Blog

Getting to know ... Tara Allendorfer

Tara has nearly 15 years of experience in higher education, working in alumni engagement and student career development. As director of Alumni Engagement, she works with the Michigan Public Health alumni community, engaging individuals in the life of the school through communications and events as well as leading high-impact programs for students and alumni to connect and learn from each other. Supporting the success of others and ensuring individuals have access to these difference-making experiences is a rewarding experience.

A collaboration for health equity

The University of Michigan School of Public Health is collaborating with the American Heart Association, the American Diabetes Association and the American Cancer Society on a Bank of America-funded program to advance health outcomes for Black, Latino/Hispanic, Asian and Indigenous communities.

Public Health IDEAS: Pioneering firearms research

Becoming a violence exposure researcher wasn’t initially the plan for Hsing-Fang Hsieh, MPH '06, PhD '12, but an introduction to a University of Michigan School of Public Health faculty member and subsequent work on a youth resilience study paved the way for her new research path. Now she is a research assistant professor at the University of Michigan Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention spearheading firearm violence prevention research, an area that has historically been understudied and underfunded.

Better together

Alumnae pair up to help healthcare facilities stay afloat during the pandemic and beyond

Colleagues Susan Marsiglia Gray, MPH ’01, and Tasha Akitobi, MPH ’05, share so much common ground, they practically read each other’s minds. That comes in handy because their federal government workplace, the Provider Relief Bureau, is responsible for $200 billion in COVID relief funding. While their partnership is somewhat new—with only about 18 months of being on the job together—their paths to public health have created deep familiarity.

Turning to public health in a crisis

Graduate student Oksana Fedorak works to prevent human trafficking in Ukraine

Traditionally, the sunflower is emblematic to Ukraine—but it signifies so much more to the Ukrainian people, and especially Oksana Fedorak. “Our national flower is the sunflower—it means a lot to us and me personally,” said Fedorak, a Master of Public Health student in Health Behavior and Health Education at the University of Michigan School of Public Health.

Taking a holistic view of public health

When talking about public health these days, it’s almost impossible not to mention COVID-19. But while the pandemic is a frequent and recurring topic on the nightly news, the podcasts we listen to, and the websites we visit, it’s far from the only pressing public health issue facing our country and our world.