Each spring, students graduate from HSPH and go on to do great things. Thanks to the efforts of the Office for Alumni Programs, graduates return every year to share their experiences during Alumni Weekend and to honor their fellow alumni with Awards of Merit. This year’s winners received their awards in ceremonies organized by Sudha Kotha, director of alumni programs, and Catherine Fratianni, alumni programs coordinator, on April 20.

Said Kotha, "We are so pleased that all three of the award recipients were able to attend the Awards Dinner, especially since one recipient traveled from Australia and another from Haiti."

Tony Adams, MPH ‘61
Tony Adams talks softly and thinks big. He hopes to end polio worldwide. To achieve this goal, Adams serves on the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Commission for Certification of Poliomyelitis Eradication and chairs the Western Pacific Regional Commission for Certification of Poliomyelitis Eradication.

Last fall, the region of the Western Pacific, covering one-quarter of the world’s population, was certified free of polio, said Adams. Now, the WHO commission has targeted 2002 as the deadline to end polio in 20 countries where the disease persists.

Explained Adams, the desire to stop polio has taken on new urgency recently due to problems with the traditional oral vaccine.

In Hispaniola last year, the virus used in the oral vaccine actually started to infect children, causing an outbreak of polio. As a result, the governments of Haiti and the Dominican Republic let the vaccination rate drop to between 20 and 30 percent, said Adams.

In the United States, the oral vaccine caused paralysis in one of every 3 million doses. Now, doctors here are using the more expensive injectable vaccine, a strategy that won’t work in less affluent countries.

"It’s important to clear the world of polio," said Adams. "We can’t stop immunizing until we do."

Adams is also a professor of public health at the Australian National University in Canberra.

He said his year at HSPH in 1960-61 laid the groundwork for his eventual career.

"There was such stimulation here," said Adams. "You realized that public health could be an exciting career."

Patricia Sue Morey ‘80 nominated Adams, writing, "Tony was one of the first of many Australians to gain an MPH from HSPH and has no doubt influenced many of those who have followed him. He has been recognized for many years as one of the most senior public health professionals in the country and is highly regarded by all."

Jonathan Samet, MS ‘77
Jonathan Samet is one of the world’s leading respiratory epidemiologists. Chair of the Department of Epidemiology at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, Samet was lead author last year of one of the most comprehensive studies to date of the effects of airborne soot on life expectancy. The study reviewed data from 20 US cities and found a correlation between higher levels of soot in the air and increased death rates.

"We tried to build a national approach to studying the health effects of air pollution," said Samet. "The research gives evidence directly relevant to air pollution policies."

With an energy crisis looming over the US and talk of greater dependency on both coal-fired and nuclear power plants, Samet would like to see a discussion about conservation re-emerge in the country.

"We are remarkably spendthrift in terms of our energy consumption," he said.

Samet came to HSPH and the Channing Laboratory after seeing an advertisement for a fellowship in clinical epidemiology in Annals of Internal Medicine.

"The school had one of the premiere programs in epidemiology in the world," recalled Samet. "It was a dynamic environment."

In addition to receiving a master’s degree from the Department of Epidemiology, Samet also earned a medical degree from the University of Rochester. Following his graduation, he worked in New Mexico where he became chief of the section of pulmonary and critical care medicine at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine. He developed a clinical subspecialty program that spanned two hospitals at the University of New Mexico, while teaching students and caring for patients.

During this time, Samet established his career as a researcher, studying the health effects of radon on the lungs, the link between gas-stove fumes and respiratory illness in children and cancer, and other diseases in the state’s multiethnic population.

Samet was nominated by Scott Weiss, professor in the Department of Environmental Health, who wrote, "I have known Dr. Samet for almost 25 years. We were fellows together and classmates at HSPH. I have followed his career with interest and truly believe him to be one of the outstanding respiratory epidemiologists of his generation."

Antoine Augustin, MPH ‘77
A native of Haiti, Antoine Augustin has seen first-hand the effects of poverty on health, and he has devoted much of his career to changing the fate of the poor.

He established a rural community health program that gave small loans to poor mothers while offering immunizations, nutrition counseling, prenatal care and health education.

He created a foundation to administer funds for the poor in one of Port au Prince’s worst slums. He founded Haiti’s first chain of stand-alone clinics that offer 24-hour care for medical emergencies. He helped start a blindness prevention program that also brought ophthalmology and preventive health services to the poor.

When he became aware of an abandoned beach hotel, left by bankrupt owners, Augustin arranged for the establishment of a low-cost center for conferences and training in health and development in Haiti.

Augustin currently oversees one of the largest Haitian private voluntary organizations, operating a network of hospitals, urgent care centers, dispensaries and community health programs in the country.

Prior to coming to HSPH, Augustin attended the Medical School of the University of Wisconsin. He came to Boston to earn an MPH at HSPH and to study tumor angiogenesis with Judah Folkman at Children’s Hospital, and complete his pediatric surgical residency.

Gretchen Glode Berggren ‘66 and Warren Berggren ‘67 nominated Augustin for the Award of Merit, saying, "Through institution-building, policy articulation, eloquent persuasion, and his advising practice preventive and curative care programs, Dr. Augustin enables external aid and national health programs alike to move well beyond their good intentions and advocacy to practical improvements in the health of several million Haitians."