable enrollment growth in the School’s professional programs.
Additionally, under his tenure, the School of Public Health underwent an extensive reaccreditation process with the Council on Education for Public Health, resulting in SPH being reaccredited for a seven-year term, extending to July 1, 2023. Stef also successfully guided the planning for the School’s upcoming and much-anticipated move to the new Berkeley Way West building.
Dean Bertozzi has been instrumental in helping SPH build several new cross-unit, cross-campus, and international collaborations, including online programs in hospital management and regulatory science as part of the UC-Mexico initiative, the UCB/UCSF Data Science Fellowship and the joint UCB/UCSF global health track for the online MPH program, development of the Fung Fellowship for Wellness and Technology with the College of Engineering, and the School’s participation in the Berkeley Food Institute. During his tenure, the School launched the Center for Targeted Machine Learning and Causal Inference (CTL), an important initiative to develop methods for analyzing large health datasets. SPH has also been recognized as a best practice model for student internships and professional development, marked by the launch of the undergraduate Schaeffer Government Fellows program and a substantial increase in the number of internship opportunities available to graduate students.
I deeply appreciate Stef’s willingness to stay on until we identify an interim dean in order to build on the work he has done to stabilize the School's finances and ensure a smooth transition, especially during this important year of the 75th anniversary of the School and the move to the new building.
Please join Chancellor Christ and me in thanking Stef for his service to the School of Public Health and to the Berkeley campus.
Paul Alivisatos
Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost