Alumnae Honored for Excellence in Public Health
On September 26, two alumnae were recognized at the Columbia Mailman School Alumni Summit for their extraordinary contributions to public health and their service to School’s community. Betsy Williams, MPH ’02 (Population and Family Health), received the Allan Rosenfield Distinguished Alumni Award for Excellence, and Betty Chia-Wen Chang, MD, MHA ’21 (Health Policy and Management), received the Outstanding Recent Alumni Award.
Established in 2007, the Allan Rosenfield Distinguished Alumni Award for Excellence recognizes exceptional contributions to the Mailman community and leadership in public health, honoring the legacy of Allan Rosenfield’s integrity, courage, and optimism. The Outstanding Recent Alumni Award, created in 2016, celebrates the impact of recent alumni on the field and on the Columbia Mailman School.
Each year, the Alumni Association selects the Outstanding Recent Alumni Award, and the Dean selects the Rosenfield Award based on nominations submitted by alumni. Nominations for the 2026 cycle will open in spring 2026. (Read about past award recipients.)
Betsy Williams, MPH ‘02
Betsy Williams has dedicated her career to championing social justice and nurturing the next generation of leaders and professionals. She is the founder and chair of Emerging Public Leaders (EPL), a fellowship that builds strong, accountable civil service leadership across sub-Saharan Africa—an effort that grew from the President’s Young Professionals Program in Liberia, which she founded with then–Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. She has also contributed to innovative initiatives with organizations, including USAID, JSI, Asia Society, and Physicians for Human Rights.
As a current member and senior advisor on the School’s Board of Advisors, Williams has also been a steadfast champion of the School. During more than a dozen years of service on the Board, she has helped catalyze philanthropic investments that shaped the School’s trajectory—encouraging support for initiatives such as Hess Commons, the Leon Hess Professorship in Environmental Health Sciences, the Allan Rosenfield Scholarship Fund, a scholarship in honor of her late friend Judson Wolfe, and the endowed chair in global health now held by Wafaa El-Sadr, MD, MPH ’91, MPA.
Betty Chia-Wen Chang, MD, MHA ’21
Driven by a commitment to health equity, Betty Chang has worked to bridge clinical care and public health throughout her career in emergency medicine. She is an associate professor of Emergency Medicine at Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC), with an interdisciplinary appointment in Columbia Mailman’s Department of Health Policy and Management. Over more than two decades in emergency medicine, she has advanced initiatives to address the social determinants of health in the emergency department—expanding HIV/HCV testing, increasing access to buprenorphine for opioid use disorder, and building partnerships with community organizations to support patients beyond hospital walls. During the pandemic, she spearheaded vaccination campaigns and organized the distribution of PPE, food, and diapers to vulnerable families, demonstrating how emergency medicine can serve as a critical entry point for public health action.
Recently, she conceived and launched ENGAGE, an internship offered exclusively to Columbia Mailman students that places them in the CUIMC Adult Emergency Department as public health educators, where they provide patient- and family-facing health education at the bedside while giving students hands-on experience in a complex care environment. The inaugural spring cohort drew nearly 100 applicants, underscoring both the enthusiasm for and the potential impact of the program.