Rollins Love
We all planned to leave Rollins on graduation day with a world class education, but looking back, many RSPH alumni cherish the community and lifelong relationships they formed along the way. In honor of Valentine’s Day, we thought we’d share the stories of couples and friends that might have never met, if it wasn’t for their Rollins connection.
Heather Amato 16PH was looking for someone to play soccer with when she met her fiancé Chris Hoover 15PH on the Rollins Facebook page in the fall of 2014. They kept in touch that summer (mostly via snapchats of mosquito larval sampling) while Heather worked in Trinidad and Tobago and Chris worked as research staff in environmental health. Their mutual love of sports and interest in vector-borne disease led to true RollinsLove. The couple are getting married at Heather’s parents’ home in Vermont in September 2020 on their 5-year anniversary.
Dr. Darren Mays 06PH 09G and Dr. Maggie Gatti-Mays 07PH are proof that Conversations on Tap is the perfect way to network. This April they will celebrate 10 years of marriage and all of their achievements along the way – a move to DC, three children (including 1 set of twins), and their work in cancer prevention. Darren is now a tenured associate professor at the Lombardi Cancer Center in Cancer Prevention and Control and Maggie is a medical ImmunoOncologist at the National Cancer Institute.
Priya Gupta 15PH 24G and Debarshi "Dev" Das 16PH met at a new student mixer complete with BBQ and SweetWater. Afterwards, Dev realized that he didn’t know the next time that he would see Priya. Dev (HPM) and Priya (EPI) were in different departments, class years—and in a graduate school with hundreds of students. Luckily, Dev did run into Priya again on her way to class and he knew this was his chance. He would wait until her class ended to take the leap. They fell in love over charcuterie boards, PBS documentaries, and dates at the Fox Theater. The two are now engaged and plan to marry this May. Some people really are worth waiting outside an EPI class for.
Cecilia Meijer 04PH, Adriana Hernandez 04PH, and Anthony Santella 04PH met during the Department of Health Policy and Management orientation in August 2003 and have remained the closest of friends ever since. During their time at Rollins, the trio studied together, enjoyed dinners together, vented to each other about everything from dates gone bad to difficult exams, and enjoyed Atlanta’s social scene together. Every year they make time to see each other, reminiscing about Rollins and celebrating birthdays, weddings, baby showers, and other important life milestones with each other.
Ian Hennessee 08OX 10C 15PH 22G and Chelsey Brack 15PH had several things in common, including serving in the Peace Corps – Ian in Senegal and Chelsey in Peru, but it wasn’t until a mutual friend and fellow Emory alum introduced them that they became the “campus couple.” After completing her Physician’s Assistant training, Chelsey now works in Family Medicine in Conyers and utilizes her MPH by addressing chronic disease, women’s and adolescent health, and migrant health issues. Now a doctoral candidate, Ian focuses on the impact of environmental change on vector-borne disease. The two got engaged over the Christmas holidays.
Jessie Clippard 11PH and Koo-Whang Chung 11PH had so many classes together. Jessie would send texts to Koo to jolt him awake when he sometimes dozed off in class. After an Emory outing to an Atlanta Thrashers (RIP) game, they sat together on the bus and a crush was born. While Jessie completed her CSTE Fellowship in Michigan they tried out a long-distance relationship – and it worked! Now married with a dog (@TheRealTofuDog) and toddler in tow, they both work at the CDC and enjoy having lunch dates.
A love for epidemiology is what started it all for Ron Eldridge 10PH 14G and Catherine Bozio Eldridge 11PH 16G. Although Ron was a second year and Catherine a first year, those late nights in the Grace Crum Rollins building working on EPI assignments is what brought them together. Their relationship continued through each of their global field experiences (GFE) and Emory's doctoral program in Epidemiology. The couple married with several Rollins professors and colleagues bearing witness. Catherine is now an epidemiologist in CDC’s Influenza Division and Ron is an assistant professor in Emory’s School of Nursing. They are expecting their first child in June. #FutureRollinsGraduate
Where else would you expect to meet your future partner than BIOS 500? It was in this course that nearly every first-year Rollins student takes where Ami Shah, 00PH, PhD, and Bruce Brown, 01PH, MA, were lucky enough to meet—along with several other lifelong friends. Ami was great at the subject but Bruce needed some help, so it was a great match that has ended up in 17 years of marriage and three wonderful boys! The couple first met at a Rollins social mixer in Buckhead (Bruce was hosting several of the Humphrey Fellows) but it was BIOS 500 where they found true #RollinsLove.