We’d love to share your success stories. Send us news about your travels, career paths and public health accomplishments.
90s
MICHAEL O’DONNELL, PhD ’94, Health Behavior and Health Education, was ranked the No. 1 Top Scholar in the United States and No. 3 in the world for 2025 by ScholarGPS in health promotion based on his publications over his lifetime. O’Donnell is a former director of the Health Management Research Center at the University of Michigan.
KRIS SARRI, MPH ’97, Health Behavior and Health Education, recently was named the state director at the Nature Conservancy in Massachusetts. Sarri most recently served at the US Agency for International Development (USAID) as a senior advisor for Climate and Environment in the Bureau for Resilience, Environment and Food Security and as the acting chief climate officer.
00s
LEON McDOUGLE, MPH ’01, Health Management and Policy, was a guest speaker at the “Keep Hope Alive: Faith and Community Leaders’ Tribute to the Life and Ministry of Rev. Jesse Jackson” on Feb. 21 in Chicago. McDougle, professor of Family and Community Medicine at the Ohio State University College of Medicine, will be honored by the Arnold P. Gold Foundation with a 2026 National Humanism in Medicine Medal on June 8 in New York.
DARLA BISHOP, MPH ’09, Health Behavior and Health Education, is the founder of Piggy Bank Pathways, a financial literacy initiative for kids ages 4-10. She recently co-wrote the children’s book, “Madeline’s Money Adventure,” with her daughter to spark early money conversations.
10s
JAMILA KWARTENG, PhD ’14, Health Behavior and Health Education, is an assistant professor of Community Health at the Medical College of Wisconsin. She was awarded the 2025 Excellence in Public Health Research Award by the Wisconsin Public Health Association.
JENNIFER McDONALD, MPH ’14, Epidemiology, was appointed by Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to the Child Lead Exposure Elimination Commission as a physician. McDonald, who also has a Doctor of Medicine from the University of Michigan Medical School, is a pediatrician at Trinity Health IHA Medical Group.
SAMANTHA GREENBERG, MPH ’16, Health Behavior and Health Education, was honored by the North American Neuroendocrine Tumor Society (NANETS) with the 2025 Distinguished APP/AHP Award. Greenberg is the founding director of the Genetic Counseling Training Program at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.
ALI ABAZEED, MPH ’17, Health Behavior and Health Education (pictured at top during the news conference announcing his hiring), was named chief public health officer for the City of Detroit by Mayor Mary Sheffield on March 2. Abazeed, who also holds a bachelor’s degree in Neuroscience and a master’s in Public Policy from the University of Michigan, previously served as the inaugural chief public health officer for Dearborn. Sheffield envisions the Detroit Health Department leading a city-wide “health in all policies” approach to public health.
“City government touches people’s lives in countless ways, which means there are countless ways we can apply public health considerations into the work every department is doing,” Sheffield said. “Ali’s work in Dearborn has shown the impact this can have and that’s the vision he is bringing to the Detroit Health Department. We are very fortunate to have someone with his balance of national health policy and strategy building and on-the-ground community health experience to lead our work.”
Born in Detroit and raised in Dearborn, Abazeed moved in 2017 to Washington, DC, where he served as a public health advisor at the National Institutes of Health. There, he worked across the US Department of Health and Human Services as a Presidential Management Fellow in the Office of the Secretary, Office of Refugee Resettlement, and the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, advising senior federal leadership on policy and helping shape national priorities.
Abazeed returned to Michigan in 2022 to work for Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, MPH ’12. After framing and leading the launch of the Dearborn Department of Public Health, Abazeed was named chief public health officer. Dearborn is now just the second city in Michigan besides Detroit with a standalone municipal health department.
“Public health is the foundation of opportunity,” Abazeed said. “When children are healthy and neighborhoods are thriving, everything else becomes possible. Under Mayor Sheffield’s leadership, Detroit has an opportunity to become a national model for what bold public health can achieve. The decisions we make across every department can help Detroiters live long and healthy lives.
“My commitment is simple: We will upgrade public health in this city. We will protect what works, expand what’s possible, and build a culture where every department sees its work as contributing to the health of Detroiters. Detroit deserves a health department that is ambitious in vision, rigorous in execution, and relentless about results—and that’s exactly what we’re going to build.”
After launching the department, his accomplishments also include achieving a 60% reduction in drug overdoses and expanding air quality monitoring across Dearborn. He also brought the RxKids program to Dearborn, the same critical cash assistance initiative that Sheffield recently launched, making Detroit the largest city to adopt the maternal and infant health program.
20s
ISABELLE DUONG, BS ’24, Public Health Sciences, joined Optum, a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group, in March as a full-time advisory services analyst on the Provider Technology team as part of the Consultant Development Program.
