Tara Pemble

HYC Affiliate Faculty and GHP Jerry Bloomfield is now the Board Chair of the North Carolina Global Health Alliance (NCGHA). Dr. Bloomfield has transitioned from board member to board chair as Dr. Timothy Mastro steps down after four years. Dr. Bloomfield has served on the NCGHA Board since 2022 and was unanimously elected by the Board of Directors in February 2026. Dr. Bloomfield is an Associate Professor of Medicine and Global Health at Duke and serves as the Associate Director for Research at the Duke Global Health Institute. Read more here.

After a national search, Global Health Pathway Alumni and associate professor Lauren Franz, MBChB, MPH, has been selected as the director of the Duke Center for Autism and Brain Development, effective July 6. Franz served as the center’s associate director from 2022 to 2024, when she became the interim director after Geraldine Dawson, PhD, William Cleland Distinguished Professor, stepped down from the center leadership role. Franz has excelled in this interim position, and the search committee was deeply impressed by her vision and approach to advancing the center’s mission in the coming years. Franz is a renowned child and adolescent psychiatrist who has led and co-led a number of behavioral and medical autism clinical trials. She has also co-led several studies using artificial intelligence and medical records to predict the…