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Two Appointments for Senior Faculty Positions for the College Public Health


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The University of Georgia’s College of Public Health is pleased to announce two senior faculty appointments in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics.

The two professors, Christopher Whalen, M.D., and John Vena, Ph.D., will join the faculty in August.

Whalen, a world-renowned expert on tuberculosis, will be joining the College as a professor of Epidemiology. He will also be a member of UGA’s Faculty of Infectious Diseases. Prior to coming to the University of Georgia, he served as the Division Head of Epidemiology of the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Case Western Reserve University Medical School.

He will bring three grants to the College to expand his research on tuberculosis, HIV infection and ways to treat HIV-associated tuberculosis using antiretroviral therapy.

Whalen will also hold the Elizabeth T. and Lovick P. Corn Professorship in infectious disease epidemiology once the professorship is fully funded.

“This commitment by the College and the University makes a statement about its commitment to the control and prevention of infectious diseases in Georgia, the U.S. and the world,” Whalen said about the professorship.

Whalen’s accomplishments range from publications in the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association to Science and The Lancet. His research interests include tuberculosis, HIV infection, vaccines to prevent infectious disease and drug-resistant microorganisms.

Vena will serve as the Head of the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics. He also will hold the prestigious University of Georgia Foundation Professorship.

Vena will be coming to the College from the Arnold School of Public Health at the University of South Carolina where he helped build and expand a successful research and academic program as the Chair of the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics.

What drew Vena to the University was "the tremendous progress (the College of Public Health) made in establishing the school and their vision for the future," he said during a phone interview.

Vena's honors include the Senior International Fellow from John E. Fogarty International Center of the National Institutes of Health and a Great Lakes Scholar from the Association of Occupational and Environmental Clinics. He is a Fellow of the American College of Epidemiology and the American Epidemiologic Society.

"I'm excited about the challenge and opportunity to help build the program, to mentor current faculty and to recruit the best and brightest to join UGA," Vena said.

His interests include occupational health, reproductive and developmental health, community-based research and cancer epidemiology.

The College of Public Health anticipates their contributions to the University of Georgia and look forward to their arrival.