“The design of a program is only half the story. You need to know how people talk to each other, how they interact with each other, and how these interactions often translate into health risks . . . We help students see the larger picture in these issues so they can look at the assets of a neighborhood or group, not just the deficits.”

Who better to co-direct the degree program in Urbanism and the Built Environment than a community organizer of 44 years? While Dr. Robert Fullilove also serves as Associate Dean of Community and Minority Affairs, Professor of Clinical Sociomedical Sciences, and co-Director of the Community Research Group, he was an active participant in the civil rights movement as a field secretary for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) working as a community organizer in Mississippi in 1964-65.

Since those ground-breaking times, Dr. Fullilove has shifted his attention to issues of minority health in urban settings such as substance abuse and addiction and the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases and HIV. The development of an academic track "that provides students with a comprehensive understanding of the special health challenges of an urbanized population" grows out of the body of this work. In the Department of Sociomedical Sciences, Dr. Fullilove teaches one course on race and health, another on emerging issues in urban health, and another on the urbanist's approach to chronic diseases. Dr. Fullilove has designed, conducted and published studies - many under the leadership of his wife, Mindy Thompson Fullilove, MD, also a Mailman faculty member - in both San Francisco and New York City that address subjects including the relationship of drug use and the rising infection rates of HIV and other STDs.

A holder of a master's in education from Syracuse University and an EdD from Columbia's Teachers College, Dr. Fullilove says he is "passionate about teaching." He is a two-time recipient of the Mailman School Teaching Excellence award. Dr. Fullilove has become a teaching icon on the Mailman campus making lasting impressions on all students that he either teaches, addresses at school meetings or meets casually at a faculty meet and greet. His work also extends to advising students about career opportunities and guiding them through the application process for internships and post-doctoral positions.

"When I got to Columbia 17 years ago, it was clear to me that I could fill a niche at the school by bridging the gap in the classroom between abstract theorizing and the realities that we see in the streets," he explains. "The design of a program is only half the story. You need to know how people talk to each other, how they interact with each other, and how these interactions often translate into health risks, for example, so that the programs address people where they are, and not where we imagine them to be. We help students see the larger picture in these issues so they can look at the assets of a neighborhood or group, not just the deficits."