ASPPH Honors Linda Fried
The Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health (ASPPH) recognized Linda P. Fried, former dean of Columbia Mailman School, with its highest honor, the Welch-Rose Award, for her transformational leadership in academic public health.
The awards ceremony took place at the annual ASPPH meeting in Washington, D.C., on March 19, to an enthusiastic audience of dozens of her peers from schools of public health across the country. Edith Parker, Dean of the University of Iowa College of Public Health and ASPPH Board Chair, gave Fried the award, calling her “one of the most visionary and influential leaders in modern academic public health.” Parker praised Fried’s visionary leadership on behalf of Columbia, where the former dean prioritized “innovation, interdisciplinary science, and global engagement,” and with ASPPH, where she served on the Board of Directors, founded the Association’s Research Committee, and serves as chair of its Healthy Longevity Task Force.
During her 17-year tenure as dean, Fried was the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including the New York Academy of Medicine’s 2024 Stephen Smith Award for Distinguished Contributions to Public Health; the National Academy of Medicine’s 2023 David Rall Medal; the Government of France’s Chevalier de La Legion d’Honneur (Knight of the Legion of Honor) in 2023; and the Association of American Physicians’ 2022 Kober Medal. In 2020, 2022, and 2025, she was named one of Crain’s New York Business’s Notable Health Care Leaders, and in 2016, she received the INSERM International Prize for Medical Research in France.
In her remarks, Fried spoke to the severe challenges facing public health and higher education. Despite these circumstances, she pointed to a “big opportunity” for schools of public health to strengthen the pillars of democracy through “a commitment to public goods of deliberation on evidence [and] modeling successful discourse across difference.” She added: “This is a prime moment for all of us to gather the evidence so that we can all powerfully explain why and how public health contributes to our nation's health, and why improving health for you doesn't deprive me.”
Photo courtesy of ASPPH; left to right: Edith Parker, Linda P. Fried, Laura Magaña (ASPPH President and CEO)
