Vice Dean Puts Students at the Center

Julie Kornfeld Takes the Helm of the Mailman School’s Education Strategy

February 2, 2016

Four years after the launch of the Mailman School’s interdisciplinary MPH curriculum, the School’s reputation as a leader in public health education is undisputed. Julie Kornfeld, the new Vice Dean for Education, has set her sights on optimizing Columbia’s vanguard role, cultivating new opportunities for public health education within and beyond the classroom. But for Kornfeld, who came to Columbia at the beginning of January, students are public health’s raison d’etre.

“Our discipline attracts people who want to change the world,” Kornfeld said. “Working with them to provide the skills, knowledge, and experience they need to fulfill their dreams and solve the complex problems that face our communities, both locally and globally, is my passion.”

Kornfeld, who served most recently as Assistant Dean for Public Health at the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine, has earned her own reputation as an innovator and a problem-solver. Lisa Metsch, chair of Sociomedical Sciences and a longtime friend, calls Kornfeld “an endless source of energy.” But after three weeks at Columbia, Kornfeld is prepared to channel her energy on behalf of the expanding audience for public health knowledge.

“We have all the building blocks to create the bold public health initiatives the next generation will require in order to lead,” she said. “We have expert faculty who are as attentive to their lectures as they are to their labs. We have a university with a global network that’s already training the world’s decision-makers. And we have a population in and around New York City for whom public health knowledge will benefit their employees, their organizations, and their capacity to improve lives.”

Described by peers as an imaginative educator, Kornfeld has put forth considerable effort making institutions student-friendly. At the Miller School, she was credited with a three-fold enrollment increase and with building the infrastructure to support the nation’s largest joint MD-MPH program. When educational proposals reached her desk, she evaluated them based not only on their scholarly merit, but whether they would help students combine personal enthusiasm with professional goals.

Kornfeld’s role at the Mailman School encompasses the entire student enterprise, including recruitment, student affairs, and career planning. With one of the largest MPH programs in the world, the School enrolls 1,450 students, offers 311 courses, and serves as the intellectual home of more than 500 faculty. As the field’s visibility continues to grow, the School’s mandate to create the next generation of public health leaders demands a leader with Kornfeld’s vision.

Kornfeld’s scholarly profile is also noteworthy. Appointed to the Department of Epidemiology, she has conducted research on the transmittal of health information to communities that struggle with access to healthcare, cultural understanding of clinical trials, and community misconceptions about cancer. Her dissertation explored attitudes about the HPV vaccine among Spanish-speaking women. Using data from the National Cancer Institute's Cancer Information Service, Kornfeld determined that the community’s overall valuation of vaccines was strong, and that physician recommendation and community norms regarding vaccines were particularly important among Hispanics. Her study is especially significant given the high rates of cervical cancer among Hispanic women in the U.S. and the efficacy of the HPV vaccine.

Kornfeld comes to her interest in health communications naturally. She studied journalism at Boston University and worked for two years at CBS News before relocating to Florida. Positions on political campaigns and as a fundraiser followed, but she found her intellectual stride at Miami’s Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, where she directed a health communication and cancer control program that aimed to help individuals make informed decisions about cancer prevention and treatment.

Looking ahead, Kornfeld sees a landscape that will demand blending public health training with other disciplines. At the Miller School, she developed a course on public health documentary filmmaking in which students created short films to motivate audiences to take action on critical issues. She is excited about the prospect of similar collaborations with her new colleagues to focus on the evolving needs of the marketplace and complex critical issues of our time.

“Public health education must remain rigorous and it must stay ahead of the curve, relentlessly probing which technologies, pedagogies, and practical ideas belong in our field,” she said. “In getting to know the faculty and staff, it’s clear that everyone at Mailman cares deeply about our students and shaping an educational enterprise that is calibrated to anticipate and respond to emerging challenges and an ever-changing environment. For any educator, that is mission critical.”