University of Florida: Dean, College of Public Health and Health Professions

The UF College of Public Health and Health Professions is focused on preserving, promoting, and improving the health and well-being of populations and individuals. The College is accredited as a school of public health by the Council on Education for Public Health. Since 2022, the College’s educational portfolio has expanded to 27 academic programs of study, including bachelor's, master's, PhD, and professional doctoral degrees, supplemented by a growing slate of minors and certificates.

The student body has grown to nearly 3,000 undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral students, supported by over 180 faculty members.

The College is organized into eight departments: biostatistics; clinical and health psychology; environmental and global health; epidemiology; health services research, management, and policy; occupational therapy; physical therapy; and speech, language, and hearing sciences. It is also home to a deep portfolio of federally funded T32 training grants, focused on breathing research and therapeutics, movement disorders and neurorestoration, rehabilitation and neuromuscular plasticity, substance abuse, and team-based interdisciplinary cancer research, among other areas.

The College has an annual budget of over $100 million, with 46 percent coming from sponsored awards, 21 percent from state appropriations, 20 percent from tuition, six percent from clinical services, and seven percent from other sources.

The College offers a diverse variety of degree programs as well as several certificate programs. By combining the population perspective of public health with the patient focus of health professions disciplines, the continuum of care is covered from prevention and treatment to rehabilitation that supports the health and well‑being of communities and individuals.

• Eight graduate programs ranked in the Top 20 among public universities
• Near 100 percent undergraduate graduation rate, and top‑tier graduate and professional outcomes, including: licensure pass rates of 100 percent (OTD), 98.7 percent (PT), 100 percent (CHP), and 95/91 percent (SLP/AuD); and job/placement rates of 100 percent in MHA, OTD, PT, and CHP

Research funding in the College remains a defining strength, with faculty members working in Florida, nationally, and abroad on diverse topics such as dementia, sports concussions, suicidal ideation, violence and addiction, obesity, muscular dystrophy, driving safety, infectious diseases, agricultural and landscape worker health and safety, AI applications for pediatric neuro‑medicine, global food safety, and aging in place. College faculty produce research that has had real‑world impact on patients and populations, with recent examples ranging from contributions to clinical trials slowing the progression of Duchenne muscular dystrophy to COVID‑related modeling and transmission studies.

• Top-10 in NIH funding among schools of public health at public universities
• An overall Blue Ridge Institute for Medical Research ranking of 11th among public schools of public health
• $46.1 million in total research awards and $44.6 million in total research expenditures in FY25
• 270 grants led by college faculty, and overall faculty involvement in 547 grants worth over $300 million

The College provides clinical, professional, and community service at the local, national, and international levels. The department of clinical and health psychology provides psychological services for the entire academic health center and UF Health Physicians practices. Students in physical therapy, occupational therapy, and clinical and health psychology offer pro‑bono services through equal access clinics, providing care for local residents who are uninsured or underinsured.

Service projects are integrated into the College’s academic programs at the community level and internationally, including a model that incorporates education and research efforts to improve the lives of people in other countries, including Burkina Faso, China, Ethiopia, Haiti, India, Mexico, Nepal, Nicaragua, Niger, Rwanda, and Uganda.

• Three equal access clinics
• 15,500 patient contacts by clinical and health psychology faculty and…