New Master’s Program Co-Associate Directors Named

The annual close of the Global Health Sciences (GHS) master’s program is a transition for faculty and staff as well as students.

This year, Kim Baltzell, RN, PhD, NP, MS, stepped down as associate director after many years of involvement in the program. She joined the master’s program as a student in the Class of 2010, and then served as faculty before taking on the role of associate director.

Baltzell formed a synergetic leadership team with program director Madhavi Dandu, contributing to the curriculum, the program model, and especially the students. She will continue to serve as a mentor in the program, but will now focus on her work as director of the Center for Global Health in the UCSF School of Nursing and her research with GHS’s Malaria Elimination Initiative.

Two new co-associate directors will take on Baltzell’s role. Elizabeth Fair, PhD, MPH, associate professor of medicine and a GHS faculty affiliate, previously worked with the founders of Global Health Sciences to help develop the mission, first strategic plan, and original curriculum for the master’s program. An infectious disease epidemiologist, her current research focuses on tuberculosis in high burden settings. She has active collaborations in Tanzania, Bangladesh, and Indonesia. Fair completed the UCSF Mentor Development Program and has mentored medical, master’s, and doctoral students.

Alden Blair, MSc, PhD(c), joined GHS in 2015 as an instructor for the Introduction to Biostatistics course, and recently won the 2016 John L. Zeigler Outstanding Mentor Award for his mentorship of several master’s students. Blair has worked in Burundi, Cameroon, and Uganda on health delivery programs in rural post-conflict regions. His current research uses a mixed-methods approach to explore the intersection of substance use, mental health, and HIV in post-conflict Northern Uganda.

The GHS master’s program also bids farewell to Student Affairs Officer Elizabeth Rojo, MA, who left her position to work with the education programs of the Emergency Medicine Association of Tanzania (EMAT) at Muhimbili Hospital in Dar es Salaam.