Fall 2025
A Public Health Story for the Ages
By Kelly Jordan
Illustration by Tim Zeltner
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Tracing the history of Rollins through its 50 years as a program and 35 years as a school.
A Public Health Story for the Ages
Fifty years ago, public health training at Emory University began as a spark of an idea. Thomas F. Sellers and William Marine, both preventive medicine faculty, worked together to launch a Master of Community Health program. It was approved by the board of trustees in 1974 and was launched within the School of Medicine’s Department of Community Health with the strong support of David Sencer, MD, chief of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and James T. Laney, PhD, Emory University president.
Faculty and staff initially set up their offices inside a small white house a block away from the CDC and welcomed the first class in 1975. Constance Conrad, MD, served as the program’s first director and was succeeded in 1982 by Eugene Gangarosa, MD, a leading expert in waterborne diseases.
Through the dogged determination, focus, and support of public health luminaries including William Foege, MD; Conrad; Gangarosa; Charles R. Hatcher, Jr., MD; and Jeff Koplan, MD; the program became a school in 1990. Emory’s school of public health became the first new school at Emory in 100 years.
Ray Greenberg, MD, took on the role of the school’s first dean at the age of 35, after chairing the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics and leading the School of Medicine’s cancer surveillance program.
He was followed by James W. Curran, MD, a globally renowned HIV/AIDS researcher with the CDC, who led the school for 27 years. Most recently, M. Daniele Fallin, PhD, acclaimed genetic epidemiologist, was named the James W. Curran Dean of Public Health and took on the leadership role in 2023.
“Dr. Greenberg had the insight to have an international health department from the beginning. Most schools at that time (and there were only 27 in the United States back then) did not have a separate department in international health, which is now of course the Hubert Department of Global Health,” says Curran. “That showed that the school recognized early on that you cannot separate public health problems or public health concerns by geographic area.”
Curran adds, “The other thing they had at the start was that they were committed to both teaching and research, which is really, really important if you want to be great. You can't really do well with students and everybody else unless you're committed to teaching, but you can't really become well-known unless you're committed to research. And that was the beginning of the vision that Ray had.”
Supported by Generosity and Strong Partnerships
O. Wayne Rollins—already engaged as a dedicated trustee of the university–was closely watching the school’s formation and expressed interest in providing support. Following his untimely death, his widow Grace and sons Randall and Gary stepped in to provide essential funding for the school’s first building. In 1994, Emory named the school in honor of the Rollins’ many contributions to the university.
The family’s lasting commitment to the school’s mission is evidenced in all three of the school’s exceptional facilities, named in their honor: the Grace Crum Rollins Building, Claudia Nance Rollins Building, and R. Randall Rollins Building. Rollins philanthropy includes a transformational $100 million gift to endow student success and faculty eminence, the James W. Curran Scholarship Fund, and several endowed professorships. Wayne and Grace Rollins’ sons, Randall and Gary, continued this legacy sustained now by Randall and Peggy Rollins’ children and grandchildren including Pam Rollins, Tim Rollins, Amy Rollins Kreisler, and Chris Rollins. An unprecedented four generations of the Rollins family have played an integral role in the school’s rise to preeminence.
Members of the Rollins family and Emory University leadership outside of the Claudia Nance Rollins Building
Additional philanthropic support has come from a range of generous donors over the years, including school alumni and faculty.
“We have the most generous faculty of any school at Emory and maybe in the country,” says Kathryn Graves, senior associate dean for advancement and alumni engagement. Several faculty have established their own endowment funds or provided substantial financial investments to the school on top of their investment of time and expertise.
Rollins has two endowed departments, the Hubert Department of Global Health and the Gangarosa Department of Environmental Health, made possible through significant monetary contributions from Richard and Linda Hubert and Eugene and Rose Gangarosa.
“This level of commitment is unique to Rollins and is the only school with endowed departments at Emory,” says Graves.
The city of Atlanta has also served as a vital ingredient to the school’s growth and success, thanks to the wealth of public health organizations, leaders, and health systems in close proximity. CDC’s partnership has been integral to the school from the beginning—with many of the school’s faculty and alumni sharing ties with the organization—as has the support of Emory University and the strong interdisciplinary scholarship and collaboration across the enterprise.
“The ties to CDC were an important asset in faculty recruitment and retention,” says Richard Levinson, PhD, executive associate dean for academic affairs emeritus. “The growing national reputation among our peer institutions and in the field of public health brought top MPH and PhD students who found success in their careers, a key to attracting additional talented students from a national pool. Faculty engagement of students in their research and practice activities, their commitment to teaching, and the many opportunities for learning in the field made our school a first-rate place to train.”
Growing in Size and National Prominence
The R. Randall Rollins Building at Rollins School of Public Health
Rollins established its strong reputation for excellence early on, and within seven years of being a school, it was ranked as a top 10 school of public health in the country by its peer schools and programs. Receiving a top ranking has been part of the school’s tradition. Most recently, the school was ranked No. 2 in the United States.
“Although we had great aspirations in 1990, even in our wildest imaginations we could not have foreseen that the school would rise to the elite ranking that it enjoys today,” says Greenberg. “As we celebrate all that the school has accomplished, may we remain true to the ideals that gave birth to the Rollins School of Public Health more than three decades ago.”
In the 50 years of training the public health workforce, the school has increased its alumni from 300 by 1990 to more than 13,000 living in all 50 states and 110 countries.
Seeing this type of growth and being part of the process has been a unique experience for the faculty and staff who were at Rollins during its earliest days.
“Being part of the school’s development was special,” says Levinson. “Few people in academic careers get to be part of a program that grows from hardly any resources to a nationally ranked institution.”
He recalls watching junior faculty building their careers at Rollins, being recruited to other leading institutions, and ultimately deciding to stay to take on leadership and mentorship roles.
“Although we grew in numbers and were spread across departments, we all shared a sense of our mission and generally worked well together.”
The Next Chapter
“As we educate the next generation of students, who will be our future thought leaders as we move forward, we are continuing to evolve and grow,” says Fallin. “In addition to the MPH, which is what started it all, we now are training students who are working in health organizations across the world but want to elevate their roles—in our new Doctor of Public Health program. We started the inaugural class this year with 75 students from across the country and the globe. We are also working to create a Master of Health Administration to really engage with the health care careers of the future, with a public health mindset.”
“Our programs are also expanding to be online so we can reach students where they are and in the careers that they're already in. We are doing this while we continue to nurture and expand our traditional MPH—the backbone of how we started and truly the very best in class across all the schools of public health.”
Let's Move Public Health Forward for 50 More Years
No matter who you are, you can support the future of public health. Learn more about how to get involved and support Rollins' mission to keep moving public health forward.