Johns Hopkins Urban Health Institute Director to Step Down

After 13 years at the helm, Robert Wm. Blum will officially step down as the director of the Urban Health Institute (UHI) on June 30th. Our program director, Amy Gawad, will assume the role of interim executive director effective July 1. Ms. Gawad joined the UHI as program director in 2006. Prior to that, Amy was at the Institute of Medicine where she worked on a number of consensus reports for the Board on Children, Youth, and Families. 

In 2006 Robert Blum—whom at the time was chair of the Department of Population, Family, and Reproductive Health out of the Bloomberg School of Public Health—took on the role of interim director of the UHI and in 2007 was selected to lead and carry out the Urban Health Institute’s mission of strengthening and supporting university-community collaborations to improve the health and well-being of Baltimore city residents.

The UHI is grateful to have had Dr. Blum leading us in many of our activities and initiatives, such as the annual Social Determinants of Health Symposia, Bunting Neighborhood Leadership Program, Community-Driven Research Day, Baltimore Dialogues, and our capacity-building workshops, to name just a few.
 
A steering committee is being formed under the direction of our advisory board to develop a plan of action for the UHI. We look forward to a new chapter and appreciate you, our friends, for being a part of the journey.

To read Dr. Blum’s entire statement please click here. Catch a glimpse of his time here with the Urban Health Institute, by visiting our Facebook page.