Lorraine Francis was recognized for supporting opportunities for Cornell Master of Public Health (MPH) students to thoughtfully engage with community partners both locally and globally.

Francis leads two community-engaged learning core courses in the Cornell MPH Program: VTPEH 6182 Public Health Planning and VTPEH 6183 Public Health Monitoring & Evaluation. In Public Health Planning, students work with community partners to prepare a mock grant proposal to address community identified needs; and, in Public Health M&E, students prepare a M&E plan to support community partners’ efforts to continuously monitor, evaluate and improve the quality of their projects. Francis serves as a faculty mentor for student teams and challenges her students to apply content from each class session to their community-engaged projects each week.

In all her public health research projects, Francis is committed to supporting student development while addressing immediate and long-term partner needs. She recently supported training of both Cornell undergraduate and graduate students through applied projects related to health systems strengthening. In all of her projects, whether they are local to Tompkins County or global like her projects in Ghana, Uganda and Trinidad and Tobago, Francis centers her work around community partner needs and student development.

Developing a Course Syllabus on Public Health Emergency Preparedness and Response

Public emergencies such as outbreaks of disease and natural disasters have been increasing worldwide. Whilst the public health consequences of disasters and emergencies may affect local jurisdictions, sometimes neighboring localities or entire countries can be affected. The Public Health Emergency Preparedness and Response (PHEPR) course will provide training and education on public health preparedness and response to emergencies and disasters. Students will be introduced to the knowledge, skills, capabilities and behaviors required for competency in PHEPR through the development and reinforcement of basic public health skills in surveillance, mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery from natural disasters and other public health events.