Dear ICH supporters:
As many of you know from our previous announcement, Dr. Karen Hacker, MD, MPH is leaving the Institute for Community Health (ICH) on August 2, 2013 to become Director of the Allegheny County Health Department in Pittsburgh, PA. Her eleven years at ICH have been amazingly productive and innovative. We wish her well in her new position and know that she will bring the same combination of enthusiasm and expertise to Allegheny County.
The ICH Board is pleased to announce that Lise E. Fried, DSc, MS, the current Managing Director, has agreed to become the Interim Executive Director of ICH and will report to the Executive Committee of the ICH Board. I have asked Lise to take on this role because of her leadership skills, her longstanding commitment to ICH, and the profound respect that ICH staff and community partners have for her work. With her dedication to public heath and her innovative use of community based research, I have no doubt Lise will lead ICH successfully through this transition. She will have strong support from both the board and the great ICH staff. This plan will take effect on August 3, 2013 and continue throughout the interim period as we bring the organization into the next era.
Lise has a wide-ranging background in public health and community research. She has been at ICH for ten years as Senior Epidemiologist, Associate Director, and currently serves as Managing Director. She has worked in the public sector, and has completed work in academic epidemiologic research. Previously, she was the Director of Research and Technology for the Boston Public Health Commission where she oversaw research activities, public health surveillance and reporting, information technology, and information systems.
Lise received her bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, her Master of Science degree in Public Health from TuftsUniversity, and her doctoral degree in Epidemiology from Boston
University (BU). Her dissertation topic was “Exposure to Violence and Pregnancy Outcomes.” One of her dissertation projects received the Dean’s Award from the BU School of Public Health. She has published on a variety of topics including exposure to violence, substance use, pregnancy outcomes, childhood injury prevention, fear of falling in the elderly, referral completion, and adolescent suicide. Her research interests include the health effects of exposure to violence, risk factors for suicide, and improving injury and illness surveillance.
With Lise’s leadership and board support, I firmly believe that ICH will continue to thrive as a nationally recognized catalyst and leader for sustainable community health improvement. ICH was founded in 2000 by Cambridge Health Alliance, Mount Auburn Hospital, and Massachusetts General Hospital of Partners Healthcare as a collaborative effort to improve the health of Cambridge, Somerville, and surrounding cities and towns. ICH’s mission is to stimulate the creation of innovative programs and health policies that will promote long-term healthy lifestyles through a community-based approach. The cornerstone of this mission is an exceptional commitment to community engagement, capacity building, and participation in all aspects of the evaluation process. ICH works with partners to disseminate community-specific and cross-community evaluation findings to guide local, regional, and national program and policy development, and is proud to have an extremely dedicated staff to continue this mission.
On behalf of the ICH Board of Directors, I thank you for your continued support of ICH. Please join me in congratulating Dr. Fried as she leads ICH into this exciting new phase of work!
Sincerely,
David Link, MD
Chair, ICH Board of Directors