Alumni Association Recognizes Public Health Physician for Humanitarian Work

UIC News Release May 2, 2006

CONTACT: Bill Burton, (312) 996-2269, burton@uic.edu

A public health physician dedicated to human rights and disaster relief worldwide is the University of Illinois at Chicago’s recipient of the university’s Humanitarian Award for 2006.

The University of Illinois Alumni Association will present the humanitarian award to Dr. Michael VanRooyen, chief of international health and humanitarian programs at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and lecturer at Harvard Medical School. VanRooyen will receive his award during the May 5 UIC School of Public Health commencement ceremony in Chicago.

The award is bestowed upon alumni who have made significant humanitarian contributions to society, which have improved or enriched the lives of others and the welfare of humanity.

VanRooyen, who completed his residency in emergency medicine and received a master’s degree in public health at UIC in 1991 and 1996, respectively, and was assistant professor of emergency medicine at UIC until 1997, is co-founder and co-director of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. He has devoted much of his professional life to improving the links between academic institutions and humanitarian organizations.

He has traveled to more than 30 nations and regions, including Darfur, Sudan, Iraq, Kosovo, Bosnia and Rwanda, to provide badly needed humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. He has worked with numerous non-governmental organizations, such as Physicians for Human Rights and Save the Children, to help improve their operations and practices.

In 1997, VanRooyen joined the faculty at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, where he founded and directed the Johns Hopkins Center for International Emergency, Disaster and Refugee Studies. The center coordinated the efforts of the Johns Hopkins public health and medical schools to improve and professionalize humanitarian field operations.

VanRooyen went to Harvard University in 2004 and co-founded the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. This organization combines the humanitarian interests of many units at Harvard, including the schools of public health and medicine, the business school and the Kennedy School of Government, and links their efforts with charitable field organizations.

As a researcher, VanRooyen has focused on public health operations in war and humanitarian emergencies, which has led him to confront issues such as refugee health care access, the demography of forced migration, application of human rights initiatives and quantifying war-related mortality.

In addition, he is helping prepare the next generation of humanitarian workers. While at UIC, he founded the nation’s first international emergency fellowship.

VanRooyen has earned several awards for his work, including the Reader’s Digest Health Heroes Award and the American Medical Association’s Pride in Profession Award.

The UIC School of Public Health commencement is 2 p.m. May 5 at UIC Student Center East, 750 S. Halsted St., in the Illinois Room.