There's No Party Like a Public Health Party
Tolbert Nyenswah, MPH '12 stood out in the crowd just a bit. He wore a shirt and tie while his compatriots, all Hopkins alumni, sported an array of shorts and flip-flops as they gathered for a group photo on a beach in Monrovia, Liberia. Nyenswah, the nation's deputy minister of health for disease surveillance and epidemic control, is virtually always on call — but he's never too busy to make time for the Bloomberg School of Public Health. That's why, in January, he volunteered to help host one of the school's Centennial 100 Dinners, a worldwide celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Bloomberg School, at a restaurant near that beach.
"Hopkins is a very high priority for me," said Nyenswah, who received the Johns Hopkins Alumni Association's 2015 Outstanding Recent Graduate Award for his exceptional efforts to bring Liberia's Ebola epidemic under control. Counsel and support from his Hopkins mentors and fellow alumni played a major role in his success during one of his biggest professional challenges, he says.