Strategic Plan

Our Goals

Goal 1

Prepare the next generation of public health leaders through rigorous educational programs.

  • Establish a mentoring program for doctoral and post-doctoral students.
  • Institute a summer Research in Progress seminar series for students.
  • Implement a formal statistical genetics certificate in collaboration with the Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology.
  • Update the Human Genetics web site to facilitate recruitment, including up-to-date information on faculty interests, thesis abstracts, and student funding.
  • Incorporate systems thinking and health equity issues into our existing curriculum.
  • Implement a computational genetics track in the new PhD program in Computational Modeling and Simulation.

Goal 2

Expand knowledge in the field of public health through scientific inquiry and innovation.

  • Recruit additional junior faculty in the area of genetic epidemiology to expand our existing faculty.
  • Implement a system for mentoring junior faculty.
  • Increase and continue and enhance grant applications and manuscripts.
  • Continue and expand our current research into innovative areas such as emerging genetic technologies, personalized genomic medicine, and the genetics of aging.
  • Continue and expand our current research into factors that affect health at different ages (ranging from newborns to long-lived individuals) and in populations with different geographic ancestry.

Goal 3

Advance the health of populations through service and through partnerships with regional, national, and global organizations.

  • Continue and enhance interaction with other schools of the health sciences, Children’s Hospital, Magee-Womens Hospital, Pennsylvania Huntington Disease Society, University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, Alzheimer Disease Research Center, and similar health organizations.
  • Develop connections with the new Center for Innovative Science to explore personalized genomic medicine.
  • Continue and expand our studies and interactions, including providing training opportunities, with researchers and organizations in other countries to enhance the utilization of genetics in global health.

Goal 4

Secure adequate resources and promote operational effectiveness, so as to enhance the school's capacity to fulfill its mission.

  • Restore and maintain our departmental administrative structure to promote operational effectiveness.
  • Implement and maintain a virtual machine infrastructure to help meet our departmental computing needs.
  • Expand existing efforts to generate and maintain alumni and student databases.