“It was the Best Year of My life”

Profile of Judy Omumbo, Graduate of Hadassah’s International Masters

of Public Health Program

The academic year was 1992-1993. The place was the Hadassah-Hebrew University Braun School of Public Health and Community Medicine. Attending the International Masters of Public Health (IMPH) program was Judy Omumbo of Kenya, and she says “It was the best year of my life!”

Judy Omumbo was awarded her doctorate in the United Kingdom, but her experiences at the Braun School have shaped and colored her life. Holding a Bachelor of Dental Surgery degree, she chose the IMPH program by chance. In Nairobi, she learned of and became intrigued by the possibility of attending this master’s degree program.  She was awarded a one-year full scholarship by the Center for International Cooperation within the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Her involvement in the IMPH program and her teachers, Dr. Joel Abramson and Dr. Yehuda Neumark, turned her 180 degrees professionally toward epidemiology and the influence of climate on health. Dr. Omumbo has not looked back since.

Dr. Omumbo’s research has taken her from Kenya to the United Kingdom to the United States. She is now based at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society at the Earth Institute of Columbia University, New York, where she is Associate Research Scientist in Epidemiology/Disease Risk Modeling.

At her quiet campus in Palisades, New York, Dr. Omumbo analyzes and sifts data regarding climate variability and its effect on animals and insects that are vectors of infectious disease. While her specific area of interest is malaria, she is also involved in efforts to combat Rift Valley Fever and meningitis. The goal of the research is to be able to warn people of health dangers in specific geographic sites and to predict needs and propose interventions. For instance, when rains have increased the mosquito larval population in a given area, if warned, hospitals can be ready with the highly perishable drugs needed to combat malaria.  Dr. Omumbo also seeks to train others to use climate variability data to control insect-borne disease.

Dr. Omumbo loved the social and academic atmosphere and interaction she found in Hadassah’s IMPH program. “The program puts forth the best face of Israel to the Third World,” she says.

While in Israel, Dr. Omumbo learned a fair amount of Hebrew and she reports that she practices her Hebrew with her fiancé, a Jewish photographer living in New York City. They plan to be married in October 2008 on the beautiful Lamont-Doherty campus of Columbia University, home of the Earth Institute.