Fall 2026
$10.8 Million Gift Supports Student Learning, Research Needs
By Kathryn Graves and Kelly Jordan
Photography by Erik Meadows
Through a generous gift from the O. Wayne Rollins Foundation, all new students enrolling this fall in the Doctor of Public Health; Master of Health Administration; Master of Science in Public Health in Data Science; and full-time online Master of Public Health programs in global health and behavioral, social, and health education sciences received scholarship support.
In addition to investments in new students, the $10.8 million gift provided support for research areas that have been impacted by funding cuts, program closures, and reorganizations occurring at the federal level through a new Rollins Maternal and Child Health Research Fund and the Research Accelerator Fund. These funds enabled Rollins faculty to partner with Harvard to ensure that the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (a critical system that collected pregnancy-related information) would move forward, and with March of Dimes on a roadmap for maternal and child health.
Research activities led by the school research accelerator projects—including aging, digital health and wearable technology, exposomics, maternal health, mental health, and nutrition—were also funded by this significant gift.
“At a time when public health—and our school in particular—needed to garner our resilience, this gift made that possible. We’ve moved forward in our innovative research, recruitment of our amazing students, and our planning for the future of public health thanks to this generous gift.”
Daniele Fallin, PhD
Dean of the Rollins School of Public Health
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Rollins Magazine is published twice a year by the Rollins School of Public Health, a component of the Woodruff Health Sciences Center of Emory University, for alumni and friends of the school.