In an interview for the Drug Enforcement Administration’s “Prevention Profiles” podcast series, Dessa Bergen-Cico, professor of public health, discusses her more than 25 years of experience at Syracuse University addressing substance use prevention on campus and beyond.

In the 2024 Olympics, Falk College will be represented in many unique ways by current students Dan Griffiths and Livia McQuade, Associate Professor Jamie Kim, and Falk graduates and former Syracuse University student-athletes Freddie Crittenden III, Kristen Siermachesky, and Lysianne Proulx.

Tommy DaSilva ’26, a triple major, works part time at the LGBTQ Resource Center in Schine Student Center. “The LGBTQ Resource Center is great because it works with the IC (Intercultural Collective) to provide resources, trainings and programs to students,” he says.

Dessa Bergen-Cico, professor and graduate director of public health, will help shape the honors program curriculum and policy, and assist with strategic planning. “The core faculty are high-impact teachers and researchers,” says Danielle Taana Smith, director of the Renée Crown University Honors Program.

Earlier this month, Falk College honored the five faculty and two staff members who are retiring this year for their contributions and dedicated service. The honorees included Thom deLara, Dennis Deninger, Donna Fecteau, Eric Kingson, Eileen Lantier, Dianne Seeley and Michael Veley.

Professors Dennis Deninger, Bernard Appiah and Joey Merrin were honored with Falk College Faculty of the Year awards for their outstanding teaching, scholarship and internal and professional service contributions in 2024.

Meet the two Syracuse University Scholars from Falk College and the 10 Falk College Scholars, who discuss their most memorable experiences at Syracuse, their impact at Falk and Syracuse, and their advice for incoming students.

The Public Health Department announced its Class of 2024 undergraduate and graduate award winners.

Katherine McDonald, professor of public health, will be honored with the Faculty Excellence and Scholarly Distinction Award at this year's One University Awards ceremony.

A research team that includes Public Health professors Bryce Hruska and David Larsen is studying how place-based community factors contribute to, or protect against, an elevated risk of firearm violence in certain ethnic neighborhoods. The team’s findings may help shape Syracuse’s I-81 Viaduct Project.

The third “Falk in D.C. Career Exploration” trip this past fall to Baltimore and Washington, D.C., had a new twist: For the first time, the trip included separate tracks for health/human services and sport-related careers as the 27 students who participated represented all Falk College programs.

Falk College boasts a robust, collaborative research community in which students play an active role. Danny Baris (sport analytics), Sarah Dellett (nutrition science) and Mingxuan (Jessica) Li (public health) are three Falk students who have been recently honored for their research achievements.

According to a ground-breaking study led by David Larsen, professor and chair of public health, wastewater surveillance is a potent tool in understanding COVID-19 transmission within school settings and can help manage the public health response to COVID in schools.

Katherine McDonald, Ph.D., has been named senior associate dean for research and administration in Falk College, where under her leadership with the Office of Research Development “the College has experienced steady growth in research activity by every measure,” says Dean Jeremy Jordan.

David Larsen, professor and chair of public health, is in Austria for the Spring 2024 semester after he received a prestigious Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award to teach and continue his wastewater surveillance research at the Medical University of Innsbruck.

According to a Syracuse University research team led by postdoctoral researcher Dustin Hill, testing wastewater for COVID-19 provides a better forecast of new COVID hospital admissions than clinical data. That information will help hospitals for planning and resource allocation when new cases surge.

A team of Syracuse University and University of Pittsburgh researchers led by Assistant Professor of Public Health Bryce Hruska found that even those health care workers who are not formally diagnosed as suffering from PTSD still experience critical health symptoms.

Professor of Public Health Dessa Bergen-Cico, coordinator of the addiction studies program in Falk College, is the co-principal investigator of a research project that’s exploring how the combination of AI and mindfulness-based practices can help people in treatment for opioid use disorder.

Grace Brashears is a double major at Falk (HDFS and public health) who was recently named the youngest executive director in the 10-year history of OttoTHON, Syracuse University’s 12-hour dance marathon that raises money for Upstate Golisano Children’s Hospital.

The 2023 AAIDD Research Award that Falk College Associate Dean of Research and Professor of Public Health Katherine McDonald received in June “recognizes her lengthy track record of interest and accomplishment in the field of intellectual disability.”