School Notes: School of Public Health
January/February 2025

Dean presents first-ever state-of-the-school address

Dean Megan L. Ranney presented the Yale School of Public Health’s inaugural state-of-the-school address as the first dean of the newly independent professional school. 
Ranney used the moment to unveil a robust five-year strategic plan that she said charts a path “toward creating the field of public health that we all believe in for the twenty-first century.”

The plan includes six new strategic priorities and four scholarly areas of focus that Ranney said “encapsulates the excitement and the vision” of the YSPH community. Ranney also highlighted the school’s new vision statement, “Linking science and society, making public health foundational to communities everywhere.” The vision statement, she said, emphasizes the school’s commitment “to not just conducting outstanding science, but also making sure that it gets out into the world.”

“Our mission is to educate and equip the best public health scientists, practitioners, and leaders to develop systems-level solutions for a healthier society,” Ranney said in presenting the report on October 17. We “know that the discipline of public health—the ways in which we think about how we ask questions, how we gather data, how we develop interventions and prove that they work or don’t work, and then most of all, how we disseminate out—is foundational to a healthy community.”

As part of YSPH’s transition to independence, Dean Ranney has hired an inaugural senior associate dean of data science and data equity, appointed the first-ever associate dean of faculty affairs, and redesigned the health innovation and executive education arms of the school; and started a Leaders in Public Health speaker series to which all are welcome. She encourages health-interested leaders to connect with the school.

The complete YSPH Strategic Plan for 2025–2030 can be found on the YSPH website.