After serving on the Johns Hopkins University faculty for the last 38 years, Professor Ellen J. McKenzie will take the helm of the Bloomberg School of Public Health as dean this fall.
McKenzie will be the school’s 11th-ever dean. She’ll step into her new role on Oct. 1, replacing Michael Klag, who’s stepping down after serving in that post since 2005.
“My love for the field of public health and the school started as a graduate student in biostatistics and I have never looked back,” MacKenzie said in a statement. “To think I am now in the position to help guide us into the next 100 years of our history is incredibly humbling, but energizing at the same time.”
As she noted, McKenzie entered Hopkins as a biostatistics grad student in the 1970s, earning her master’s degree in 1975 and her Ph.D in 1979. She stayed on as a member of the faculty, and was promoted to the position of professor in 1991. From 2005 to 2016, she served as chair of the Bloomberg School’s Department of Health Policy and Management. Last year, she was awarded the illustrious title of Bloomberg Distinguished Professor.
She’s built her career on her expertise in the field of trauma, specifically through researching the short- and long-term effects of injuries. She currently heads the Major Extremity Trauma Research Consortium, a national group major trauma centers with top military medical facilities that treat patients ranging from civilians to veterans wounded in combat.
McKenzie’s new role will require her to keep her thumb on many moving parts and programs, including the Michael Bloomberg-funded American Health Initiative aimed at mitigating critical threats to U.S. health, including addiction, obesity, gun violence, adolescent health problems and environmental challenges. McKenzie said the initiative’s success is a top priority of hers.
Her appointment is one of several recent major announcements for the institution of Hopkins as a whole. In June, Ronald Peterson announced he’d retire this year as president of the sprawling Johns Hopkins Health System, one year after he’d been promoted from president of Hopkins Hospital. In January, Hopkins took on recently retired Sen. Barbara Mikulski as its newest Homewood Professor, as well as a presidential adviser. Last year, Hopkins Hospital got its first-ever female president in Redonda Miller.
