School Notes: School of Public Health
November/December 2025

2025 Alumni Fund donations set new record

Members and friends of the Yale School of Public Health (YSPH) community donated more than $600,000 to the school’s Alumni Fund in the 2025 fiscal year, setting a new record. This amount of immediate financial support is equivalent to the annual payout of a $13.3 million endowed scholarship fund.

The YSPH Alumni Fund provides essential scholarship support to students. More than 60 percent of YSPH students depend on these critical funds to support their public health education. 

Visit the YSPH website to watch Dean Megan L. Ranney express her gratitude to YSPH’s nearly 7,000 alumni for their continued commitment to the school and the vital role they play as mentors, recruiters, and supporters.

Distinguished public health leader joins YSPH

Ashwin Vasan, a practicing physician and distinguished public health leader and innovator, has joined the Yale School of Public Health as a senior fellow in the Department of Health Policy and Management.

Vasan most recently served as commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the largest municipal government health department in the world. 

As New York’s health commissioner, from his appointment in late 2021 through late 2024, Dr. Vasan led the city out of COVID-19 and spearheaded the response to the 2022 mpox outbreak when New York was its epicenter. Simultaneously, he reoriented the city’s public health system to focus on the main drivers of declining life expectancy, including chronic and diet-related diseases, overdoses, gun violence, and birth inequities.