Chinese Delegation Visits Maryland SPH to Launch Collaboration

Two days ago, the School of Public Health had the privilege to receive a delegation from the Peking University School of Public Health. This visit served to launch the collaboration agreed to in the schools' recently signed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), which expressed a desire to promote cooperation in areas of mutual interest for the benefit of both institutions.

The delegation was received by Dr. Robert Gold, Dean of the School of Public Health at the University of Maryland; Dr. Mary Kivlighan, Assistant Dean; Dr. Dushanka Kleinman, Associate Dean for Research and Academic Affairs; Dr. Amir Sapkota, Assistant Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics; and Dr. Guangyu Zhang, Assistant Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics.

The visiting delegation from Peking University School of Public Health consisted of Yonghua Hu, Professor and Dean in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics; Weidong Hao, Professor and Associate Dean in the Department of Toxicology; Peiyu Wang, Professor and Chair in the Department of Social Medicine and Health Education; and Chen Juan, Professor and Assistant Dean of the Department of Health Policy and Management.

During their meeting, the group discussed possible areas to collaborate and took a tour of a number of the School of Public Health's cutting-edge laboratories. The group visited the Cognitive Motor Neuroscience Laboratory and experienced the dizzying effects of the "virtual reality cave," received an impromptu presentation on genomics from doctoral student Andy Ludlow and toured Dr. Sapkota's lab.

"This cross-cultural collaboration enriches global understanding and knowledge for both students and faculty from both institutions and advances public health through shared interactions on best practices and research," said Dr. Laura Wilson, Chair of the Department of Health Services Administration, who helped to enable the visit and MOU.

Enjoy these pictures from the visit, and our sincere thanks to the Peking University School of Public Health. We look forward to our future collaboration.

In this photo, Dean Robert Gold presents a crystal paperweight to Dean Yonghua Hu. The shining light that you see is the flash bounching of the crystal just right.