New School of Public Health Dean

July 1, 2010

Howard Frumkin, MD, DrPH, MPH, currently Special Assistant to the Director for Climate Change and Health at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), will be the next dean of the University of Washington School of Public Health. Dr. Frumkin’s appointment will be effective September 27, 2010.

Dr. Frumkin is an internist, an environmental and occupational medicine specialist, and an epidemiologist. He has been at the CDC since 2005, previously serving as Director of the National Center for Environmental Health/Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.

Academia is also an important part of Dr. Frumkin’s career history. He was on faculty at Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health from 1990 to 2005, rising to full professor and chair of the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health.

Dr. Frumkin is the author or co-author of more than 180 scientific journal articles and chapters, including one in the fall/winter 2008 issue of our journal, Northwest Public Health. His books include Urban Sprawl and Public Health (Island Press, 2004), Emerging Illness and Society (Johns Hopkins Press, 2004), Environmental Health: From Global to Local (Jossey-Bass, 2005 and 2010), Safe and Healthy School Environments (Oxford University Press, 2006), and Green Healthcare Institutions: Health, Environment, Economics (National Academies Press, 2007).

Dr. Frumkin received an MD from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in 1982, a master's in public health from the Harvard School of Public Health in 1982, and a doctorate in public health in 1993, also from Harvard. He will replace Dean Patricia Wahl, who has been Dean of the UW School of Public Health since 1999.