Interim Dean Appointment for School of Public Health

Dear Colleagues, 

We are pleased to share that Kathleen Sikkema, PhD, Stephen Smith Professor and chair of the department of Sociomedical Sciences, has agreed to serve as interim dean of the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, effective July 1. As previously announced, Linda P. Fried, MD, MPH will be stepping down as dean of the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health after a remarkable 17-year tenure in the role.

Dr. Sikkema has made vital contributions to Columbia Mailman since joining as chair in 2019, including advancing interdisciplinary research collaboration across the school, and playing a central role in the establishment of programs focused on population mental health, such as the Global and Population Mental Health Program, which she leads, and the Susan Lasker Brody Center for Population Mental Health, of which she is co-director. Under her leadership, the department has experienced significant growth in implementation science focused on mental health, HIV, cancer, and substance use. She also oversaw the creation of a new PhD concentration in Social and Behavioral Sciences.

A clinical psychologist specializing in health and community psychology, Dr. Sikkema has led pioneering scholarship for more than 35 years on mental health and HIV. Dr. Sikkema’s work has had wide-ranging impacts, including the development of effective community-based prevention programs and interventions to improve care engagement in low-resource settings in the United States and internationally. Dr. Sikkema led research in South Africa for 25 years, most recently conducting clinical trials to examine whether mental health treatment integrated into HIV primary care for women who have experienced sexual trauma improves HIV clinical outcomes.

Dr. Sikkema previously served as the Gosnell Family Professor of Global Health and Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University, where she was the founding director of the Global Mental Health Initiative at the Duke Global Health Institute and led the Social and Behavioral Sciences Core in Duke’s Center for AIDS Research. Dr. Sikkema has held faculty positions at Yale University and the Medical College of Wisconsin and is an honorary professor at the University of Cape Town. She received her PhD in clinical psychology from Virginia Tech. We could not be more grateful to her for stepping in to steer the renowned Columbia Mailman School of Public Health at this critical moment.

We also extend our deepest appreciation to Dr. Fried for extraordinary service to Columbia and to the field of public health. Dr. Fried will return to the faculty and continue as director of the University-wide Robert N. Butler Columbia Aging Center.

Please join us in congratulating Dr. Sikkema on her new role.

Sincerely,

Claire Shipman
Acting President, Columbia University in the City of New York

James McKiernan, MD
Interim Dean of the Faculties of Health Sciences and the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons
Acting Executive Vice President for Health and Biomedical Sciences, Columbia University
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